Ashley Misiuda

~ GEORGE ORWELL ~ “SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT”

GEORGE ORWELL

• Born on June 25, 1903 Motihari, India • Was sent to boarding school but never went

to college

• Eventually became a English novelist

• Most famous for his novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949)

• Went to Burma as an assistant district superintendent in the Indian Imperial Police

• Fighter of political change

• Used to “cut throat” environment

• Influenced the literary universe as well as the real world

SUMMARY

• George Orwell portrays a British colonial police officer in Burma who is called to kill a destructive elephant that has destroyed people's property and even killed a man. The officer is reluctant to shoot the elephant but is pressured to do so by the fear that the Burmese people will think he’s weak if he does not. Because the narrator knows he is so hated, he must kill the elephant to attempt to gain their respect and demonstrate that the British are willing to use brutal force to maintain control. He is morally against killing the elephant but he must play the part in being the brutal dictator that the Burmese people imagine him to be.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

• Places humanity, violence, politics, power, dominance, race, and culture on the same platform

• Alienated white man working for the British Imperial Police in Burma

• The elephant itself is a symbol of the imperial power

• Was against the inhumanity and cruelty of imperialism

• Orwell as the British officer is compelled to represent the savage British stereotype

• Cultural identity locks individuals into roles that challenge individuals to act in a certain way

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

• Set in a town in southern Burma during the colonial period

• Prior to British intervention in the nineteenth century Burma was a sovereign kingdom

• After three wars between the British forces and the Burmese, the country fell under British control

• It would remain an Indian province until it was granted the status of an individual British colony in 1937

• Burma gained its independence in January 1948.

Work Cited

http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/shooting-elephant-george-orwells-essay-his-life-burma#sect-background

http://www.enotes.com/topics/shooting-elephant http://www.enotes.com/topics/shooting-elephant/critical-e...

http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides6/Shooting.html