shooting an elephant by i.s

“Shooting An Elephant” George Orwell

“In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people” (Orwell).

Indranil SarkarSapatgram;

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Eric Arthur Blair known better to the world as ‘George Orwell’ was born at Midnapur (India) on 25th June

1903.His father was a Colonel in British Indian Army.He got his education at Eton.After completion of his graduation he joined as a

commissioned officer in Indian Imperial Police.He was posted in Burma(Myanmar) as an Assistant

Superintendent of Police.He resigned in 1927 and decided to become a writer.



He resigned because he could not tolerate the imperial tendency of England.

In 1928 he moved to Paris. Fortune eluded him initially and in

order to survive he had to work as a ‘Dish-Washer’ in a hotel.

His first book 'Down and Out in Paris and London’ was published in 1933.

He published the book under the pen name ‘George Orwell’.

Besides ‘George Orwell’ he had another lesser known pen-name. It was ‘John Freeman’.

Orwell died on 21st January,1950 at the age of 46.



What is Imperialism?

By Imperialism we mean a country colonizes a land that it does not own, and exercises political and financial dominance over that country.

Orwell is acclaimed as a great novelist because of his two dystopian novels—

‘1984’ and ‘Animal Farm’.

The term Orwellian has been entered in the OED to mean ‘any oppressive or manipulative social phenomenon opposed to a free society’.



Orwell is one of the greatest English prose writers of the 20th century. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language, and a belief in democratic socialism.



-:Context of the Story ‘Shooting an elephant’ :-Burma was finally conquered by Britain in 1886 after three

Anglo-Burmese wars beginning in 1823. It became a separate independent province of India in 1937. Burma got independence on January,1948.

Orwell was posted at Moulmein as an Assistant Superintendent of Police in 1922.

It was a period of intense anti-European sentiment in Burma.

Although sympathetic towards the Burmese natives, he was held as a symbol of oppressive Imperial power.

He was subjected to constant baiting and jeering by the natives.

Being disgusted, he resigned in 1927.



Orwell



Context of the story:- (2)During his stay at Moulmein, he was once invited to

kill an elephant reportedly gone mad.Orwell visited the place and found that the report was

fabricated and false.He did not like to kill the elephant as it would be a

destruction of a huge resource.But, the natives wanted him to be heroic.The first person narrator narrated the story how he

was compelled to kill the elephant against his conscience just not to be leveled ’coward’.

It was originally published as an addendum to his book ‘Burmese Days’[1936].



-:The story:-

In an early morning of March, a group of Burmese natives along with a sub-Inspector of police came to Orwell’s official Residence at Moulmein and asked him to save them by killing a mad elephant that had rampaged the village areas and killed a cow and a coolie.

Orwell did not like killing big animals as they were the resource of the nation.



People in lower Moulmein gathered to watch the shooting of the elephant.



But, by virtue of his office, he was supposed to oblige the request of the people and save them from such a danger.

So, he started towards the place of occurrence along with the messengers.

Reaching the spot, he saw a huge elephant grazing in the paddy field without having any concern for the people of the locality.



It appeared quite normal.

Orwell felt that the elephant was probably under the spell of a ‘must’ that had made it mad temporarily. But, it recovered and did not deserve to be killed.

It was not a wild elephant; it was a domesticated elephant of a local trader.



A crowd of nearly two thousand native Burmese people gathered there to watch the ‘fun’ killing and having a share of elephant’s flesh.

They insisted Orwell to kill the elephant instantly.

They had dual interests---to enjoy the fun of watching how an elephant is killed and to get the share of the remains of the dead elephant.

In order to save his ‘heroic’ image Orwell had to commit the most cowardly act of his life.



He felt that a Sahib had got to act like a Sahib; he had got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things.

So, he borrowed a ‘Rifle’ from one of his friends living nearby. He felt that his personal one, an old .44 Winchester would be quite small to kill an elephant.

The elephant was spotted grazing peacefully in a muddy paddy field.

He realized the danger of approaching the elephant. The soil was muddy and slippery.



He realized that in case he fails, he would be trampled and the natives would laugh in seeing his grinning corpse.

He aimed straight at the elephant’s ear-hole as it was sideways on. He did not hear the bang of the rifle when he pulled the trigger but heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd.

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Very soon an enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him. He sagged flabbily to his knees.

Orwell shot again aiming at the same spot. The elephant did not collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright, with legs sagging and head drooping.



Orwell fired a third shot. This was the shot that did for him. The elephant trumpeted for the first and the only time raising his trunk skywards like a tree.

And then down he came, with a crash that had shaken the ground.

Orwell became very sorry in seeing the large beast powerless to move and yet powerless to die. He fired his remaining two shots to hasten the end. But nothing happened. The thick blood welled out of him like red velvet and the entire muddy ground became red.



Orwell could not see the horrible scene anymore. He took his own rifle and fired shot after shot at his heart and down his throat.

At every shot, the body of the elephant shook but none of the shots could kill the elephant.

Orwell found it unbearable to see the elephant in such a condition and left the place with a grievous soul.

A sense of guilt and helplessness overpowered him.



There were endless discussions about Orwell’s action afterwards.

The Indians thought it a sign of the oppression of the colonial rulers.

The European opinion was divided. The older men said that Orwell was right.The younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an

elephant for killing a coolie.Orwell himself felt that he had done it solely to avoid

looking a fool.He surrendered to the unholy desire of the mob just to

keep the image of a ‘Demy-god’ un-maligned.The European colonizers were held as ‘Demy-god’ by the

colonized natives.



Q. What reasons does Orwell give for shooting the elephant?Orwell shoots the elephant because the two thousand native

people standing behind him expect him to. They want vengeance for the man it killed, the meat the carcass will provide, and the entertainment of watching the shooting. “The people expected it of me and I had got to do it” (7), he writes.

There is an implication that if he decided not to shoot the elephant, both he and the empire would suffer a loss of prestige, but the main concern in Orwell’s mind is the “long struggle not to be laughed at” (7). He is even afraid to “test” the animal’s mood by going closer for fear it might attack and kill him before he could shoot, thus giving the crowd a sight it would enjoy as much as the slaughter of the beast.

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What does imperialism mean in the essay "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell?

"Shooting an Elephant," a story loosely based on George Orwell's personal experience as a colonial official in Burma (modern-day Myanmar), a colony in the British Empire. Burma was ruled by Great Britain, and as a representative of the British, the narrator of the story is viewed with hatred by the Burmese people. When a rogue elephant storms through the bazaar, the narrator is called upon to shoot it, which he does not want to do. The elephant, despite having accidently killed a man on his "rampage," is now calm and docile. But the narrator also does not want to appear weak in front of the people, who might then question his authority. Through this episode, Orwell is showing how imperialism corrupts people. It forces colonial subjects to look to people they hate for justice, and forces the imperial officers to commit morally repugnant acts. Above all, it shows that the imperial relationship, at its heart, is based on violence.

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Q. What does the elephant symbolize in "Shooting an elephant?

Ans. In "Shooting an Elephant", the Elephant represents the

working man since in India and Burma, the elephant is a work

animal. It can also be seen to represent the role of the

Burmese to the colonial power - in this analogy; the Burmese

would be the colonial power over the elephant. At the end of

the story, the animal takes on definite human characteristics

as it dies.

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Why does the author spend so much time narrating the death of the elephant?

The death of the elephant is when the police officer feels the strongest guilt inside. From the beginning, he knows he shouldn’t have killed the elephant, but out of pressure and in order to not look like a fool to the two-thousand natives, the police officer kills the elephant. But Orwell does not let the elephant die right away. The elephant continues to live and brings great distaste to the police officer. As a representative of British tyranny and imperialism to Burma, the police officer almost loathes imperialism at this point. This is critical to Orwell’s main theme, and in order to emphasize this point about imperialism, Orwell spends a lot of time talking about its death. In order to underscore the police officer’s distaste, Orwell creates his story so that the policeman leaves the scene, which shows that his emotions are unstable. The policeman also finds out later that the elephant died 30 minutes after he had left the scene. Overall, the death of the elephant is the crux of the story where the policeman (or Orwell) criticizes imperialism and himself for acting for Britain and to save his own face in the community

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Q. Orwell spends more time discussing the sociology of the event than about the setting in which it occurs. Explain why doing so is appropriate to his purpose.

The setting of the story is not really important. Even though a significant part of it is the historical content (that India was a British colony), setting does not play a big role. The beginning paragraphs explained enough about setting (about the British and the Indian colony and how the policeman is not welcome). The real emphasis is on the sociology of the community and the thoughts and feelings of the British policeman. The way he feels about killing the elephant, and how he is forced to shoot the elephant because of pressure from the people. The main theme of this short story was about imperialism and self-identity, not on setting. So the importance was more character-based, rather than setting-based. Orwell wanted to state that imperialism is not a good thing.



Q. What purpose does Orwell intend his narrative to serve?

This story was primarily about a British man in India and his feelings about living in a

conquered territory. In a broader sense, Orwell touches upon the topic of imperialism and how

he feels that imperialism is a wrong thing. While living in India or Burma (to be more specific),

a British colony, the policeman feels out-of-place in the community. On a narrower sense,

Orwell explains about a policeman who is alienated by the Indians. The people don’t like him

because he is British (there is an anti-European sentiment), and they look at him in a

disparaging way. Then the main conflict occurs when there is an elephant that threatens the

community. The policeman has to decide whether to kill or save the elephant. The

emphasis here is that Orwell explains about peer pressure, and how he is forced to kill the

elephant even though he doesn’t wish to, because thousands of people want him to kill the

elephant.

Link.--

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In what way is this essay a study in self-deception? Make specific reference to the text to explain your answer.

This story is a self-deception because the British policeman doesn’t really want to kill the elephant; however, thousands of native people want him to kill the elephant because they want revenge and compensation, and in the end the policeman is forced to kill the elephant. In a way, the policeman doesn’t want to become a loser or he does not want to let-down the hopes of the natives. In order to do so, he has to persuade himself that it is right to kill the elephant, even though deep inside him, he knows that it is wrong, because the elephant is peaceful, and he doesn’t have the owner’s permission and the elephant is peaceful. He states, “As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him.” He, in part, knows that he is being deceived by the natives. He states, “I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind.”Finally, in the end he states that it was better that the “coolie” had died because he had justification for the killing of the elephant-but we also know that deep inside him, there is still unrest and uncertainty; therefore, the act of self-relieving is actually deception.


shooting an elephant by i.s

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