Shooting an Elephant Essays

Shooting an Elephant Essays Shooting an Elephant Essay Shooting an Elephant Essay â€Å"Shooting an Elephant† is a story written by George Orwell in 1936. This story takes place in Burma, one of the colonies of the British Empire.   Orwell found himself at the receiving end of the insults of the people of Moulmein in Lower Burma as subdivisional police officer. People sneered at him although they obeyed the rules. Orwell does not like his job there because he does not like working for their oppressors- the British.Orwell hated imperialism and he was convinced of its nature one day when he encountered an incident involving an elephant that caused trouble at a bazaar. He went to investigate the commotion, bringing his rifle. Along the way, he was informed that the elephant was already tame. Her just had an attack of â€Å"must.†He was informed that the elephant had now strayed in the paddy. As the people saw him walking, they followed him. Slowly there was a big crowd following him. It grew to about 2,000 people who were now behind him. As he saw the elephant, he thought that his â€Å"must† was now wearing off and that the best thing to do was just to leave it alone. Thoughts went through his mind on what the best thing to do and even if he did not like to shoot the poor elephant since it no longer seemed harmful, still, he had to do it because all the people in the village followed him and rooted for him to shoot it down. He had no intention to kill an elephant. But with the people expecting him to shoot it, he seemed to have no option but to do as the crowd wishes or else he would be so unpopular to them.In a final look at the excited crowd, he shot the elephant. Death came slowly to the old elephant. He shot it several times. The crowd shouted in approval. He learned later that the natives had stripped the meat out of the elephant. He knew that he did the act only because he did not want to look like a fool.The solution, which Orwell was not able to do at all in his situation, was to take a good look at the people an d the circumstances that was causing him to suffer and then uncover the beliefs that led him to do the action that he felt compelled to do. He was forced to shoot the elephant because he had to protect his image. In the end, he felt like a puppet   because he just did what the crowd wanted him to do.