Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell

The Essay “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell is quite interesting. It show the trials of not only being a police officer in an imperialist territory, but also shows the lengths a person in that position may go to impress the locals. Though the Elephant’s must had calmed down by the time the narrator reached it, he still shot it to avoid being laughed at, which while being a questionable choice in our time, may have made more sense during that time and situation.

Orwell’s use of strong imagery gives us a clear image of the situation. For example, he describes the crowd’s laughter as “Hideous”, and the people as having “sneering yellow faces”. This type of language also helps the reader understand the narrator’s dilemma of wanting to side with the oppressed Burmese, while also wanting to beat their heads in. He also describes the corpse of one unlucky victim in gory detail “He was lying on his belly with arms crucified and head sharply twisted to one side. His face was coated with mud, the eyes wide open, the teeth bared and grinning with an expression of unendurable agony. ….The friction of the great beast’s foot had striped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins a rabbit.” He later describes the elephant, whose must has worn off, as eating calmly “…with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have.” Though he realises that the elephant is unlikely to do anything else, he know that if the elephant were to charge “…[he] should have about as much of a chance as a toad under a steamroller.”  This use of similes, metaphors and imagery is present throughout the essay, and add to the narrator’s account, presenting a clear image of the events. Lines such as “He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralysed him without knocking him down.” Show the elephant’s reaction to being shot, and his slow dying is described as “steadily as the ticking of a clock”

                The plot of the essay is interesting to note as well. It is comprised of a English man, with the job of police, living in Burma and being confronted with the problem of an escaped elephant. Though he harbours mixed feeling toward the Burmese, he helps because it is his job to (although he is unwilling, as shooting a working elephant is a crime) , and even once he sees the destruction caused by the rampage he only sends for a rifle to defend himself.  Once he finds himself surrounded by expectant Burmese does begin to consider shooting the elephant to spare himself from embarrassment. He talks earlier in the narrative about the hate the Burmese harbour for the English, taunting them whenever possible. However, the narrator also does not want to be laughed at and ridiculed more by the natives, and therefore decided to shoot the elephant for their entertainment and to avoid being laughed at.