Essay Discussion: Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell
Shooting an Elephant is an essay by British writer Eric Author Blair (under his alias George Orwell) and follows an account of Orwell when he served as a police officer in British Burma. Though the essay primarily focuses on how Orwell was forced to torment and kill an elephant, the essay touches upon the fallacies of colonialism and imperialism, along with the irony of Orwell’s position of a white police officer succumbing to the wills of the Burmese people.
One of the first elements of this essay that jumps out of the reader is the juxtaposition of Orwell’s position as a white police officer among many poor Burmese people. Despite the fact that Orwell, ruling over the Burmese, should inherently be in a great position of control and power over them, the essay depicts him as being an “absurd puppet ” who is “pushed to and fro” by the natives (Orwell). His lack of control eventually leads him to brutally torment and murder an escaped elephant as a sort of show for the Burmese people.
Moving on to the elephant in the room, the elephant itself, it can be argued that it is a symbol of the brutality and ruthlessness of imperialism. To kill the elephant, Orwell has to shoot it with his primary and secondary rifles multiple times, causing the elephant to be in great pain for an extended duration. In fact, Orwell gives ample, uncensored description of the condition of the elephant after it is shot: he tells of the thick blood pouring out of its wound, its tormented yet continuing breathing, and its inability to die despite it being in extreme pain. This pain that the elephant experiences is synonymous with the decades of torture that oppressed nations have to face by their oppressors. Moreover, when the elephant eventually dies, the natives, who had been waiting with baskets even before the creature's demise, scavage its resources for themselves like vultures and leave only the skeleton of the great animal the next day. The way the natives exploit the resources of the animal without being saddened by its death is analogous to how imperializing nations apathetically exploit and steal from oppressed nations. Lastly, the shooting of the elephant itself is polemical: there are people who argue that Orwell should not have shot the elephant while others think he did right, and the owner of the elephant is furious. This is similar to how imperialism creates controversy and dispute in the world among those who were both directly and indirectly involved in it.
Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell, though seemingly a simple essay, is rich with symbolism and hidden meanings that are readily apparent when investigated thoroughly. A critical analysis of this essay can help one realize that life is brutal and situations may not be as they appear.
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