Shooting an Elephant

Shooting an elephant is an essay wrote by George Orwell. It is about his perspective of British Imperialism in Burma during that period of time. In this essay, he basically says that imperialism again Burma is an evil and not right thing to do. Therefore, he helped a lot to Burma people and felt bad for them because he knew what the government does to them.

For example, in Shooting an Elephant, George Orwell commented about his job, “I was sub-divisional police officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way anti-European feeling was very bitter.” However, he did not really like that job, police, because he knew which cruel things are happening in the government. In the quote, “For at that time I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better.” He tells that he hated his job.

From this point, there is a question why he is still doing his job. In the quote, “For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spread his life in trying to impress the natives and so in every crisis he has got to do what the natives expect of him. He wears a mask and his face grows to fit in.” it shows that George Orwell wants to be a police that Burma people do not laugh at. Therefore, he is trying to do whatever the natives wants him to or expect him to do.

This was demonstrated when Orwell went to shoot the elephant but saw a peaceful elephant eating a grass looking like it is not going to harm anyone. He did not wanted to shoot the elephant for that reason, but people were following him and expected him to shoot the elephant. As a result of that conflict, he just shoots the elephant, does what Burma people expected him to. However he felt bad inside for killing an innocent elephant.

As a conclusion, the story, Shooting an Elephant, wrote by, George Orwell, tells about his own experience of him being an sub- divisional police while living in Burma during British Imperialism. He tells the reader about how evil and cruel it is to have imperialism on other countries.