Orwell puts his own feelings aside to please the villagers and kills the elephant. Although Orwell thought he had legally done the right thing, he should have gone with his first instinct and observed the elephant in hopes that it was done with its rampage so that he could avoid killing the elephant, and if it weren’t, then Orwell would have been doing the right thing when shooting the elephant. George Orwell was a native of British India, 1903-1950. “George Orwell was a master of wit and satire, critically observing the politics of his time and prophetically envisioning the future. He devoted much of his life to various causes critical of capitalism, imperialism, fascism, and Stalinism, but in the end what he “most wanted to do is to make political writing into an art.“ (C.D Merriman) His real name was Eric Blair and George Orwell was his pen name.
After reading, “Shooting an Elephant”, many questions came to my head at the end of the story. My first question was if the man deep inside felt like he shouldn’t have shot the elephant, then why did he? “I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the garish clothes-faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant was going to be shot.” (George Orwell) this sentence tells me that the police officer was going against what he believed in just to make the 2000 plus crowd happy. I firmly disagree with this decision, one because I do not partake in killing massive animals such as the elephant, and two because if he knew deep down how he felt about killing the creature he shouldn’t have done it. I was very shocked by his gory decision to be honest.
This has a strong impact on Orwell when a working elephant escapes from its owners’ home and begins to terrorize a local village, killing a man. The owner of the elephant, and the only one who can control it, is looking for the elephant but in the wrong direction, and is about twelve hours away. When the elephant is located grazing in a nearby field, Orwell has to decide whether or not to shoot the elephant or wait for the owner’s return. The added pressure of the locals behind Orwell, some of whom want the meat from the elephant and others just hopeful to see a European being crushed to death by the elephant, make it much more difficult for him to reach a decision. In the end Orwell reluctantly decides to shoot the elephant “solely to avoid looking a fool” (479) in front of the Burmese people.
This results in that the elephant gets a slow and very painful death. The police officer still, did not get that popularity as he was hoping for. If you look back at what happened in Burma before the essay was written, you could say that the story is a kind of a
Jade Paul Dr. Jackson AP Lang Period 7 15 September 2013 Murder For The Purpose of Image By the end of George Orwell’s essay, “Shooting an Elephant”, Orwell being a police officer representing the imperialistic government, makes a final decision to kill an elephant that has caused destruction throughout a village in Burma. Orwell was not respected by the people he was protecting and in his mind he was trying to keep peace throughout the village, but instead created a disturbance by being in Burma. The people look at Orwell as someone coming from the British government to contain the people and make sure violence and resistance does not outbreak. Orwell tries to change this image of himself in their eyes by killing the elephant but in reality it just inserted more fear into the people. The elephant was used as a display to the people that they should fear Orwell and his authority to intimidate the people.
Setting The essay that is being narrated takes place in Moulmein in lower Burma. During the rainy season. Characters The Crowd The crowd is first introduced in the essay because of its “hideous laughter.” This same laughter is what makes the narrator weak. It is what limits the choice between being laughed of, or shooting the elephant, a creature which he knows ought to be left alone. The Elephant Along the essay the elephant is mentioned in the essay.
(WWF) We run the risk of losing them forever. And yet, although they are a universal symbol of wildlife diversity, they continue to be hunted for their flesh, hide, tusks and ears. Between 1979 and 1989, worldwide demand for ivory caused elephant populations to decline to dangerously low levels. During this time period, poaching fueled by ivory sales cut Africa's elephant population in half. Since they were big targets and sported the largest tusks, Savannah elephants took the worst hit.
In the last decade, there have been numerous cases of stampeding elephants in Africa that are destroying villages. In some cases these elephants are engaging in intercourse with rhinos. This postulate derives from the slaughter of the elder male elephants being continuously hunted. As a result, male calves are acting out of their innate instinct because the elders have been massacred. If the natural order of nature is forsaken, the next generation of people will study the bones of the extinct elephant.
And the situation had poor management. | The main prison was decoyed and around 4000 in mates/prisoners escaped. | Many people were squashed into shanty towns or on the streets because houses were destroyed this situation didn’t help with the diseases being spread. | Impacts for People, Environment, and
That was in the 1800s and 1900s, and yet in 2009 Black people still have to face the discrimination. February 16, a woman was killed by her pet monkey and some policemen took it upon themselves to take action by shooting the monkey. Later, on Wednesday March 18, the New York Post edited a racially controversial cartoon. The cartoon showed the policemen had killed that monkey and one of them said “they’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” That was meant as a racist statement against the first Black President of America; not only to Barack Obama, but to all Black people. White people have called Blacks many derogatory