From the very beginning of Shooting An Elephant, George Orwell demonstrates ambivalence through his affiliations with Imperialist Britain, his sense of self among the Burmese, and his ties to the elephant. In the second paragraph, Orwell says: “All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible.” We learn early in the essay that Orwell hates imperialism and the Burmans, already making him ambivalent. Although Orwell hates being a British official, he has a constant need to feel important and needed by the Burmans. Therefore, he is excited when called to help with a loose elephant rampaging in the bazaar. Throughout the piece, we experience Orwell’s internal conflict between the imperialist police force he is working for, and the rude Burmans people he is forced to deal with on a daily basis.
Research Paper 4 Question: How did imperialism help and eventually hurt powers in Europe? Imperialism helped European powers by giving confidence to the European government. It hurt them by bringing conflict with the British and china causing the Opium war, also a major part of European imperialism was the colonization of Africa and India... The Europeans made a big name for themselves during the late 1800s, early 1900s, they ran through countries like Africa for the fact that they could. They caused a lot of hatred towards them that evolved into more… Along with expanses, there came abusive power from the European countries.
The biography goes into detail about how Agricola made it to a victory against the forces of Calgacus in the Battle of Mons Grapius and his unexpected murder of a jealous emperor Domitian. In the Agricola there are two speeches that are opposed to Roman expansion, the Britons (61 AD) and Calgacus (83 AD), and represent how Tacitus portrays his resistance to Roman imperialism. The following paper will examine the aims and assumptions from the speeches of Calgacus and the Britons in the Agricola and compare them with the anti-imperialistic assumptions from the essay Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell. The comparison being, demonstration of similarities and differences of anti-imperialism, and their aims and assumptions between the two passages. The essay will also provide evidence as to why Tacitus’ depiction of anti-Roman Briton’s motives, does not fit with the portrayal of the British Empire in the Orwells Shooting and Elephant text.
For example, ivory is used for multiple reasons that include: piano keys, billiard balls, dominos and sometimes jewelry. Therefore, the selling of ivory is valued and desirable in the continent of Africa, and may be hurting the elephant’s population. Secondly, the population of African elephants is impacted greatly by poaching. Specifically, “ It’s estimated that between 80-90% of elephants disappeared in the last 20-25 years” (“Campaign to Battle Elephant Poaching”). This is because of the high demand of ivory.
During the 19th century, every aspect of British life was transformed by industrial, social and cultural development. The French Revolution inspired reformers in Britain as much as it frightened the British Crown and landowning classes. Nonetheless, the British government, who was ru8n by the Tories at the time, seemed impervious to revolutionary change. Anti-government cartoons in the 1790s often included the most scabrous, even treasonable, representations of King George III. All threats of revolution were taken seriously.
There was this sort of contest Erurope was going through; countries would rush to get as much African land as they could, usually going after the rich land. Leopold quickly joined in on that, sending the explorer, Stanley. After Leopold hired Henry Morton Stanley to travel across the Congo to conquer most of the land there, he used his clever ways to make major European counties and the United States recognize that this territory was personally owned by him. 2. Hochschild writes of Joseph Conrad that he “was so horrified by the greed and brutality among white men he saw in the Congo that his view of human nature was permanently change.” Judging from Hochschild’s account and from Heart of Darkness, in what way was Conrad’s view changed?
The Revolutionary War: Why was it fought and was it preventable? Many believe that the trouble started brewing in 1763 at the end of the French Indian War but in all truth the colonist first started feeling discontent with the passing of the Navigation laws in 1650. This law stated that all goods flowing to and from the colonies could only be transported in British vessels. It was aimed to hurt rival Dutch shippers. This law kept money in the empire but hurt the pockets of the wealthy colonists mercantilist that depended on the shipping trade.
“Should I shoot the elephant or should I not?” or “Will I lose face with these people if I don’t shoot the elephant?” Orwell was the kind of person that did not have a very high self-esteem. He did not have his ducks in a row, so to speak. Hence, Orwell wasn’t one to function under pressure. He would give in to what he thought the people of Burma wanted, not to what he wanted. But secretly inside he hated the environment in which he lived, he hated the imperialistic government in which resided in Burma, and he hated the residents of Burma.
Rhetoric in Shooting an Elephant In the story Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell, he uses an incident were he illustrates how imperialism affected more than just the people that were governed but also the ones who governed and why their real motives weren’t really what it seemed. Orwell uses an adequate amount of rhetoric in his writing and makes the reader feel that they were there when the incident took place because of Orwell’s use of specific examples and clear language. He applies different rhetorical devices to conclude that “when the white man turns tyrant, it is his own freedom he destroys.” Throughout his essay he seems to explain what happens to him, a sub-divisional police officer of Moulemein, in a minor incident and how it made him realize that he lost his own freedom and thinks that he is controlled and how imperialism changed his way of thinking. Orwell uses antithesis in Shooting an Elephant because in the text he claims to be secretly on the side of the Burmese and against their oppressors, the British. But he is one of those oppressors because he works for the British, but he also feels oppressed with guilt by seeing the torture they bring to these people.
The VOC’s biggest competiton was the British East India Company. The British succeeded in conquering India. The British abused the Indians so much that the Indian states revolted and the British government had to take over the country. The British and the VOC were rivals and were always fighting for control over spice trade. The Brits and Dutch signed a treaty in 1619, which allowed the British 1/3 of the spice industry and gave the Dutch the rest.