Orwell should be sympathized with With the British colonial domination in Burma smashing, natives had actually gotten rid of the British oppression to a great extent. Though natives could see the dawn of freedom, there were a group of people still struggling shattered lives—— the ruling sahib. Orwell is one example and deserves sympathy because of his contradictory political standpoint and the ironic fact of being controlled by the natives. Orwell is a wretch as his real political stand contradicts his occupation as a dominating policeman. According the first two paragraphs of the essay, Orwell expresses how bitterly he hates imperialism and feels guilty since he can “see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters” such as the evil oppression against natives, and he is “all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors”.
Orwell begins to show his inner conflict by stating how he feels about being a European imperial policeman. Orwell is an unhappy young policeman who lives in mental isolation. He hates British imperialism, he hates Burmese natives, and he hates his job. He is completely alone with his thoughts since he cannot share his idea that "imperialism was an evil thing"(pg.10) with his countrymen. Orwell sees the British rule as "an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down.
The narrator remarks on the squalor and poverty of the neighborhood, with its palm-leaf thatch on the huts and unplanned scattering of houses over a hillside. Conscience The narrator’s mental division points to conscience as one of the underlying themes of ‘‘Shooting an Elephant.’’ The narrator must do his duty as a colonial policeman. He despises the native Burmese for loathing and tormenting him as their foreign oppressor; yet he also perfectly well understands their loathing and tormenting; he even takes their side privately. His official position, rather than his moral disposition, compels the narrator to act in the way that he does, so as to uphold his office precisely by keeping the native Burmese in their... Shooting an elephant George Orwell, is the narrator of
But secretly, he hated where he lived, he hated the government in Burma. He also hated the people of Burma. Although he felt hatred for everything around him, he felt as if he had to go along with everything and everyone else just to live in peace. When the elephant situation aroused, he felt the peer pressure to shoot the elephant. Orwell, simply to avoid looking like a fool or what they consider to look like a fool, shoots the elephant.
“As soon as I saw the elephant perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him” When Orwell saw the elephant for the first time he knew that it wasn’t being dangerous, it was peacefully eating grass. Orwell did not intend on shooting the elephant but the huge crowd that was behind him they were all filled with happy faces and excitement that the elephant was going to be shot. This is where society took over Orwell; the Burman people did not like him he was always hated by them because he was an officer of the British Empire but since Orwell had a rifle in his hand, to them he was worth watching and made him realize he had to shoot the elephant. His belief that he had to do this doesn’t jusitfy him on killing the elephant because he knew the elephant wasn’t doing any harm at that moment but he went on did what the Burman people wanted him to do. The Burman people kept on provoking Orwell to shoot the elephant.
I was very shocked by his gory decision to be honest. “As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear.” (George Orwell) this sentence is evidence that if the officer did not like his job so much he should not have made such a serious decision in killing the elephant if he knew it was not morally correct. The elephant was not doing anything wrong the officer knew that which was so frustrating for me to read. Then he not only shot the elephant once, but multiple times. I could not believe he could do such a thing given the fact he somewhat had a heart in the beginning.
Frantz Fanon's 'The Wretched Of The Earth' characterises the rashness of the bourgeois after the governing body or governing control of post-colonisers has left the country. In relation; Spivak, speaking of the Subaltern (those that exist outside of the imperialistic power or ,simply put, natives) produces a strong argument for Fanon being the forerunner of the subsequent Subaltern movement. In itself, this argument is contradictory as Fanon is critical of both the imperialistic power and the bourgeois, though he speaks from an decolonisation-al past experience. The third writing; from Diamond is a meticulous piece on the advancement of agriculture. Diamond makes the rationalisation that our natural ancestors were better off in both health, method and unrefined human existence.
In the end Orwell reluctantly decides to shoot the elephant “solely to avoid looking a fool” (479) in front of the Burmese people. Living in Burma, Orwell tells the reader how the locals despise the European oppressors in their communities, jeering, spitting, and, mocking, in attempts to annoy and embarrass the British whenever possible. This hatred expressed in front of Orwell causes him equal animosity towards the Burmese people and his own country, Great Britain. Orwell feels the British are the oppressors saying at on point “I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors,
By locating its concern on the issues about morality and violence andexploring the limits of human cruelty Waiting for the Barbarians challenges humanityand imperialism in several ways. Presenting a psychoanalytic discussion of Waiting for the Barbarians this study focuses on the impact of fear in human psyche andimperialism’s self destructive power. How far fear and anxiety can go and how far members of society can follow a blind power is the main concern of this essay. AsCoetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians is an allegorical novel, this essay will try tointerpret the allegories created in relation to the tensions raised in the novel. The examination of the critiques raised in the book, may be broken down into thefollowing main components.
The elephant was used as a display to the people that they should fear Orwell and his authority to intimidate the people. Evidence of imagery and similes were provided in the text to convey the author’s knowledge that doing the wrong thing will not create a better image in peoples’ eyes. The elephant was noted to demolish villagers’ houses, raid fruit stands, ate the stock, and brutally killed a man out of the excitement of escaping and breaking away from its owner. Looking closely at Orwell’s graphic use of imagery, he also uses a simile describing the body of the dead man. Orwell explains how people may be misled by the saying “the dead look peaceful” (Orwell 2) because most dead bodies he has seen look as if they die in agony.