Essay on George Orwells Shooting an Elephant - A Moral...

A Moral Dilemma in Orwells Shooting an Elephant nbsp; Unanticipated choices one is forced to make can have long-lasting effects. In Shooting an Elephant, by George Orwell, the author recounts an event from his life when he was about twenty years old during which he had to choose the lesser of two evils. Many years later, the episode seems to still haunt him. The story takes place at some time during the five unhappy years Orwell spends as a British police officer in Burma. He detests his situation in life, and when he is faced with a moral dilemma, a valuable work animal has to die to save his pride. nbsp; Orwell is an unhappy young policeman who lives in mental isolation. He hates British imperialism, he hates†¦show more content†¦I was an obvious target and was baited, and when he is tripped during a soccer game, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter, which seriously assaults the ego of this young man. He says 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. Helping to oppress the Burmese causes him to feel guilty and to hate his job more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear. While standing in this quagmire of hatred, Orwell encounters one of the defining moments of his life. nbsp; An innocent chain of events forces Orwell into a position in which he must choose between two undesirable options. When he goes to check a report that a tame elephant under the influence of must has broken loose and is causing damage, Orwell takes a medium caliber rifle which is much too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be useful in terrorem. Upon finding that a coolie has been killed by the elephant, Orwell trades his .44 rifle for a much larger gun simply for self-defense. This is a critical mistake; the Burmese who are following him assume that, since he now has an elephant gun, Orwell has decided to kill the elephant. The crowd quickly grows to over two thousand natives, which rattles Orwell. As he says, . . .it is always unnerving to have a crowd following you. This is especially true for a young representative of the Queen who knows the crowd willShow MoreRelated Moral Issues and Decisions in George Orwells Shooting an Elephant600 Words   |à ‚  3 PagesMoral Issues and Decisions in Shooting an Elephant      Throughout Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell, he addresses his   internal battle with the issues of morality and immorality. He writes of several situations that show his immoral doings. When George Orwell signed up for a five-year position as a British officer in Burma he was unaware of the moral struggle that he was going to face. Likewise, he has an internal clash between his moral conscious and his immoral actions. Therefore, OrwellRead MoreAnalysis Of Shooting An Elephant By George Orwell988 Words   |  4 PagesEric Arthur Blair, or commonly known as George Orwell, is the author of many compositions. Blair, the author of two of the most famous novels of the 1920s; Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, was born in Eastern Indian. He joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma but resigned in 1927 to become a writer (BBC). Orwell’s style of writing can be described as bold and vivid. He puts the truth in his writing. Orwell’s novel, â€Å"Shooting an Elephant,† was published in 1936. In the novel, a colonial policemanRead MoreShooting An Elephant Analysis730 Words   |  3 PagesGeorge Orwells 1936 Shooting an Elephant, is a nonfiction narrative essay about an incident that occurred during the time of Orwell’s service as a police officer in Burma. The essay is centered around an event in which he was forced to shoot an elephant, resulting in a battle between his own personal beliefs and the expectations of those around him. In human nature, often times, humans will play certain roles which are dictated by what others expect of them. Humans will adapt to the environmentRead MoreShooting an Elephant Literary Analysis895 Words   |  4 PagesInevitable Morals George Orwell’s 1930 short story â€Å"Shooting an Elephant,† demonstrates the total dangers of the unlimited authority a state has and the astounding presentment of â€Å"future dystopia†. In the story, Orwell finds himself to be in an intricate situation that involves an elephant. Not only does the fate of the elephant’s life lie in Orwell’s hands, he has an audience of people behind him cheering him on, making his decision much more difficult to make. Due to the vast crowd surroundingRead MoreEssay on Orwell and Colonialism542 Words   |  3 PagesColonialism I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool. So ends George Orwells poignant reminiscence of an incident representing the imperialist British in Burma. Unlike Soyinka, who wrote about colonialism from the Africans point of view, Orwell, like Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness, presents the moral dilemmas of the imperialist. Orwell served with the Imperialist Police in Burma while it was still part of the British CommonwealthRead MoreLiterary Analysis of â€Å"Shooting an Elephant,† by George Orwell1152 Words   |  5 PagesIn â€Å"Shooting an Elephant,† George Orwell achieves two achievements : he shows us his personal experience and his expression while he was in Burma; he use the metaphor of the elephant to explain to describe what Burma looked like when it was under the British Imperialism. The special about this essay is that Orwell tells us a story not only to see the experience that he had in Burma; he als o perfectly uses the metaphor of the elephant to give us deep information about the Imperialism. By going throughRead MoreThe Feminine Mystique And Shooting An Elephant898 Words   |  4 PagesBoth The Feminine Mystique and â€Å"Shooting an Elephant† discuss the confrontation between the self and society. In The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan addresses â€Å"The Problem That Has No Name† referring to the widespread unhappiness of the housewife due to their obligation to uphold their ideal image rather than pursuing their dreams; in â€Å"Shooting an Elephant†, George Orwell comments on the societal expectations of imperialism and its effects on people who have the duty to uphold the law. In both ofRead MoreAnalysis Of George Orwell s Orwell Shooting An Elephant 1189 Words   |  5 Pages   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant†: Effect of Imperialism in Burma Imperialism is a state of mind, fueled by the arrogance of superiority that could be adopted by any nation irrespective of its geographical location in the world. 1. Evidence of the existence of empires dates back to the dawn of written history in Egypt and in Mesopotamia, where local leaders extended their realms by conquering other states and holding them, when possible, in a state of subjection and semiRead MoreAnalysis Of George Orwell s Shooting An Elephant 953 Words   |  4 PagesThe area of focus I chose was a work from the Innocence and Experience chapter. The work of fiction that I chose to analyze is â€Å"Shooting an Elephant† by George Orwell. The main question is whether what he did in the story was ethical. This story is about the inner fight between right and wrong, â€Å"if I do this†¦Ã¢â‚¬  or â€Å"if I do that†¦Ã¢â‚¬  or â€Å"what if I don’t do anything?† Bottom line is you’re damned if you do, and damned if you donâ₠¬â„¢t. We all do this in some form or fashion, we all have that inner voice tellingRead More Colonialism and Imperialism Exposed in Shooting an Elephant and Heart of Darkness1360 Words   |  6 PagesColonization Exposed in Shooting an Elephant and Heart of Darkness      Ã‚  Ã‚   As a man is captured, his first instinct is to try and break free from his shackles and chains. Primal urges such as this often accompany humans when they are forced, as in capture, to rely on their most basic instincts to survive. In this manner, natives in Africa acted upon instinct when the Europeans arrived to take their land and freedom. The short story Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell and the novel Heart