“Shooting an Elephant” is a George Orwell essay in which he addresses the British people about their imperial government and how it is damaging, harsh, and inefficient to everybody. The author’s thesis is constructed around the two main characters, the elephant and its executioner, and this story serves as the framework for it. In this article, the elephant and the British commander serve to explain how imperialism is a two-edged sword (Sharma,2018). The story centers on a colonial officer’s mission to assassinate an elephant. The narrator does not want to kill the elephant, but he is forced to do so by a throng of people who do not want him to seem indecisive in front of them.
George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” has a problem with imperialism. George Orwell describes his experiences as a sub-divisional police officer at Moulmein, a town in Burma held by the British Empire in the early twentieth century, in “Shooting an Elephant.” Orwell claims that the bulk of the public despises him because he is an English invader. Orwell learns about the cost of British imperialism via the eyes of a crazy “must” elephant that murders people and destroys the village. Orwell shows the facts of colonialism at this critical point in the story by exposing how British imperialism limits their freedom in order to maintain control (Tyner,2004). Orwell feels compelled to further immerse himself in savagery as a result of his discomfort. As a result, he kills an innocent elephant to maintain his own dignity; Orwell’s experience shows how British imperialism dehumanizes the oppressed while equally injuring the oppressor.
Orwell demonstrates the cost of imperialism by exposing the cruelty of British colonialism on the Burmese people in his novel, Animal Farm. British torture of Burmese prisoners is shown in the book, including “the miserable captives huddling in the filthy cages of the lock-ups,” “the grey, cowed faces of the long-term offenders,” and “the scarred buttocks of the men who had been lashed with bamboo” (308). That the Burmese captives were treated like animals and housed in small, overcrowded cells in the most harrowing circumstances indicates how they were mistreated. The abuse of Burmese people by British imperialism is exposed by Orwell, who keeps them silent in order to maintain control over them. When he adds, “In a career like that, you get to see the nasty business of empire up close and personal,” he explains how he grew to despise British imperialism and the British people (308).
As a result of seeing the oppression inflicted upon the Burmese, Orwell develops a strong dislike for the British empire. Throughout the novel, he refers to Burmese people as “beasts,” suggesting that British imperialism had a negative impact on Burmese culture in a variety of ways. This exemplifies how British imperialism dehumanizes many people just because they are different from the British way of life. According to him, “my rage [was] directed at the evil-spirited little demons that attempted to make my job harder” (308). That Orwell refers to the Burmese people as animals rather than humans is shown by this.
As a result of Imperialism, Orwell is forced into a dreadful and immoral situation that he does not like to be in. He feels forced to demonstrate his might, just as he did when he killed the elephant. While killing the elephant, Orwell observes, “I realized now that when the white man becomes a tyrant, he loses his own freedom” (312). As a result, British imperialism shackled Orwell’s freedom by compelling him to participate in activities he despised. Throughout his life, Orwell says, “the crown would laugh at me,” and “my whole existence, the existence of every white guy in the East, was one continuous effort not to be laughed at” (Kunhi,2016). As an imperial police officer, Orwell is obliged to be opposed to the British empire, which he represents, as a result of the dread that every white person in the East has of being humiliated. He goes on to say that he was “theoretically—and covertly—for the Burmese and against their oppressors, the British.” “I couldn’t express how much I despised the work I was doing” (Cushman et al., 2015). Orwell is so dissatisfied with his work that he despises it more than anything else in the world. He asserts that he supports Burmese independence and that the empire should be destroyed.
Finally, Orwell displays his ideas via the use of the elephant, which represents his uniqueness and freedom of choice, both of which are destroyed by his responsibility. It does this by illustrating that imperialism is costly for both the oppressor and the oppressed parties. Throughout the piece, Orwell argues that imperialism has the potential to destroy both oppressors and the oppressed (Hammond, 2016). His article depicts him coming to terms with the fact that imperialism costs him money, something he had not anticipated. Ultimately, British imperialism does him pain by ordering him to slaughter the elephant.
References
Tyner, J. A. (2004). Self and space, resistance and discipline: a Foucauldian reading of George Orwell’s 1984. Social & Cultural Geography, 5(1), 129-149.
Kunhi, Z. M. (2016). Power of the Carnivalesque: An Analysis of Arundhati Roy’s Select Writings on Neo-imperialism. Editor’s Note, 68.
Sharma, S. (2018). Representation of the self and the other in the works of George Orwell.
Cushman, T., & Rodden, J. (2015). George Orwell: Into the twenty-first century. Routledge.
Hammond, J. (2016). A George Orwell companion: a guide to the novels, documentaries and essays. Springer.
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