George Orwell "Shooting and Elephant"

In 1936, George Orwell published his short story 'Shooting an elephant' in an English magazine. Since then, it has been republished dozens of times and holds a place as a definitive anti-colonial piece of literature, in an era where the British Empire was at its peak and covered almost 1/3 of the Earth's surface. George Orwell believed that “…imperialism was an evil thing...” (Hindess, 363-377) and uses much themes, symbolism and irony to convey his strong anti-colonialist feelings.

Theme is an integral part of this story and is mostly presented through the narrator. One of the major themes of the story is conscience, in which many of the conflicts in the story occur. The narrator has an unshakable mental division between his official position (Colonial Policeman) and his moral position (“Secretly, I was all for the Burmese and all against…the British.”) (Tyner, 260-267) This is represented in the second paragraph, when he explains that “Feelings like [those] are the normal by-products of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you catch him off duty.” (Hindess, 363-377) Therefore, there is a double-standard being felt by Imperialists.

They have an overdeveloped sense of empathy and feel for the underdogs and the oppressed; yet, the Burmese do not empathize and, so, treat those who do like crap and, as a result, the imperialists feel less guilty about dealing with these insolent and looked-down-upon individuals. Order and disorder is an important underlying theme in the story. Order prevails when the elephant is tied and under control; disorder prevails when the elephant escapes and destroys the bazaar. And like an elephant-handler, the narrator (a policeman), must keep order. It is with this logic that it can be said that the narrator is unable to avoid the elephants untimely death.

The story opens by describing the relationship between the town and himself, a sort of sub-division police officer of the town. Description is definitely not lacking in the opening, as words such as "aimless", and "petty"(Tyner, 260-267) are used to describe the town, and the way it treats it officers. It describes the kind of ignorance the town has to outsiders and anyone they do not "approve of"(Hindess, 363-377). The story opens well, and clarifies right away, who, what, where, when, why and how. No questions are asked and all confusions are quickly abolished.

The second paragraph describes very vividly how he the narrator feels about his job choice, and his views on the village. He says "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". The narrator not only is in a place where he hates, but he also hates the people he works with, and works for! Wow, how'd he end up there? Basically, the story line goes along to tell the tale of an elephant that needs to be killed, because it got out of the zoo and endagers the community(Tyner, 260-267).

The story describes how the ...