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Rhetorical Analysis Of Shooting An Elephant By George Orwell

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Through the author Orwell’s use of imagery, tone, and figurative language such as metaphors in paragraph seven of his work “Shooting an Elephant”, he is able to establish a revelation he experiences to the reader in expert detail. The reader is experiences is awed as they realize Orwell’s epiphany, that he comes to see that although the white man’s rule is futile, he still conforms to it by deciding to shoot the elephant. Orwell begins strong, describing the vast crowd that has gathered around him in order to witness his shooting of the rampaging elephant. The author’s use of descriptions such as “a sea of yellow faces” and stating the way the multitude of spectators was comparable to the face of someone while watching a magician conjure a trick, allows the reader to fully imagine the size of the audience as well as their feeling of awe at watching Orwell ready himself to shoot the elephant. The reader realizes that Orwell has suddenly become a large spectacle and focus of admiration, although sentences earlier he was an object worthy of hatred. This imagery the author provides, leads in part to the reader recognizing Orwell’s inner struggle, …show more content…
The overall feeling of “Shooting an Elephant” experiences a sharp twist, as Orwell explains how he feels himself become a figure of the empire, but yet doesn’t entirely reject it due to his want to impress the natives. This alteration of Orwell’s consciousness becomes the central focus of this paragraph, even managing to overwhelm the reader’s recognition of the fact that the author decided to shoot the elephant in exchange for the native’s approval. The reader becomes aware through Orwell’s excellent use of language, that although he still despises the empire, the author must conform to it in order not to be laughed at by the natives; an idea the reader could not have foreseen based on earlier language utilized by

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