Stephen Cunningham
English 101
Trotter
February 1, 2015
Essay #1
The Death of an Elephant

In George Orwell’s essay “Shooting an Elephant”, he spent some time in India as a policeman for the British Empire in Burma. Orwell chose a specific event from that time involving an elephant rampaging through a bazaar. Not only was property destroyed but a person, specifically a coolie, was killed. There were over 2000 Burmese watching him and wondering what he was going to do about it. He felt compelled to shoot the elephant. According to Wikipedia, Imperialism happens when a stronger nation takes over a weaker nation and dominates their social, economic, religious and cultural freedoms. There have been many nations in history that have oppressed others. For example Hitler and the Nazis oppressed many countries and tried to exterminate the Jewish population.
As an Englishman in Burma, Orwell was hated by the Burmese. On the other hand, he did not agree with imperialism such as British rule over India. However, he was mocked, spit on, pushed down and made to feel like a fool.
He was told by the sub inspector to go check out the event with the elephant. He took his 44 Winchester rifle just in case, even though the rifle would not do much harm against the elephant. He was curious to see what was going on. He followed the path of destruction, to find the elephant had killed a coolie in a grizzly manner. Later on he found the elephant grazing peacefully in a field.
Even though he sensed the crowd wanting him to shoot the elephant, he did not wish to do so; because the elephant was an expensive “piece of equipment to its owner”. When he came upon the elephant grazing peacefully on some grass, he did not feel like he should shoot it especially since the elephant seemed done with its rampage.
Sadly he sent for an elephant gun; because he eventually felt compelled to shoot the elephant so he would not look the fool to the crowd. Orwell did not want them to laugh at him. He felt as part of the British Empire he had to play the role of an imperialist even though he did not agree with imperialism. To illustrate this point, Orwell quotes “He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it”.
Orwell had never shot an elephant before. In his inexperience he shot the elephant several times failing to kill it quickly. He shot it in the head 3 times, which brought the elephant to the ground but did not kill it. He aimed where he thought the heart was and fired his last 2 shots and still the elephant did not die. He left the scene because he could not stand to watch the elephant suffer. He later heard it took 30 minutes more for the elephant to finally die. The Burmese crowd stripped the elephant’s body almost to the bone within a matter of hours.
Many times people under imperialism feel they suffer a slow painful death. When one person goes down even their own people can turn on them. This is what Orwell alluded to in his essay. Another example would be communist Russia with their government oppressing the people. Often people in a role like a soldier or policeman had to follow the government and what it dictated, even if they did not agree with what the government was doing. They or their Families could be put in prison or killed for disobedience. Many times some of the people would spy on other people just to save their own lives.
This one event of many helped Orwell to make the decision to change his career and get away from imperialism. He later used this experience among others to write against imperialism. He had several famous books and articles published.