‘‘Shooting an Elephant’’ begins with a meditative prelude to the action in which the narrator, who may be presumed to be Orwell, comments on being a colonial policeman in British Burma in the middle of the twentieth century. ‘‘I was hated by large numbers of people,’’ he says, and ‘‘anti-European feeling was very bitter.’’ A European woman crossing the market would likely be spat upon and a subdivisional police officer made an even more inviting target. Once, at a soccer match, a Burmese player deliberately fouled the narrator while the Burmese umpire conveniently...
Source: Short Stories for Students, ©2013 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved. Full copyright.
(The entire page is 656 words.)
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