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Shooting an Elephant
There are at least a couple of different ways in which “Shooting an Elephant,” by George Orwell, relates to imperialism. First, “Shooting an Elephant” can be seen as a memoir of imperialism from...
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Shooting an Elephant
Orwell says that he did not intend to shoot the elephant. He only got the gun so that he could protect himself if need be. When he actually saw the elephant, he became convinced that there was no...
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Shooting an Elephant
Tone is the author's attitude toward the subject he is writing about. Critics have debated whether Orwell is apologizing for or condemning imperialism. Either way, Orwell is against imperialism,...
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Shooting an Elephant
Orwell, in his "Shooting an Elephant" persona (based on his real-life experiences as a colonial policeman in Burma) comes to understand what he considers the true reason despotic governments act as...
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Shooting an Elephant
Both men are being patronized and taunted to varying degrees for their positions. On one hand, Orwell is a British police officer in Burma and is a symbol of authority that the Burmese have come to...
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Shooting an Elephant
Orwell originally published "Shooting an Elephant" in 1936. In it, he speaks of his experiences as a colonial police officer in the 1920s. There is a wide gulf of experience between the (then)...
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Shooting an Elephant
I think that the lens of cultural criticism is important to use in analyzing Orwell's short story because cultural identity plays such a large role in understanding Orwell's predicament in the...
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Shooting an Elephant
This essay is noted for the epiphany that Orwell experiences as he faces the elephant and, more importantly, for the "sea" of Burmese faces who have come along expecting a good show and watching...
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Shooting an Elephant
The main point, the theme, of "Shooting an Elephant" is to expose the conflict between the law and one's moral conscience as this pertains to British imperialism specifically, but by extension any...
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Shooting an Elephant
The elephant is his "mysterious, terrible change" from a magnificent animal to a stricken, pain-racked, semi-parlyzed victim is tragic to Orwell. The visual picture of the elephant as shrunken and...
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Shooting an Elephant
1. "As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so." Analogy: A police officer is a target; a police officer is a symbol of imperialism; the natives...
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Shooting an Elephant
I will begin with contrasting these two pieces, as it would be, on the surface, hard to find two essays that seem more dissimilar. White's "Once More to the Lake" focuses on a private domestic...
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Shooting an Elephant
Not to split hairs, but it is the narrator of "Shooting an Elephant," an English policeman who is part of the colonial government in Burma, who shoots the elephant, not Orwell. While the bizarre...
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Shooting an Elephant
The narrator of Orwell's classic short story "Shooting an Elephant" is a British police officer stationed in Lower Burma, where he is ridiculed, mocked, and jeered at by the local Burmese...
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Shooting an Elephant
While Orwell did spend some time in Burma as a servant of the empire that he was becoming increasingly ambivalent about, the essay "Shooting an Elephant" is not entirely autobiographical, and there...
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Shooting an Elephant
Orwell says that, because he was a police officer, he "was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so." For example, he was tripped once by a Burman on the football field and...
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Shooting an Elephant
In “Shooting an Elephant,” the principal concrete detail is the elephant itself. Although the elephant functions as a symbol of colonialism, it is also a flesh and blood elephant, the size and...
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Shooting an Elephant
One could argue that Orwell is more of a victim than he is an oppressor throughout the short story. As a British police officer, Orwell represents the imperialist authority that oppresses the...
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Shooting an Elephant
Orwell's attitude toward the Burmese is one of ambivalence. While he sympathizes with the plight of the conquered, he also resents the ugliness of Burmese conduct toward Europeans. All I knew was...
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Shooting an Elephant
The incident of the rogue elephant that has destroyed a bazaar and killed a man causes Orwell an undesired involvement as he is summoned to do something about the situation. This incident proves...
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Shooting an Elephant
In George Orwell's short story "Shooting an Elephant," the narrator Orwell has been called to look into a situation in which a domesticated elephant has escaped its chains and has been seen...
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Shooting an Elephant
I think that you are just asking for an explanation of the quote. So I will give you a shorter answer that just explains what that quote means. First of all, the word "despotic" refers to a...
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Shooting an Elephant
A large group of natives, some two thousand people, end up following Orwell as he locates the elephant which has gone wild and killed a man. Though the elephant no longer seems to be having its...
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Shooting an Elephant
Both the Indian coolie and the elephant died painfully and miserably. Both of these deaths elicit our pity. Nevertheless, there's a difference in the way we feel pity for them. The mutilated body...
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Shooting an Elephant
The premise of "Shooting an Elephant" is that imperialism is an evil and corrupting system which forces both the imperialists and the native population to behave in a specific (and unnatural) way....
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Shooting an Elephant
On first glance, it appears that the narrator should give up his job. As an English policeman in Colonial Burma, he is hated by the people he polices and experiences their discontent on a daily...
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Shooting an Elephant
In this essay, the narrator does not identify himself as George Orwell, but the author served as a colonial functionary in Burma, so the narrator is usually considered to represent Orwell himself....
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Shooting an Elephant
In "Shooting an Elephant," Orwell writes that he was told the elephant had been running riot and ravaging the bazaar. By the time he arrived on the scene, however, it had become perfectly docile of...
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Shooting an Elephant
In "Shooting an Elephant," Orwell devotes lots of time to describing the elephant's misery for two reasons. Firstly, because he wants the reader to experience this event from his perspective. He...
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Shooting an Elephant
Although "Shooting an Elephant" was initially widely accepted as a factual essay about an experience Orwell had during his time in Burma, in more recent years doubts have been raised about whether...
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Shooting an Elephant
The story "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell is a personal narrative from the author, where he tells about an encounter he had with an angry elephant while he was acting as a police officer...
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Shooting an Elephant
One of Orwell's purposes in this essay is to show the cultural dilemma posed by colonialism ( or imperialism, as Orwell puts it). In the essay, Orwell finds himself being the enemy within another...
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Shooting an Elephant
In "Shooting an Elephant," Orwell's narrator shows the problems with British imperialism. He argues that it is an evil system that hurts everyone involved in it. First, it harms the native Burmese...
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Shooting an Elephant
The narrator shot the elephant "solely to avoid looking a fool." After the elephant storms through the bazaar and kills a man, it calms down fairly quickly, and when the narrator, a British...
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Shooting an Elephant
Orwell begins his essay "Shooting an Elephant" with a memorable statement of his unpopularity as an Imperial police officer in Burma: In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of...
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Shooting an Elephant
The first two paragraphs of this excellent and thought provoking essay serve to establish the context of the narrative of the shooting of the elephant, point towards the conflicted feelings that...
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Shooting an Elephant
The narrator clearly does not want to shoot the elephant. He only brings the rifle to defend himself, he says, and he concludes when he sees the elephant eating some grass that its savage mood "was...
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Shooting an Elephant
The elephant of George Orwell's essay "Shooting an Elephant" carries with it significance for both the Burmese and the British as its death symbolizes the pervasive corruption of imperialism on...
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Shooting an Elephant
The narrative of "Shooting an Elephant" is compelling and exciting. At the outset of the story, Orwell is riding around patrolling on a pony when an alarm is sounded and a mob forms, frightened by...
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Shooting an Elephant
Orwell's experience in "Shooting an Elephant" proved highly influential in reshaping his understanding of imperialism. As he establishes early in this essay, he already had an understanding that...
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Shooting an Elephant
The main idea of "Shooting An Elephant" is that imperialism forces people to behave in a specific way. This is shown by the incident in which Orwell, in his capacity as a police officer, is asked...
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Shooting an Elephant
Although Orwell describes the shooting of the elephant as a "tiny" incident in itself, it also proves to be an "enlightening" experience because it teaches him an important lesson about...
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Shooting an Elephant
The central topic of Orwell's essay is the effect that imperialism has had on those such as himself, a British policeman in colonial Burma. His perspective is an unusually insightful one, and this...
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Shooting an Elephant
In the story, the narrator shoots the elephant because the crowd demands he do so. The beast had run wild through a bazaar, trampling one man to death, and causing the Burmese people to demand that...
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Shooting an Elephant
As subdivisional police officer of the town of Moulmein, in lower Burma, George Orwell was secretly opposed to the "oppressor," the British. He hated his job "more bitterly than I can perhaps make...
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Shooting an Elephant
I believe that the question in the link below is essentially the same as this one. Check out the link. If that doesn't answer your question, let me know.
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Shooting an Elephant
In a sense, he's both. He's an oppressor in that he's a colonial police officer, a cog in the machine of British imperialism. His job entails the maintenance of order and stability in this...
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Shooting an Elephant
When Orwell actually arrives at the location where the supposedly rogue elephant is to be found, it is immediately clear to him that he should not shoot the elephant. There are plenty of reasons...
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Shooting an Elephant
As the narrator explains, the elephant in question is in a period of "must." This is a time when a male elephant's hormones increase, and his testosterone levels shoot up to high levels. This makes...
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Shooting an Elephant
There are several statements you might choose from to demonstrate how Orwell felt about his time as a police officer in colonial Burma. For example, In the end the sneering yellow faces of young...
