the British: "anti-European feeling was very bitter," especially for the "young Buddhist priests [who] were the worst of all."

There was also his feeling of isolation and perplexity. Being young, inexperienced and "ill-educated" (only partially true since he attended the super-elite Eton, although he didn't attend university afterward), he had no one with whom to discuss these feelings and issues, since he and all other British police were restrained behind a veil of silence: "I could get nothing into perspective. I was young and ill-educated and I had had to think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East." This silence fueled and agitated his feeling of "rage" against the (understandably) antagonistic Burmese: "my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible."

With his national loyalty severely strained by all his feelings and by the conflict born of the antagonistic relationship between his incompatible feelings, Orwell finds that the incident with the elephant is symbolic and an apt metaphor for the effects of imperialism on sons and daughters of the oppressors as well as on the peoples overwhelmed by oppression. Conflicts, antagonism, contradictions, hatreds and animosities grow, flourish and abound in shocking expression in both oppressor and oppressed under the "British Raj," the empire builder. If we comprehend the total in-built self-destruction of imperialism after reading Orwell's feelings and experience, then we have understood his thesis that imperialism forces people into hatred and hatefulness, into dehumanizing actions and reactions, into a condition of antagonism and perplexity with heart and soul torn apart and out.

Among the Europeans opinion was divided. The older men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth more....

Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant," is an essay, so it does contain a thesis.  Orwell's thesis is that when a white man becomes a tyrant, it is his own freedom that he loses.

In the essay, Orwell demonstrates how he loses his freedom to behave intelligently and morally.  He does not want to needlessly kill the elephant, and he strongly suspects that the young elephant's must is waning.  The elephant is not in proximity to any people and appears to have settled down.  The animal is valuable to its owner and cannot really be blamed for the damage it's done.

It is unreasonable to kill the creature needlessly.  But Orwell has no choice.  He is in a position of authority over the local people and cannot allow himself to be seen as hesitant or weak or foolish.  Because of his position as "tyrant," he must kill the elephant. 

As a representative of the tyrannical colonial power, England, he has no choice.  As a white man who has become a tyrant in Burma, he has lost his own freedom. 

Though no records exist of Orwell ever having shot an elephant, and though some commentators have speculated that Orwell fudged a little on the details, "Shooting an Elephant" was intended as a nonfiction essay and continues to be regarded as such.  It is a powerful indictment of the colonial system that Orwell, regrettably he himself says, was a part of. 

Incidentally, the essay reveals another byproduct of colonialism--Orwell's hatred of a people that he otherwise would have felt no disdain for.  In response to the Burmese resentment of him, he develops a strong dislike for them.

I'm assuming that you mean theme rather than thesis.  One these of Orwell's short story "Shooting an Elephant" is the effect of the masses on the individual.  The narrator of the story shoots and kills an elephant that is no no longer dangerous to the Burmese village.  He kills the elephant because he does not want to appear a fool in front of a crowd of Burmese, numbering in the thousands. 

If you dig a little deeper, though, you will see that Orwell is showing us the effects of imperialism.  When a powerful nation exploits the people of another country, the resulting tension causes everyone to become somewhat savage.  The narrator is a British police officer, and even though he sympathicizes with the plight of the Burmese, he despises their contempt for him, as a representative of the British empire. 

These themes can be turned into strong thesis statements for an essay. 

To me, the thesis and main point of Orwell's essay is that imperialism is bad.  He argues that it is bad for the ruling people and he argues that it is bad for the people who are ruled.

Orwell shows in the beginning of the essay how colonialism degrades the colonized people.  They come to hate the colonizers so much that they will spit on them out of spite whenever they get the chance.  Orwell feels that this sort of fairly inhuman behavior would not happen without colonialism.

Orwell also shows that the colonizers come to hate the people they rule.  They hate them, in part, because the people force the colonizers to do things (like shooting the elephant) that they do not want to do.

Imperialism, to Orwell, causes both the rulers and the ruled to lose their dignity and their integrity.

Orwell wrote this essay because he wanted to express his distaste for imperialism which he grew up in the face of. He had strong ties to India, his birthplace, even though he grew up in Britain. He actually served as an Imperialist Police Office in the 1920s as well so he saw first hand the abuse that they received from people like the Burmese. "I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing... I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British." His main thesis in writing the essay then was more of an appeal to the British to stop enforcing these strict imperial laws and turn away from colonialism in an effort to salvage what was left of their freedom as the British. Orwell writes, "when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys," which is probably the clearest statement of how he feels about British imperialism. We see the loss of freedom when he is forced to shoot the elephant for the Burmese people even though he doesn't personally think it's necessary. He has lost his freedom to think for himself as his hand is pushed by those who are being tyrannized.

Because “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell is an essay, it contains its own thesis, which is an argument about the nature of imperialism. This thesis does not appear in just one sentence of the essay, but various passages contain it, with the rest of the essay—the story of shooting the elephant—providing an example to “prove” its truth. The argument about imperialism that is central to “Shooting an Elephant” can be summarized something like this: Imperialism affects the oppressed as well as the oppressor. Because it is an immoral relationship of power, it compels the oppressor to act immorally to keep up appearances that he is right. The narrator realizes that the British Raj which he serves is “an unbreakable tyranny” yet despises the people he oppresses for allowing him to do so. On the one hand he is regarded as a wise ruler, but on the other he knows he is wrong in what he does but must behave in such a way to disquise this. As a result, he finds himself doing whatever he must do, which in this case is to kill the elephant, to “avoid looking [the] fool” that he knows he is for representing the powers of imperialism.

A thesis statement is developed from a theme, a conflict, or other literary elements of a written work. A thesis statement is the general topic of an essay. You then use a specific piece of literature to write about that general topic. A theme is the author's message about life, people, or the human condition. A piece of literature can have more than one theme, even though it usually has a main theme.

The most obvious theme in Shooting an Elephant deals with the culture clash between the British and the Burmese, and the prejudice and lack of tolerance that results from this culture clash. The Burmese hate the British for trying to impose their rule on them. The British look down on the Burmese, feeling they are inferior. Now, you can write a thesis statement based on this theme. One suggestion is, "The clash of cultures can result in prejudice and intolerance in a society." You would then use specific examples from Shooting an Elephant to show how this is true.

If you go to the enotes link of Shooting an Elephant, you will find some more ideas for thesis statements. But remember, a thesis statement can be developed from the conflict(s), the setting, the irony, or any other literary element of a piece of literature.

Orwell begins by utilizing auditory imagery to describe the death of the elephant, which appeals to the reader's sense of hearing. Orwell writes that he did not hear the bang from the gun but only could hear the "devilish roar of glee" from the surrounding Burmese natives. He then utilizes visual imagery by writing that a "mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant" shortly after the bullet hits home. He writes that every line in the elephant's body altered in some way and the beast seemed "suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old," as if the bullet paralyzed him without knocking him down.

Orwell then appeals to the reader's sense of time by mentioning that after "five seconds," the elephant finally fell to its knees. According to the British officer, an "enormous senility" came over the elephant, and he proceeded to shoot it two more times. The third shot jolted the elephant's body, and the massive animal fell to the ground like "a huge rock toppling." Orwell once again utilizes auditory imagery to describe the elephant trumpeting one last time before crashing to the ground.

Despite falling to the ground, the elephant does not immediately die and lays there in agony, rhythmically breathing in pain. As the officer continues to fire shots at the elephant, Orwell writes that it was "powerless to move and yet powerless to die." The overall effect of Orwell's vivid description of the elephant's death is both disturbing and jarring to the reader, who experiences a sense of sympathy for the defenseless creature. The reader can imagine the defenseless elephant experiencing excruciating pain as the crowd of Burmese natives cheers and the officer continues to fire shots.

Orwell has set up the elephant as a symbol of himself; he realizes that he is going to have to kill the elephant despite his reluctance to do so. He knows that he would seem to be the "leading actor of the piece" with his gun and the authority granted him by his nationality and skin color. However, "in reality [he] was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind" him. He understands, in this moment, that "when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys." His will does not matter now—he has to kill the elephant though it seems no more dangerous than a cow at this point. It is just like his own supposed authority and the fact that he is really not dangerous now either.

When he shoots the elephant, he describes the beast as sagging "flabbily to his knees. His mouth slobbered. An enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him." Despite the shots the speaker continues to fire, the elephant's "tortured gasps continued as steadily as the ticking of a clock." We see, through these descriptions how little power the narrator truly has to affect anything. He can't even actually kill the elephant. Just as the elephant's weakness is revealed as it tries to die, the narrator's weakness is revealed too.

The description Orwell provides of shooting the elephant shows the suffering inflicted on the animal, which at the point it was killed had become perfectly peaceful and was not a threat to anyone.

Orwell uses visual imagery to help us imagine the elephant as the first bullet hits it. It looks suddenly "immensely" old and shrunken, but it does not fall down. It seems as if it is paralyzed, and then, very slowly, it sinks to its knees. When the speaker shoots it a second time, the stunned elephant manages to stagger to his feet. The third shot fells it.

We see in our minds' eyes the poor, huge animal shot and slowly falling. Orwell then turns to sound imagery. The dying animal makes a sound like a trumpet blowing, then breathes in a gasping and rattling way but does not die. The speaker has to shoot him two more times. The noise of his dying is "dreadful."

The effect of the description, relying on sight and sound senses, shows the cruelty of shooting the animal. It died slowly and in agony.

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 "immensely old" almost makes him symbolic of the British colonialism which is in its waning days.  Once powerful, the elephant sags to his knees as his mouth slobbers pitifully. He seems to have lost his ability to think with the shot to the head.  Orwell writes, "One could have imagined him thousands of years old." 

In an effort to put the large beast out of its misery, Orwell fires a sencond shot; however, the proud animal attempts to stand, and does, albeit weakly, with his legs weakening and his head drooping.  So, Orwell shoots a third time: 

You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant of strength from his legs. But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skyward like a tree.

This proud, but defeated animal trumpets one time--his final cry against death. When he falls over, Orwell writes that the ground shook where he lay. Then, when Orwell sees that the elephant is still not dead, he fires where he believes the heart is, but the "tortured gasps" continue for hours:

He was dying very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him further.

Indeed, the death of the mighty elephant is a most brutal, yet poignant experience for Orwell as he senses the pathos of this dying creature of Nature as he narrates, then reflects.  By contrast, after he leaves, the Burmese people strip it almost to the bones.  The clash of the personal, ethical culture of  Westerner with his institutional culture is apparent in the shooting of the elephant.  For, Orwell's feelings that the elephant is a simple victim are counter to his duties as a colonial policeman.

In “Shooting an Elephant,” George Orwell reflects on what he refers to as an “enlightening” episode from his time as a policeman in the small town of Moulmein in the British colony of Burma. In the essay, Orwell recounts the events that led to the death of an elephant that had ravaged the local market and killed a Burmese coolie.

Orwell, as the Imperial policeman of the village, was responsible for ensuring the safety of the villagers and was tasked with shooting the rampaging elephant. Orwell’s official position forces him to act, even though he “did not want to shoot the elephant.” Due to the expectations of the two thousand Burmese who had gathered to witness the pachyderm’s fate and Orwell’s determination to “ . . . avoid looking a fool,” he shoots the elephant several times and watches its agonizing death.

The epiphany Orwell experiences during in the moments before he fires the first shots was that “I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East.” This thought demonstrates that Orwell was not simply viewing his situation as the literal death of a beast of burden; in his mind, it was a broader metaphor for the British colonization of Asia.

In this sense, the unfortunate elephant functions as a symbol for everything that George Orwell viewed as reprehensible about British colonialism. Orwell is keenly aware of the hopeless irony of his situation: he is forced into an action he does not want to participate in by the very people he lords over. The explicitly stated thesis of the essay is “ . . . when the white man turns tyrant, it is his own freedom that he destroys.” George Orwell uses the story of the elephant to highlight the inevitable moral decay and loss of agency experienced by colonizers when placed in positions of power.

Good question. The elephant piles multiple meanings upon its back, like a beast of burden. Since Orwell mentions early in the essay that the British Empire is dying, we can assume that the elephant represents the empire and/or all colonial powers: ill, crazed, out of place, harmful to those around it.

It also represents the burden of Orwell, and of the colonial powers. He, and they, have to do unpleasant thing to beings alien to their experience.

The stubborn way in which the elephant clings to life represents the stubbornness of local culture, and, most simply, of biological life. Life is happening, and somehow the colonial/technological mechanisms of the British empire have to make sense of it, in this case by killing it.