The narrator knew it was pointless, wasteful and cruel to shoot the elephant. The elephant had gone on a rampage in a bazaar, destroying some property, and had killed a man but now was calm:
And at that distance, peacefully eating, the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow.
This male elephant had been going through a bout of must, a periodic surge in testosterone leading to highly aggressive behavior, but the narrator emphasizes that this particular spell has passed.
But beyond both practical reasons—to shoot the elephant is to destroy a valuable piece of property—and humane reasons (the thick-hided elephant would die slowly and painfully) the narrator doesn't want to shoot the elephant because in doing so he is acknowledging his powerlessness. The Burmese natives and their British overloads are trapped in an absurd, cruel system where they all play pre-determined roles. He must kill the elephant because the native people expect it, not because it makes sense:
Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd—seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy . . .
Shooting the elephant clarifies to the narrator what he has become—a puppet—through participation in colonialism.
The narrator in Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" does not believe that the elephant is dangerous. He realizes as he sees the elephant grazing peacefully in the paddy field that the elephant's period of must is over, and that the elephant now is harmless. He also knows that in Burma the elephant is a work animal and is worth far more alive than dead:
As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant.
Of course, the elephant had been dangerous. He wreaked havoc in the market place, killing one man. The narrator, a police officer, was asked to check out the situation. So, he picked up a gun that would at least make noise. But when he confronted the elephant, he knew what was what was expected of him by the crowd that had gathered behind him:
It was a bit of fun to them, as it would be tow an English crawed: besides they wanted the meat.
So, with thousands of Burmese behind him, as he held the gun on the elephant, the narrator felt that he could not back down, even though shooting the elephant was against his better judgment. Legally the narrator was right to shoot the elephant, but morally he was wrong. The elephant's death was unnecessary.
In "Shooting an Elephant," why does the narrator hesitate to kill the elephant?
The narrator hesitates to kill the elephant because by the time he arrives at the place where the...
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elephant has been on a rampage, the elephant is peaceful. The narrator realizes the animal no longer poses any threat. It would be an economic waste to kill such a valuable animal, it would be cruel to the animal, which would die slowly, and overall, there is no reason to destroy it.
Nevertheless, the narrator has asked that his elephant gun be brought to him for self defense. When it arrives, the narrator is willing to walk away from the elephant. However, he suddenly recognizes that he is expected to play a starring role in a drama unfolding in front of the eyes of a crowd of Burmese native people. If he does not kill the elephant, he will look weak to them. Therefore, he does so, even though it is unreasonable and inhumane. As he kills the peaceful beast, he has a moment of realization:
And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd—seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind.
In order to survive in an imperial system, the narrator must put appearances ahead of good sense and humanity. This way of life is repugnant to him.
In "Shooting an Elephant," why does the narrator hesitate to kill the elephant?
The narrator clearly has no intention of killing the animal when he first gets the order that a loose elephant is ravaging the village. He mentions that he brought an old .44 Winchester, a weapon much too small to kill an animal of that size, in hopes that the noise from the rifle would startle the elephant. When the narrator finally receives a more powerful rifle from an orderly, a crowd begins to follow him. The narrator again mentions that he has no intention of killing the elephant and is simply carrying the rifle for self-defense. As soon as he sees the elephant, the narrator knows that he should not shoot it. He says,
"It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant—it is comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery— and obviously one ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided" (Orwell, 3).
The narrator also mentions that the elephant looks perfectly harmless and says that it is no more dangerous than a cow. However, the narrator feels pressure from the natives to shoot the elephant, and he ends up reluctantly killing the animal as a way to avoid being perceived as weak in front of the crowd.
In "Shooting an Elephant," why does the narrator hesitate to kill the elephant?
In short, the narrator hesitates to kill the elephant because he does not, in fact, want to go through with it. For one thing, killing an elephant is in and of itself a serious matter, since elephants are so valuable. Shooting an elephant is akin to "destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery." More importantly, by the time the narrator encounters the elephant, it is no longer rampaging, but is peacefully and calmly eating grass near the edge of town. But the problem for the narrator is that a crowd of Burmese people has followed him, and they expect him to shoot the beast. He realizes that, although he does not want to kill the animal, he has to in order to, in his words, avoid "looking a fool." He is a representative of the British Empire to the Burmese people, and they expect him to act violently. Shooting the elephant against his better judgment is one example of how imperialism has corrupted the narrator.
Why did the author not want to kill the elephant initially?
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 and about the emotional process that leads to his eventual choice to shoot the elephant against his better judgement.
Orwell's initial hesitance, which makes him feel certain that he does not want to shoot the animal, is based on a complex web of feelings. For one thing, elephants were considered sacred, and since Orwell considered himself more allied with the Burmese than with his employers, the British colonizers, he had an inclination to respect that. He also did not want to kill someone's working animal, and he felt like he had reason to believe that the animal had calmed down and would not continue to rampage.