a deeply personal perspective.

Orwell envisions colonialism as fundamentally traumatic for all parties, and his essay has a deeply visceral quality throughout. But if we work from the understanding that this incident with the elephant might have actually happened to Orwell, then all those details might well have served to convey the reality of events as Orwell recalls them. Even if we assume otherwise, it remains a fact of the historical record that Orwell was a colonial police officer in Southeast Asia. With that in mind, all this graphic and excruciating detail serves as a way by which Orwell can convey the pure misery of life as a colonial officer to readers who might not have directly experienced that life themselves.

Orwell dwells on the elephant's misery because the creature's suffering is symbolic of the painful and slow decline of the British Empire. While Orwell, who is part of the Imperial Police, must try to control the local people in Burma (and is, in this capacity, asked to kill the elephant), his essay also makes the point that his actions are self-injurious. The ridiculousness of his situation, in which he feels compelled to kill the elephant against his better judgement and inclination, shows that the British Empire has put itself in a ridiculous situation in Burma and elsewhere. The elephant, which symbolizes the unwieldy British empire, dies a slow and painful death, showing that the British Empire is in the process of a drawn-out demise. While the British refuse to leave Burma, it is clear that they are not wanted there and do not belong there. 

Towards the end of the short story, Orwell describes the moment that the British officer shoots the elephant in fascinating detail with extraordinary pathos. Orwell captures the brutal agony that the elephant suffers after being shot multiple times by the officer to represent the plight of the subjugated Burmese people. The elephant can symbolize the oppressed Burmese population, which is attempting to gain liberty from its British rulers. The three shots symbolically represent the three Anglo-Burmese Wars. The first war began in 1824, the second in 1852, and the third war, which resulted in the complete subjugation of the Burmese, took place in 1885. With each shot, the elephant gradually weakens but does not die. The shots, which represent the British invading forces, dramatically incapacitate the elephant but do not kill the beast. Similarly, the wars do not utterly destroy the Burmese population but significantly harm them as they suffer under their oppressive colonizers. The agony expressed during the elephant's death also illustrates the brutal, destructive nature of imperial conquest. Orwell shared the officer's negative feelings towards imperialism and the ugly, agonizing death of the majestic creature symbolizes the effects of exploiting weaker countries.

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 does this by depicting the elephant as an elderly and vulnerable creature:

"An enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him. One could have imagined him thousands of years old."

By doing this, Orwell suggests that the elephant is a misunderstood creature which poses no real security threat. Shooting the elephant is, therefore, a political act which he was loathe to carry out.

Secondly, Orwell uses heavy description as a means of reinforcing his point that imperialism is evil and exploitative. He suggests, therefore, that imperialism targets the weak (an ageing elephant) and makes other people behave in a manner which goes against their nature. In this case, Orwell is forced to shoot the elephant to maintain his authority among the native population, even though he has no real desire to do so.  

Orwell's narrator's inner conflict in "Killing an Elephant" is whether to be true to himself and lose face by walking away from killing an elephant or doing the socially acceptable thing, which is to kill the animal. He does what is expected and kills the animal, though there is no real need to do so.

Like almost everyone who has ever lived, the narrator has experienced a moment of going against everything he believes in because it is the easy way out of a messy situation. He believes that if he does not kill the elephant, he will lose what little respect he has in the eyes of the Burmese, who already spend their time jeering at and trying to humiliate him, because he is a representative of the hated British empire. Rather than put up with that and allow the empire to look weak, he does what he loathes in killing an innocent animal.

This is his "denying Christ" moment in which he does not live up to his better self. He does not do the right thing. He loses the battle with his own integrity. This resembles the moment in Orwell's 1984 when Winston betrays Julia to save himself.

Orwell tells this story to show how corrupt systems of power can turn good-hearted people into the doers of evil. He doesn't expect individuals to stand up heroically at all times to evil systems and do the right thing: that is, practically speaking, impossible. Instead, he implies that systems themselves ought to be changed to make it easier for people to be good.