Discussion Topic
Thesis of "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell
Summary:
George Orwell's essay "Shooting an Elephant" explores the moral and ethical dilemmas of imperialism, highlighting its corrupting influence on both the oppressor and the oppressed. The central thesis is that imperialism destroys the freedom of the imperialists themselves, as seen when Orwell, a colonial policeman, feels compelled to shoot an elephant to maintain authority and avoid appearing foolish. The essay underscores the destructive impact of colonial rule on personal morality and the inevitable conflicts arising from cultural clashes and power imbalances.
What is the thesis of "Shooting an Elephant"?
If you consider the thesis of Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" to be directly stated, you probably want to point to a sentence in paragraph seven:
...when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.
In the essay , Orwell describes how he lost the ability to act morally. The elephant appeared to have already passed out of "must," and did not, at that moment, need to be destroyed. Faced with the mob, however, Orwell cannot afford to buck the mentality of that mob. The mob is waiting for some excitement and entertainment, and he cannot afford to disappoint its members. As Orwell describes the scene, the fact that he is surrounded by locals is emphasized, and this highlights the overwhelming numbers of people that must be controlled by a relatively few British. Orwell cannot afford to show any sign of weakness. Thus,...
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he feels, he is forced to kill the elephant. He loses his freedom to act morally.
If the thesis is implied, rather than directly stated, then it deals with a similar but more detailed thought. Based on the description of the locals, we see that they, too, have been changed by imperialism. The Buddhist monks, for instance, seemed to have nothing "to do except stand on street corners and jeer at Europeans," according to Orwell. If the thesis is implied, therefore, it deals with the idea that both the colonizers and the colonized are negatively changed by imperialism. Imperialism comes at a cost to both imperialists and their victims.
There are multiple themes in "Shooting an Elephant," but the one that is perhaps the most central to Orwell's purpose is the fundamental moral corruption of imperialism. This is portrayed in the act of shooting the elephant. The Burmese people despise the narrator, because he represents the violence and arrogance of the metropole. He does not especially like them either, though he says he is "theoretically" and "secretly" all for them. When the elephant storms through bazaar, accidently killing a man, the natives demand that the narrator, a colonial policeman, shoot the elephant. This places him in a situation that highlights the corrupting influence of imperialism. He does not want to kill the animal, which has by that point calmed down, but he recognizes that to placate the crowd, he must do so. In other words, he must behave in the violent fashion that the crowd associates with imperialism:
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, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the ‘natives’, and so in every crisis he has got to do what the ‘natives’ expect of him.
This paradox is the point Orwell is trying to drive home, and it points to the basic corruption of European imperial rule.
References
"Shooting an Elephant" is a thought-provoking essay which has a number of interesting topics that can be further developed.
One idea is to look at the nature and function of British imperialism. Consider, for example, how Britain came to build its empire and how it took control of Burma, specifically. As Orwell's essay argues, the British often mistreated the Burmese, as we learn in the second paragraph, when he describes the "wretched prisoners" who have been "Bogged with bamboo." Using this as a starting point, research this darker side of imperialism and find out how the British used violence to subjugate and control the native population.
Another topic idea is to focus on Orwell himself. As we learn in the text, Orwell very much hated his job. He had already decided, for instance, that "imperialism was an evil thing," but believing himself to be "young and ill-educated," he stayed in Burma for five years (from 1922-1927). Write a biographical essay in which you find out what prompted Orwell to finally give up his job and what he did next. Did his experience in Burma surface in any of his later writings?
The main conflicts in "Shooting An Elephant" revolve around a colonial policeman in British governed Burma. He has a great deal of difficulty with the people he must protect. He believes that they harbor a resentment and a distinct prejudice towards him.
This resentment is built around the fact that the British treat their colonized subjects as inferior, a fact that disturbs the policeman greatly.
One of the conflicts arises from prejudice and tolerance
"The colonial policeman has a duty towards the job, towards the empire, and this in turn requires treating the locals as inferiors."
Which leads to understanding the conflict of culture clash between the British rulers and the native people.
"The first is the ethical difference setting the narrator, as a representative of the West, apart from the native Burmese, who belong to the local village-culture and live in a pre-industrial world from which the West itself has long since emerged."
The narrator has a conflict of conscience.
"The narrator's moral conscience appears in the moment when the corpse of the Burmese crushed by the elephant comes to his attention; the narrator says that the man lay sprawled in a crucified posture,"
The last conflict comes from the action of order and disorder. The elephant escaping is a sign of disorder, the policeman is a representative of order.
"which is why Orwell’s narrator cannot avoid the unpleasant duty of shooting the elephant."
This story is about so many things: power, colonialism, the individual vs. society, cultural differences, and inhumane treatment of animals to name a few. This was written during a time that the power of Britain was falling apart all over the world and many of the colonies they had held for so long were regaining their independence. There are issues there, as well. The Burmese simply don't like or respect the "invaders".
In his essay "Shooting an Elephant," Orwell examines the effects of imperialism on the imperialist. A representative of the British government, the narrator has authority in Burma that he must uphold, and he feels uncomfortable in doing this. Indeed, he feels inadequate. When he is called upon to shoot the elephant, he must fire the gun again and again, while he knows he is doing something cruel. He must save face, however. Although he only brought the rifle to defend himself, the pressure of the crowd--what they expect from him as part of the British Raj--compels him to shoot. The last sentence carries the irony of the experience: "I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool." In condemning himself, he shows the "trickle-down" effect of the immorality of imperialism.
What is the thesis of George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant"?
Essays present theses. Narrative essays--describing a personal experience or a personally witnessed event--contain theses; they have a purpose and make a point. The thesis in Orwell's narrative essay "Shooting an Elephant" is complex and goes far beyond being a statement of anti-imperialism or a statement of violently ambiguous personal emotions. Orwell's thesis can be paraphrased as stating that imperialism tears apart and out the heart and soul of both peoples--the oppressors' heart and soul and the oppressed's--and is well encapsulated in the following long quotation that both ends his background introduction (necessary to establish time, place and mood) and leads into the heart of his narration:
All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible. With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest's guts. Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty.
First: Some say that narrative essays ought not to have an introduction. However, in a narrative essay like this one, framing the background to establish setting and mood is critical: the suspenseful and emotional impact of the conclusion (of the point) would be weaker--less gripping--without the orientation to how, where, when and why.
Second: In the quotation above, Orwell (born Eric A. Blair in Mohitari, India, in 1903 to British civil servants) uses a Latin phrase common in religious choral music: in saecula saeculorum, which is a Latin colloquialism (idiomatic expression) that gives the sense of "unto ages of ages." Orwell uses this religious expression to show that, with part of his mind (with "one part of my mind"), he views British imperialism as immutable, as everlasting, as something existing "unto ages of ages," ironically while not even knowing "that the British Empire [was] dying."
Third: The feelings Orwell means in "[f]eelings like these" are all the sets of feelings he is torn by. One feeling is that he hates the empire he serves. Another feeling is that the British Empire is tantamount to a holy thing (as suggested by the religious allusion to in saecula saeculorum) without beginning or end, lasting "unto ages of ages." Imagine the inner conflict from hating that which is felt to be immutable.
Another feeling is that he favors the Burmese impulse toward daily protest of "anti-European feeling" against British occupation: "Theoretically — and secretly, of course — I was all for the Burmese." Another feeling is that he bitterly hates his job in the British police: "I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear." His feeling here is paralleled to the Burmese hatred of 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....
References
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.