Themes: The Theater of Empire
As the crowd watches him take aim at the elephant, Orwell describes himself as a performer in front of an audience. The people, he says, are staring at him “as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick.” Despite their personal dislike, and their readiness to laugh if Orwell is humiliated, they find him “momentarily worth watching” because he wields a “magic rifle.” He appears to be “the leading actor of the piece” but is really the “puppet” of the crowd. When he loads the rifle, he hears a sigh from the crowd “as of people who see the theatre curtain go up at last.”
These similes and metaphors of performance show that Orwell is as helpless to determine his own fate as a character in a play, for which all the lines have already been written. He is a sahib, one of the ruling class, and “a sahib has got to act like a sahib.” When he considers the alternative to shooting the elephant immediately, walking up to him to test his behavior, he is not frightened at the thought that the elephant might kill him. His concern is that he will fail in a serious dramatic role: if the people in the audience see him looking foolish in his attempts to run away from the elephant, some of them may laugh.
Expert Q&A
In "Shooting an Elephant," what do the qualifiers “and secretly, of course” and “if you can catch him off duty” suggest?
The qualifiers "and secretly, of course" and "if you can catch him off duty" in "Shooting an Elephant" highlight the hidden sympathies and internal conflicts of those working within imperialist systems. Orwell's use of these phrases suggests that while many officials may privately oppose the oppressive regime they serve, they cannot openly express these views due to potential repercussions. This underscores the hypocrisy and moral dilemmas faced by individuals within imperialism.
Symbolism and Significance of the Elephant in Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant"
In George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant," the elephant symbolizes multiple facets of imperialism and its effects. It represents the British Empire's oppressive force and the narrator's internal conflict and shame. The slow, agonizing death of the elephant parallels the suffering of the Burmese people under colonial rule and the narrator's tortured conscience. The elephant's demise also reflects the broader futility and moral corruption inherent in imperialism, affecting both colonizers and the colonized. Overall, the story critiques the destructive nature of colonial power and its impact on all involved.
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