Response to Shooting an Elephant Essay Example for Free

Response to Shooting an Elephant EssayGeorge Orwell, sensation of the most famous slope authors, was born Eric Arthur Blair in Motihari, India, in 1903. His father was a colonial official for the British and his mothers family also had colonial ties. In 1922, Orwell worked as a British violet policeman in Burma for tail fin years but he finally returned to England again because he recognized the injustices of the British imperial feel in Burma and could not suffer the guilt of oppressing the Burmese any more. Later, Orwell spent the next twenty years as a writer the try out Shooting an Elephant, set in the Burma of the 1920s and written in 1936, is one of his most famous works. In the early twentieth century, Burma was still a colony of Britain but anti-imperialism protests and social movements developed very fast, causing great tension between Burmese, Indians and English, between civilians and police (Meyers 56). Orwells essay Shooting an Elephant is based on this histo rical tension. In this essay, Orwell depicts an older vote counter recounting his imperial policemans experience of cleansing an escaped elephant that destroyed a market and killed an Indian man in Burma.Throughout the story, Orwell chooses language overcarefully to develop his narration so as to help the readers explore a boyish imperial policemans emotional struggle. First, Orwell begins his story with frequent use of carefully-chosen diction to luff the tender policemans hatred and also sympathy toward the Burmese. When he describes he was always an apparent target to those Burmese who hated the British Empire, he writes When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, then the crowd yelled with hideous laughter.This happened more than once. In the rest the sneering yellow faces of unripened men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe distance, got mischievously on my nerves . (Orwell 94) Using the strong emotional ledgers hideous, sneering yellow faces, and hooted indicates the new(a) ships officers disgust toward those Burmese. But in the following paragraph his emotions are suddenly described in a more complex way the narrator says, All this was perplexing and upsetting (Orwell 94), which is opposite to the anger and tartness that are suggested by the diction used before.By using these ii words, Orwell changes the young policemans emotional voice to the older narrators more intellectual voice to suggests a more complex feeling about what the young imperial policeman experienced because of his job. In the next sentence, Orwell uses a series of strong phrases to describe what the young police officer observes in his dirty work The miserable prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboosall these oppressed me with an intolerabl e sand of guilt (Orwell 91).From this specific and graphic description of the prison, readers grass perceive the young officers sympathy and guilt toward the suffering Burmese. It makes them realize that the young imperial officer is not totally inhumane. In short, Orwell uses careful diction to create the first emotional struggle of the young officer within his policing duties under imperialism. In the essay, Orwell also uses repeating to show the young narrators complex emotions.For example, after the young officer sees the destruction caused by the elephant and finally finds his target on the paddy field, he mentions more than three generation that he is not allow foring to shoot the elephant. When he sees the crowd following him, he reports, I had no intention of shooting the elephantI had merely sent for the rifle to defend my self if necessary(Orwell 94). After he sees the elephant, he annotates, I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him (Orwell 94). Th en, he starts saying that the elephant was a huge and costly piece of machinery (Orwell 95) and the elephant seemed harmless right now.The young officer continues claiming,I did not in the least want to shoot him (Orwell 95). These all shows the young mans sympathy toward the elephant, but more importantly Orwell builds up a tension here by using three different versions of repetition to show how the young officer was wavering in his correct. For the first quote, no intention somehow indicates the young narrators thinking he seems to be saying, I have no purpose to do that and I am not going to do it. But then in the second quote, he says ought not to instead of no intension of, which contains much more certainty of not killing the elephant.It shows that the young officer knew he should not shoot the elephant, but he certainly felt a drawing card of pressure and his mind was not as firm as in the last statement. In the 3rd statement, the young officers tone is obviously weaker t han the last two I did not in the least want this tone sounds just like a prisoner talking about how he does not want to commit a murder, finishes it saying I didnt want to kill that person. The young officers mind was wavering and he was taking a step forward toward killing the elephant everytime he introduces his different expressions of unwilling to kill the elephant.Orwell uses this repetition not only to show the young officers internal conflict, but also to imply, as a possible result, that the young officer will change his mind from not shooting the elephant to actually doing that. However, under the crowds pressure and his position as an imperial officer, the young police officer has to kill the elephant in order to maintain his maestro figure. Orwell uses the change from the first person to the third person to comment on the young mans revelation. When the young man sees that the Burmese watch him excitedly, he suddenly feels that he should shoot the elephant after all.An d it is because their two grand piano wills were pressing me forward, irresistiblythat I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns despot it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib (Orwell 95). The narration shifts from the first person I to the third person he, indicating not only Orwells comment upon this decision of the young person, but also Orwells main argument in the essay as a imperial officer, a person needs to betray his own good nature in order to maintain his superiority toward the colonized.Then, Orwell uses strong terms again to replay the emergency and tension that the young officer encountered earlier A white man mustnt be frightened in motion of natives and so, in general, he isnt frightened. The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning mud like the Indian up the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do. (Orwell 96)Here, words like sole thought, trampled, reduced to a grinning corpse are used to emphasize the young mans anxiety in shooting the elephant, for he does not want to lose face in front of the natives. This is the remaining emotion occupying his mind at that time even though he still has sympathy toward the elephant, as a imperial officer, he will kill the elephant to protect his conventionalized figure of a sahib. By way of these specific word choices, Orwell describes vividly how the young imperial officers pride finally defeats his good nature so that he can maintain his superior figure.Finally, Orwell ends the story using the young officers fair voice as opposed to the older narrators voice mentioned before to make his narration more believable I was very glad that the coolie which is the Indian killed by the elephant had been killedit gave me a sufficient pretext fo r shooting the elephant (Orwell 99). Readers may feel sympathetic that the young man does not feel iniquitous but happy that he is not responsible for killing the elephant and saving his face or avoiding looking a fool in front of the natives.They may feel pity that the young man is probable to learn nothing from this incident and even to feel lucky that someones death can free him of responsibility for killing the elephant. But this naive voice can increase the old narrators credibility because readers can feel his sincerity he is willing to admit that his younger self really felt a bit lucky that he was out of punishment because of the elephant killing an Indian man at that time.It convinces the reader to believe what the narrator argues at last as an imperial officer, he has to do what the natives expect of him in order to conform to his conventionalized figure of the sahib(Orwell 95), which is to avoid looking a fool(Orwell 99) in front of the natives. Overall, in this essay, Orwell uses effective language to make his narration of the story more impressive and thoughtful, and to explore an imperial officers struggle between his good nature and his imperial role.