Essay Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell Summary and Themes

Eric Arthur Blair, who wrote with the pen name of “George Orwell” was born in 1903 in Bengal, British India. His father was serving in Indian Civil Service and his mother took him back to England after a year or so of his birth. Orwell familiarized with the masculine parent after the retirement of his father from Indian Civil Service when he returned home accompanying the qualities of a white man (sahib) from British India. Orwell started writing from an early age; when he was in school, showing his interest and wit for writing. In late 1921 while he was in school, he cleared the entrance exam for Indian Imperial Police and joined the Burma division in 1922. He stayed in Burma for five years; the years which influenced some of his early writings including the essay under discussion in this paper. It was after serving in Burma that he resolved to adapt writing as a profession.

 

          The themes employed by Orwell aren’t limited but various with a wider scope to encompass the betterment of society and challenges impeding human development. He was an essayist, critic, novelist, and journalist who addressed the cracks in major political ideologies, the flaws in state systems, the troubles in different societies, and provocation of the intelligent minds for correction of the wrongs. He was against totalitarianism, imperialism, colonialism, and after the harsh communist regime of Lenin and Stalin, against communism. He supported democratic socialism and most of his writings revolved around the likes of such kinds of themes. To explore further upon his employment of themes and writing style, his famous essay; “Shooting an Elephant” will be analyzed in the succeeding paragraphs.

The essay is autobiographical and in the form of a story narrated by Orwell when he was a sub-divisional police officer in Moulmein, lower Burma. Right at the beginning of the essay, he talked about the resentment of European culture found in Burmese people who could not express it openly due to the presence of authorities. Although he didn’t like Imperial ways of dealing with Burma, yet he had to maintain the posture of a sahib for holding full control. The theme of alienation is prominent from certain events narrated by the author. The worst of all according to him was the young Buddhist priests, who insulted him by hooting from a safe distance. He further shared his views about the British Imperialism in Burma; as he could see their dirty work vividly while serving in the police, therefore, on one hand, he hated them the most and on the other, he was enraged by the attitude of natives towards him. His heart; full of British resentment, was on the Burmese side and he wished to quit his job as soon as he could find an alternative for earning his livelihood.

 

Further, he narrated an incident; an elephant was gone ‘musth’ (a biological condition in which the elephant gets violent) in the town and it was damaging everything coming it's way. The story is full of symbolism, in which he is the colonizer and the musth elephant representing the colonized. He was called by another police officer for help in controlling the mad elephant. When he inquired about the elephant, people were not sure. The evident chaos from a distance appeared merely a false story because of the uncertain and vague responses of the people. The elephant in his rampage had killed a guy, who was lying dead in the mud and whose picture was presented by the writer highlighting the theme of violence in the colonized land. While he was on the way to the location of the elephant, a crowd of excited people followed him. They wanted the meat and intended to watch the killing of an elephant. The narrator felt uneasy, influenced, and foolish for a whole army of spectators was following him.

 

While almost two thousand people were standing behind his back expecting him to shoot the elephant, the narrator felt sympathy for the poor elephant who was no more dangerous. He under the influence of the might and excitement of the crowd decided to shoot the elephant. At this moment he realized something very important. He said:

“And it was at this moment, …, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man’s dominion in the East.”

 

That was not to be laughed at in any case and behave like a sahib to prove his worth. Just like a sahib he was posing a confident outlook and about to do what the people wished him to do so that to maintain his rule. He called himself an absurd puppet pushed forward by the will of people. He told about how sahibs tend to act in front of the oppressed:

“For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the “natives” … he has got to do what the “natives” expect of him.”

 

He considered that when a sahib turned tyrant towards the people he destroyed his freedom because then he had to act as per the will of the people. He didn’t wish to kill the animal; it was cruel and he had to consider the owner of the elephant as well. While in dialogue with his wit, he lied down and shot the elephant three times before it fell. Burmese stripped the poor creature off his meat and bones within half an hour. The long description of the killing shows the sensitivity of the narrator. 

 

In the last paragraph, the narrator converged all the themes to the conclusion. The owner of the elephant a poor guy got furious but couldn’t do anything because he was an Indian, he was colonized and the colonizer was free to do anything with him and his possessions. Among the Europeans, some thought of his action right as the elephant killed a guy. Others thought that an elephant’s worth was much more than an Indian. Whereas the truth was that the narrator who was isolated amid a crowd, killed it to avoid looking a fool.

This autobiographical essay by George Orwell is commonly accepted as a political text; further strengthened by its stylistic analysis. With the use of figurative language, simple speech, employment of symbolism and enriched with literary devices the essay successfully connects the political scenario of that time with social reality. The lexical analysis also proves the inclination of the ideas in the essay towards the dirty politics of the colonizers in the colony. Orwell has unveiled the inhumane nature of imperialism and criticized the use of force for ensuring command and control in the colonies. The compactness of the narration arises from the consistency of thought, focused action, and figurative plus simple language. All these features of the essay have secured its influential status in the literary canon.

Contributed by, Major Tanveer Shafi