summary of shooting an elephant essay

A Summary and Analysis of George Orwell’s ‘Shooting an Elephant’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Shooting an Elephant’ is a 1936 essay by George Orwell (1903-50), about his time as a young policeman in Burma, which was then part of the British empire. The essay explores an apparent paradox about the behaviour of Europeans, who supposedly have the power over their colonial subjects.

Before we offer an analysis of Orwell’s essay, it might be worth providing a short summary of ‘Shooting an Elephant’, which you can read here .

Orwell begins by relating some of his memories from his time as a young police officer working in Burma. Although the extent to which the essay is autobiographical has been disputed, we will refer to the narrator as Orwell himself, for ease of reference.

He, like other British and European people in imperial Burma, was held in contempt by the native populace, with Burmese men tripping him up during football matches between the Europeans and Burmans, and the local Buddhist priests loudly insulting their European colonisers on the streets.

Orwell tells us that these experiences instilled in him two things: it confirmed his view, which he had already formed, that imperialism was evil, but it also inspired a hatred of the enmity between the European imperialists and their native subjects. Of course, these two things are related, and Orwell understands why the Buddhist priests hate living under European rule. He is sympathetic towards such a view, but it isn’t pleasant when you yourself are personally the object of ridicule or contempt.

He finds himself caught in the middle between ‘hatred of the empire’ he served and his ‘rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make [his] job impossible’.

The main story which Orwell relates takes place in Moulmein, in Lower Burma. An elephant, one of the tame elephants which the locals own and use, has given its rider or mahout the slip, and has been wreaking havoc throughout the bazaar. It has destroyed a hut, killed a cow, and raided some fruit stalls for food. Orwell picks up his rifle and gets on his pony to go and see what he can do.

He knows the rifle won’t be good enough to kill the elephant, but he hopes that firing the gun might scare the animal. Orwell discovers that the elephant has just trampled a man, a coolie or native labourer, to the ground, killing him. Orwell sends his pony away and calls for an elephant rifle which would be more effective against such a big animal. Going in search of the elephant, Orwell finds it coolly eating some grass, looking as harmless as a cow.

It has calmed down, but by this point a crowd of thousands of local Burmese people has amassed, and is watching Orwell intently. Even though he sees no need to kill the animal now it no longer poses a threat to anyone, he realises that the locals expect him to dispatch it, and he will lose ‘face’ – both personally and as an imperial representative – if he does not do what the crowd expects.

So he shoots the elephant from a safe distance, marvelling at how long the animal takes to die. He acknowledges at the end of the essay that he only shot the elephant because he did not wish to look like a fool.

‘Shooting an Elephant’ is obviously about more than Orwell’s killing of the elephant: the whole incident was, he tells us, ‘a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism – the real motives for which despotic governments act.’

The surprise is that despotic governments don’t merely impose their iron boot upon people without caring what their poor subjects think of them, but rather that despots do care about how they are judged and viewed by their subjects.

Among other things, then, ‘Shooting an Elephant’ is about how those in power act when they are aware that they have an audience. It is about how so much of our behaviour is shaped, not by what we want to do, nor even by what we think is the right thing to do, but by what others will think of us .

Orwell confesses that he had spent his whole life trying to avoid being laughed at, and this is one of his key motivations when dealing with the elephant: not to invite ridicule or laughter from the Burmese people watching him.

To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing – no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man’s life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at.

Note how ‘my whole life’ immediately widens to ‘every white man’s life in the East’: this is not just Orwell’s psychology but the psychology of every imperial agent. Orwell goes on to imagine what grisly death he would face if he shot the elephant and missed, and he was trampled like the hapless coolie the elephant had killed: ‘And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do.’

The stiff upper lip of this final phrase is British imperialism personified. Being trampled to death by the elephant might be something that Orwell could live with (as it were); but being laughed at? And, worse still, laughed at by the ‘natives’? Unthinkable …

And from this point, Orwell extrapolates his own experience to consider the colonial experience at large: the white European may think he is in charge of his colonial subjects, but ironically – even paradoxically – the coloniser loses his own freedom when he takes it upon himself to subjugate and rule another people:

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. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.

So, at the heart of ‘Shooting an Elephant’ are two intriguing paradoxes: imperial rulers and despots actually care deeply about how their colonised subjects view them (even if they don’t care about those subjects), and the one who colonises loses his own freedom when he takes away the freedom of his colonial subjects, because he is forced to play the role of the ‘sahib’ or gentleman, setting an example for the ‘natives’, and, indeed, ‘trying to impress’ them. He is the alien in their land, which helps to explain this second paradox, but the first is more elusive.

However, even this paradox is perhaps explicable. As Orwell says, aware of the absurdity of the scene: ‘Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd – seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind.’

The Burmese natives are the ones with the real power in this scene, both because they are the natives and because they outnumber the lone policeman, by several thousand to one. He may have a gun, but they have the numbers. He is performing for a crowd, and the most powerful elephant gun in the world wouldn’t be enough to give him power over the situation.

There is a certain inevitability conveyed by Orwell’s clever repetitions (‘I did not in the least want to shoot him … They had seen the rifle and were all shouting excitedly that I was going to shoot the elephant … I had no intention of shooting the elephant … I did not in the least want to shoot him … But I did not want to shoot the elephant’), which show how the idea of shooting the elephant gradually becomes apparent to the young Orwell.

These repetitions also convey how powerless he feels over what is happening, even though he acknowledges it to be unjust (when the elephant no longer poses a threat to anyone) as well as financially wasteful (Orwell also draws attention to the pragmatic fact that the elephant while alive is worth around a hundred pounds, whereas his tusks would only fetch around five pounds).

But he does it anyway, in an act that is purely for show, and which goes against his own will and instinct.

Discover more about Orwell’s non-fiction with our analysis of his ‘A Hanging’ , our discussion of his essay on political language , and our thoughts on his autobiographical essay, ‘Why I Write’ .

8 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of George Orwell’s ‘Shooting an Elephant’”

Absolutely fascinating and very though provoking. Thank you.

Thanks, Caroline! Very kind

One biographer claimed that the incident never took place and is pure fiction created to make the points you mention. Is there any proof that it actually happened ?

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Circuses – it still goes on, tragically. https://robinsaikia.org/2021/04/04/elephants-in-venice-1954/

Hmm now I make another connection here. A degree of the hypocrisy of human society. In a sense, the Burmese were ‘owned’ by their imperial masters – personified by Orwell – but the Elephant was owned by the Burmese. the Burmese hate Orwell for being the imperialist and yet they expect him to shoot their elephant who is itself forced into a role it clearly didn’t like. I know it is all very post-modernist to consider things from a non-human point of view, but there seems a very obvious mirroring here.

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• Shooting an Elephant

Read our complete notes on the essay “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell. Our notes cover Shooting an Elephant summary and detailed analysis.

Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell Summary

The narrator of the essay starts with describing the hate he is confronted with in a town in Burma. He says that he is a sub-divisional police officer and is hated by the locals in “aimless, petty kind of way”. He also confesses to being on the wrong side of the history as he explains the inhuman tortures of the British Raj on the local prisoners.

After describing his conditions, he starts telling a story of a fine morning which he considers as “enlightening”. He is told on the phone about an elephant which has shattered his fetters and gone mad, intimidating the localities and causing destructions. The mahout i.e. went in the incorrect way searching for the elephant and now is almost twelve hour’s journey away. The Burmese are unable to stop the elephant as no one in their whole population has a gun or any other weapon and seems to be quite helpless in front of the merciless elephant.

After the phone call, Orwell goes out to search the elephant. While asking in the neighborhood for where they have last sighted the elephant, he suddenly hears yells from a little distance away and immediately follows it.  Going towards the elephant he finds a dead labor around the corner lying in the mud, being a victim of the elephant’s brutality. After seeing the dead labor, he sends orderly to bring him a gun that should be strong enough to kill an elephant.

In the meanwhile, Orwell is informed by the local people about the location of the elephant that was in the paddy field. After seeing the gun in Orwell’s hand, a large number of local people start following him, even those who were previously uninterested in the incident. All of them are only interested and getting excited about the shooting of the elephant. In the field, Orwell sees the elephant calmly gazing and decided not to kill it as it would be wrong to kill such a peaceful creature and to kill it will be like abolishing ‘a huge and costly piece of machinery’.

However, when he gazes back at the mob behind, it has expanded to a thousand and is still expanding, supposing him to fire the elephant. To them, Orwell is like a magician and is tasked with amusing them. By the first thought, he realizes that he is unable to resist the crowd’s wish to kill the elephant and the right price of white westerner’s takeover of the Position is white gentlemen’s independence. He seems to be a kind of “puppet” that is guaranteed to fulfill their subject’s expectancy.

Consequently, Orwell decides to shoot the elephant or in another case, the crowd will laugh at him, which was intolerable to him. At first, he thinks to see the response of the elephant after slightly approaching it, however, it seems dangerous and would make the crowd laugh at him which was utterly humiliating for him. To avoid undesirable awkwardness, he has to kill the elephant. He pointed the gun at the brain of the elephant and fires.

As Orwell fires, the crowd breaks out in anticipation. Being hit by the shot, the elephant bends towards its lap and starts dribbling. Orwell fires the second shot, the elephant appears worse but doesn’t die. As he fires the final gunshot, the elephant shouts it out and falls, fast-moving in the field where he was placed. The elephant is still alive while Orwell shot him more and more but it seems to him that it has no effect on it. The elephant seems to be in great agony and is “helpless to live yet helpless to die”. Orwell, being unable to see the elephant to suffer, go away from the sight. He later heard that the elephant took almost half an hour to pass away and villagers take the meal off its bone shortly after its death.

Orwell’s killing of the monster remained a huge controversy. The owner of the elephant stayed heated, but then again as he was Indian, he has no legal alternative. The aged old people agreed with the Orwell’s killing of the elephant but for the younger one, it appears to be unsuitable to murder an elephant as it killed a coolie– a manual labor. For them, the life of an elephant was additional worth than a life of a coolie. On the one hand, Orwell thinks that he is fortunate that the monster murdered a coolie as it will give his act a lawful clarification while on the other hand, he wonders that anyone among his companions would assume that he murdered the elephant just not to look a fool.

Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell Literary Analysis

About the author:.

George Orwell was one of the most prominent writers of the twentieth century who was well-known for his essays, novels, and articles. His works were most of the times focused on social and political issues. His work is prominent among his contemporary writers because he changed the minds of people regarding the poor. His subject matters are; the miseries of the poor, their oppression by the elite class, and the ills of the British colonialism.

Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell is a satirical essay on the British Imperialism.

The story is a first-person narrative in which the narrator describes his confused state of mind and his inability to decide and act without hesitation. The narrator is a symbol of British colonialism in Burma who, through a window to his thoughts, allegorically gives us an insight into the conflicting ideals of the system.

The essay is embedded with powerful imagery and metaphors. The tone of the essay is not static as it changes from a sadistic tone to a comic tone from time to time. The elephant in the story is the representation of the true inner self of the narrator. He has to kill it against his will in order to maintain the artificial persona he has to bear as a ruler.

The narrator has a sort of hatred for almost all the people that surround him. He hates the Burmese and calls them “evil spirited beasts”, he hates his job, he hates his superiors, he hates British colonialism and even hates himself sometimes for not being able to act according to his will.

On the surface, the essay is a narration of an everyday incident in a town but represents a very grave picture on a deeper level. Orwell satirizes the inhumane behavior of the colonizers towards the colonized and does so very efficiently by using the metaphor of the elephant.

The metaphor of the elephant can be interpreted in many ways. The elephant can also be considered to stand for the job of the narrator which has created a havoc in his life (as the elephant has created in the town). The narrator wants to get rid of it through any possible way and is ready to do anything to put an end to this misery. Also, the elephant is powerful and so is the narrator because of his position but both of them are puppets in the hands of their masters. Plus, they both are creating miseries in the lives of the locals.

Yet another interpretation of this metaphor can be that the elephant symbolizes the local colonized people. The colonizers are ready to kill any local who revolts against their rule just as the narrator kills the elephant which has defied the orders of its master.

Shooting an Elephant Main Themes

Following is the major theme of the essay Shooting an Elephant.

Ills of British Imperialism:

George Orwell, in the narrative essay Shooting an Elephant, expresses his feelings towards British imperialism. The British Raj did not care for anything but for their own material wealth and their ruling personas. The rulers were ready to take the life of any local who dared to stand or speak against their oppression. This behavior of the rulers made the locals full of hatred and mistrust. Therefore, a big gap was created between the colonizers and the colonized which was bad for both of them.

This theme strikes the reader throughout the essay. For instance, the narrator talks about “the dirty work of the empire”. He narrates the conditions of the prisoners in cells who are tortured in an inhumane way. This shows the behavior of the British Raj towards those who dared to stand against their oppression.

The narrator also uses bad adjectives for the locals like “yellow-faced” and even expresses his wish to kill one of them. He does on purpose i.e. to reflect on the point that the colonizers considered the colonizing low humans or probably lower than humans.

More From George Orwell

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Shooting an Elephant

George orwell, everything you need for every book you read..

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on George Orwell's Shooting an Elephant . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Shooting an Elephant: Introduction

Shooting an elephant: plot summary, shooting an elephant: detailed summary & analysis, shooting an elephant: themes, shooting an elephant: quotes, shooting an elephant: characters, shooting an elephant: symbols, shooting an elephant: theme wheel, brief biography of george orwell.

Historical Context of Shooting an Elephant

Other books related to shooting an elephant.

• Full Title: "Shooting an Elephant"
• When Written: Uncertain; Orwell served as a police officer in the British Raj from 1922 to 1927.
• Where Written: Uncertain; Burma or England.
• When Published: 1936, in New Writing
• Literary Period: Interwar
• Genre: Autobiographical short story
• Setting: Moulmein, Burma (modern-day Myanmar)
• Climax: Orwell’s execution of the elephant and its prolonged, agonizing death.
• Antagonist: Imperialism
• Point of View: Limited first-person narrator

Extra Credit for Shooting an Elephant

Timber! In Burma, trained elephants still play a unique and vital role in the logging industry, where they are used to move heavy pieces of wood.

Rebel. Unsurprisingly, Orwell never fully conformed to British notions of imperial propriety. While working as a police officer in Burma, he received knuckle tattoos typically worn by Burmese locals.

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Shooting An Elephant Essay Summary By George Orwell

Essay by George Orwell called “Shooting an Elephant” was originally printed in 1936. Orwell’s firsthand experiences as a British imperial police officer in Burma (now Myanmar) while Burma was a British colony are reflected in the essay. In the article, Orwell describes a situation in which he had to shoot an elephant that had run amok and was wreaking devastation in a village.

Shooting an Elephant Essay Summary By George Orwell- The article examines imperialism, power, and the ethical difficulties that those in positions of authority must grapple with. Orwell starts his essay by discussing the repressive character of British colonial authority in Burma and the locals’ animosity towards their colonial overlords. He describes how the Burmese people frequently resented him as a police officer.

Shooting an Elephant Essay Summary By George Orwell- Orwell learning of an elephant’s escape from its owner and rampage through a bazaar is the main event that drives the essay. Orwell first has no plans to shoot the elephant, but he eventually feels driven to do so because of pressure from the locals who want him to assert his authority. 

He understands that he must kill the elephant in order to protect his reputation as an imperial commander and to stop the mob from making fun of him.

Also Read:-

• Discuss the theme of the individual versus society in George Orwell’s Animal Farm
• Discuss the theme of power in George Orwell’s Animal Farm

Shooting an Elephant Essay Summary By George Orwell- Orwell talks about his moral problem and internal strife. Although he is aware that the elephant is no longer dangerous and could be easily captured, he nevertheless feels the need to shoot it in order to meet the expectations of the Burmese people. He understands the injustice of the circumstance and the folly of colonialism, where the colonisers are compelled to behave contrary to their own morals in order to maintain the oppressive system.

Shooting an Elephant Essay Summary By George Orwell- Orwell kills the elephant in the end, but not without feeling intense shame and regret. He muses on how damaging imperialism is and how it dehumanises both those who are colonised and those who are colonisers. The killing of the elephant is a metaphor for the cruel deeds carried out in the name of colonial power.

Also Read:- Gorge Orwell’s Biography and Works

Shooting an Elephant Essay Summary By George Orwell- “Shooting an Elephant” is a potent indictment of imperialism that also examines the ethical dilemmas that those who are subject to oppressive institutions must deal with. 

The complexity of power and the loss of personal agency in such circumstances are better understood thanks to Orwell’s personal experience. Due to the essay’s analysis of imperialism, morality, and the human cost of empire, it is still researched and discussed extensively.

Shooting an Elephant Essay Summary By George Orwell- George Orwell, born Eric Arthur Blair on June 25, 1903, and died on January 21, 1950, was an influential British writer and journalist. He is best known for his dystopian novels “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and “Animal Farm,” which have become literary classics and continue to be widely studied and discussed.

Shooting an Elephant Essay Summary By George Orwell- Orwell was born in Motihari, Bihar, India, during the time when it was part of British India. He later moved to England with his family and attended schools there. Orwell’s experiences as a colonial police officer in Burma (now Myanmar) deeply influenced his writing, particularly his views on imperialism and oppression.

Orwell’s works often explore themes such as totalitarianism, social injustice, political corruption, and the dangers of authoritarianism. His writing style is characterized by clarity, directness, and a commitment to truth-telling. Orwell believed in the power of language and its potential to shape and manipulate public opinion.

Shooting an Elephant Essay Summary By George Orwell- In addition to his novels, Orwell wrote numerous essays, articles, and journalistic pieces, addressing a wide range of social and political issues of his time. Some of his notable essays include “Shooting an Elephant,” “Politics and the English Language,” and “A Hanging.” Orwell’s non-fiction works reflect his deep concern for social justice and his commitment to exposing the abuses of power.

George Orwell’s contributions to literature and his insightful social and political commentary have had a lasting impact. His works continue to resonate with readers, inspiring critical thinking and raising important questions about the nature of power, truth, and the individual’s role in society.

Table of Contents

George Orwell’s essay “Shooting an Elephant” offers a thought-provoking exploration of the moral dilemmas and internal conflicts faced by individuals in positions of authority within oppressive systems. Through his personal experiences as a British imperial police officer in Burma, Orwell exposes the injustices and absurdities of colonialism.

Shooting an Elephant Essay Summary By George Orwell- The essay highlights the oppressive nature of British rule in Burma and the resentment it generated among the local population. Orwell’s decision to shoot the rogue elephant becomes a metaphor for the larger dynamics of power and control at play in colonial societies.

 He grapples with the expectations imposed upon him as an imperial officer and the clash between his personal morality and the demands of his role.

Shooting an Elephant Essay Summary By George Orwell- Orwell’s realization of the dehumanizing effects of imperialism extends beyond the colonized to the colonizers themselves. The act of shooting the elephant symbolizes the moral compromises forced upon individuals within oppressive systems and the erosion of their humanity.

Shooting an Elephant Essay Summary By George Orwell- “Shooting an Elephant” remains relevant and impactful today, as it encourages reflection on the abuse of power, the ethics of authority, and the consequences of acquiescing to societal expectations. Orwell’s essay continues to serve as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked imperialism and the moral compromises it entails.

Q: When was “Shooting an Elephant” published? 

A: “Shooting an Elephant” was first published in 1936.

Q: What is the main theme of “Shooting an Elephant”? 

A: The main themes of “Shooting an Elephant” include imperialism, power dynamics, moral dilemmas, the dehumanizing effects of oppression, and the clash between personal morality and societal expectations.

Q: What does the shooting of the elephant symbolize in the essay? 

A: The shooting of the elephant symbolizes the destructive and oppressive nature of imperialism, the moral compromises forced upon individuals within oppressive systems, and the loss of humanity endured by both the colonized and the colonizers.

Q: Why does Orwell shoot the elephant? 

A: Orwell shoots the elephant primarily due to the pressure from the local crowd and the expectations placed upon him as an imperial officer. He feels compelled to maintain his authority and avoid being ridiculed by the Burmese people.

Q: What is the significance of the essay “Shooting an Elephant”? 

A: “Shooting an Elephant” is significant for its critique of imperialism, its exploration of moral dilemmas faced by individuals in positions of authority, and its examination of the dehumanizing effects of oppressive systems. It remains a powerful and thought-provoking piece of literature that raises questions about power, ethics, and the consequences of colonialism.

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Shooting An Elephant George Orwell Summary

In Shooting an Elephant, George Orwell discusses the time he was stationed in Burma as a police officer and was ordered to shoot an elephant that had gone “mad.” He wrestles with the decision, knowing that if he doesn’t shoot the elephant, he will be seen as weak and would lose the respect of his peers. However, if he does shoot the elephant, he will have killed an innocent creature.

In the end, Orwell shoots the elephant. He describes the feeling of relief that comes over him after carrying out the order. This essay is a powerful commentary on imperialism and the power dynamics between colonizers and colonized people. It also underscores the difficulty of making ethical decisions in difficult situations.

George Orwell’s ‘Shooting an Elephant’ is a 1936 essay that describes his experience as a young policeman in Burma while it was still part of the British empire. The essay explores an apparent paradox about European behaviour: they supposedly have control over their colonial servants, yet they use it to bully them.

The Europeans, Orwell writes, often find themselves in a difficult and humiliating position. Orwell tells the story of an incident when he was asked to shoot an escaped elephant. He found the experience a great burden and he struggled with the decision to pull the trigger. The people of Burma expected him to kill the elephant because it had caused damage and could be dangerous. However, Orwell found that he could not go through with it. In the end, he ordered his men to shoot the elephant but only after he had left the scene.

The essay explores the idea that there is a fundamental difference between how Europeans see themselves and how they are seen by others. The Europeans tend to see themselves as superior beings who can use their power for good. However, the people of the colonies see them as weak and ineffective.

The Europeans often find themselves in a no-win situation. Shooting the elephant was an act of mercy but it was also seen as an act of cowardice. Orwell wrestles with these competing ideas and ultimately concludes that there is no simple answer.

The essay is based on Orwell’s own experiences as a policeman in Burma and it provides a unique insight into the attitudes of the British towards their colonial subjects. It is one of Orwell’s most famous essays and it has been reprinted in many collections of his work.

“Shooting an Elephant,” by George Orwell, is a novella about moral ambiguity. The main themes of the story include conscience, cultural clash, and order and disorder. Conscience: In his killing of the elephant and his treatment of the Burmese people in the essay, colonial law contrasts with the narrator’s conscientiousness.

Culture Clash: The narrator wrestles with the conflict between his role as a representative of British imperial power and his personal feelings about the Burmese people. Order and Disorder: Shooting an Elephant represents the struggle between order and disorder, specifically colonial rule and the natives’ desire for self-governance.

Besides these themes, “Shooting an Elephant” also contains rich details about life in British-controlled Burma. The narrator tells us about the climate, the food, the customs, and the way of life for both British colonists and Burmese natives. In doing so, he provides a detailed picture of this period in history.

Shooting an Elephant is a personal essay by George Orwell, first published in 1936. The essay describes the experience of Orwell, a British colonial policeman, when he was ordered to shoot an elephant that had gone “mad” and was causing damage. Orwell’s decision to shoot the elephant reveals his discomfort with the imperialism and colonialism of which he was a part.

The essay is also a meditation on the nature of power and the fear of death. It has been hailed as one of the most important pieces of political writing from the early 20th century. In 2000, Shooting an Elephant was selected for inclusion in the list of 100 best English-language essays written since 1923 by TIME magazine.

Orwell begins “Shooting an Elephant” by describing the situation in which he found himself as a British imperial policeman in Burma. A large elephant had gone “mad” and was damaging property. The elephant’s mahout, or handler, pleaded with Orwell to shoot the animal, and Orwell found himself in the difficult position of having to either shoot the elephant or let it live and face the consequences from his superiors.

Elephants are seen to symbolize power and good luck. They’re also associated with health and happiness, as well as spiritual well-being in our daily lives. Elephants are steadfast family members who are brave and protective.

Shooting an elephant is a very significant and weighty event. George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant tells the story of how he was once made to shoot an elephant in Burma. The people of Burma looked up to the British as their protectors, but when Orwell was made to shoot the elephant, he became hated by the people. Shooting an elephant is not a decision that can be taken lightly. It is a huge responsibility and it can have serious consequences.

Orwell Shooting An Elephant Essay Shooting an elephant is not a decision that can be taken lightly. It is a huge responsibility and it can have serious consequences. When George Orwell was living in Burma, he was once made to shoot an elephant that had gone out of control. Although it was a difficult decision, Orwell Shooting an Elephant Essay knew that it was the right thing to do. The people of Burma were looking to him for guidance and he didn’t want to let them down.

In the incident that exposes how imperialism harms both sides in an imperialist relationship, the shooting of the elephant is a symbol for this. Orwell demonstrates many characteristics of being a “absurd puppet” under the regime of imperialism as a British officer.

Shooting the elephant becomes a burden to him, and he wrestles with the morality of the act. Although Orwell is not indigenous to Burma, he is still subject to the expectations of those who are. The people of Burma expected him to kill the elephant, as it had become a problem for them and their village. Shooting the elephant reinforced Orwell’s belief that imperialism does more harm than good.

Orwell’s Shooting An Elephant is an essay based on his experience as a police officer in Burma. The British Empire ruled Burma at this time, and Orwell was part of the occupying force. While stationed in Burma, Orwell encountered a situation where he had to shoot an elephant that was causing damage to local property. At first, Orwell felt that he needed to shoot the elephant because it represented the British Empire and its power. However, as he got closer to the elephant, Orwell began to feel sympathy for the creature.

He realized that the people of Burma were forcing him to shoot the elephant, even though they knew it would cause the animal pain. In the end, Orwell shot the elephant but did not enjoy it. Shooting an elephant is a metaphor for how imperialism hurts both parties involved. The British Empire hurts the people of Burma by forcing them to comply with its rules, and the people of Burma hurt the elephant by making it a target. This essay is a condemnation of imperialism and its effects on those who are subjugated by it.

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Shooting an Elephant

This material remains under copyright in some jurisdictions, including the US, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of  the Orwell Estate . The Orwell Foundation is an independent charity – please consider making a donation or becoming a Friend of the Foundation to help us maintain these resources for readers everywhere. 

In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people – the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me. I was sub-divisional police officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way anti-European feeling was very bitter. No one had the guts to raise a riot, but if a European woman went through the bazaars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over her dress. As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so. When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter. This happened more than once. In the end the sneering yellow faces of young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe distance, got badly on my nerves. The young Buddhist priests were the worst of all. There were several thousands of them in the town and none of them seemed to have anything to do except stand on street corners and jeer at Europeans.

All this was perplexing and upsetting. For at that time I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better. Theoretically – and secretly, of course – I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British. As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear. In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been Bogged with bamboos – all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt. But 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. I did not even know that the British Empire is dying, still less did I know that it is a great deal better than the younger empires that are going to supplant it. 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.

One day something happened which in a roundabout way was enlightening. It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism – the real motives for which despotic governments act. Early one morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of the town rang me up on the phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about it? I did not know what I could do, but I wanted to see what was happening and I got on to a pony and started out. I took my rifle, an old 44 Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be useful in terrorem. Various Burmans stopped me on the way and told me about the elephant’s doings. It was not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tame one which had gone “must.” It had been chained up, as tame elephants always are when their attack of “must” is due, but on the previous night it had broken its chain and escaped. Its mahout, the only person who could manage it when it was in that state, had set out in pursuit, but had taken the wrong direction and was now twelve hours’ journey away, and in the morning the elephant had suddenly reappeared in the town. The Burmese population had no weapons and were quite helpless against it. It had already destroyed somebody’s bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and devoured the stock; also it had met the municipal rubbish van and, when the driver jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon it.

The Burmese sub-inspector and some Indian constables were waiting for me in the quarter where the elephant had been seen. It was a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of squalid bamboo huts, thatched with palmleaf, winding all over a steep hillside. I remember that it was a cloudy, stuffy morning at the beginning of the rains. We began questioning the people as to where the elephant had gone and, as usual, failed to get any definite information. That is invariably the case in the East; a story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes. Some of the people said that the elephant had gone in one direction, some said that he had gone in another, some professed not even to have heard of any elephant. I had almost made up my mind that the whole story was a pack of lies, when we heard yells a little distance away. There was a loud, scandalized cry of “Go away, child! Go away this instant!” and an old woman with a switch in her hand came round the corner of a hut, violently shooing away a crowd of naked children. Some more women followed, clicking their tongues and exclaiming; evidently there was something that the children ought not to have seen. I rounded the hut and saw a man’s dead body sprawling in the mud. He was an Indian, a black Dravidian coolie, almost naked, and he could not have been dead many minutes. The people said that the elephant had come suddenly upon him round the corner of the hut, caught him with its trunk, put its foot on his back and ground him into the earth. This was the rainy season and the ground was soft, and his face had scored a trench a foot deep and a couple of yards long. He was lying on his belly with arms crucified and head sharply twisted to one side. His face was coated with mud, the eyes wide open, the teeth bared and grinning with an expression of unendurable agony. (Never tell me, by the way, that the dead look peaceful. Most of the corpses I have seen looked devilish.) The friction of the great beast’s foot had stripped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins a rabbit. As soon as I saw the dead man I sent an orderly to a friend’s house nearby to borrow an elephant rifle. I had already sent back the pony, not wanting it to go mad with fright and throw me if it smelt the elephant.

The orderly came back in a few minutes with a rifle and five cartridges, and meanwhile some Burmans had arrived and told us that the elephant was in the paddy fields below, only a few hundred yards away. As I started forward practically the whole population of the quarter flocked out of the houses and followed me. They had seen the rifle and were all shouting excitedly that I was going to shoot the elephant. They had not shown much interest in the elephant when he was merely ravaging their homes, but it was different now that he was going to be shot. It was a bit of fun to them, as it would be to an English crowd; besides they wanted the meat. It made me vaguely uneasy. I had no intention of shooting the elephant – I had merely sent for the rifle to defend myself if necessary – and it is always unnerving to have a crowd following you. I marched down the hill, looking and feeling a fool, with the rifle over my shoulder and an ever-growing army of people jostling at my heels. At the bottom, when you got away from the huts, there was a metalled road and beyond that a miry waste of paddy fields a thousand yards across, not yet ploughed but soggy from the first rains and dotted with coarse grass. The elephant was standing eight yards from the road, his left side towards us. He took not the slightest notice of the crowd’s approach. He was tearing up bunches of grass, beating them against his knees to clean them and stuffing them into his mouth.

I had halted on the road. As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him. It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant – it is comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery – and obviously one ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided. And at that distance, peacefully eating, the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow. I thought then and I think now that his attack of “must” was already passing off; in which case he would merely wander harmlessly about until the mahout came back and caught him. Moreover, I did not in the least want to shoot him. I decided that I would watch him for a little while to make sure that he did not turn savage again, and then go home.

But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me. It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute. It blocked the road for a long distance on either side. I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the garish clothes-faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant was going to be shot. They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man’s dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd – seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. 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. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing – no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man’s life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at.

But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him. At that age I was not squeamish about killing animals, but I had never shot an elephant and never wanted to. (Somehow it always seems worse to kill a large animal.) Besides, there was the beast’s owner to be considered. Alive, the elephant was worth at least a hundred pounds; dead, he would only be worth the value of his tusks, five pounds, possibly. But I had got to act quickly. I turned to some experienced-looking Burmans who had been there when we arrived, and asked them how the elephant had been behaving. They all said the same thing: he took no notice of you if you left him alone, but he might charge if you went too close to him.

It was perfectly clear to me what I ought to do. I ought to walk up to within, say, twenty-five yards of the elephant and test his behavior. If he charged, I could shoot; if he took no notice of me, it would be safe to leave him until the mahout came back. But also I knew that I was going to do no such thing. I was a poor shot with a rifle and the ground was soft mud into which one would sink at every step. If the elephant charged and I missed him, I should have about as much chance as a toad under a steam-roller. But even then I was not thinking particularly of my own skin, only of the watchful yellow faces behind. For at that moment, with the crowd watching me, I was not afraid in the ordinary sense, as I would have been if I had been alone. A white man mustn’t be frightened in front of “natives”; and so, in general, he isn’t 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 corpse like that Indian up the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do.

There was only one alternative. I shoved the cartridges into the magazine and lay down on the road to get a better aim. The crowd grew very still, and a deep, low, happy sigh, as of people who see the theatre curtain go up at last, breathed from innumerable throats. They were going to have their bit of fun after all. The rifle was a beautiful German thing with cross-hair sights. I did not then know that in shooting an elephant one would shoot to cut an imaginary bar running from ear-hole to ear-hole. I ought, therefore, as the elephant was sideways on, to have aimed straight at his ear-hole, actually I aimed several inches in front of this, thinking the brain would be further forward.

When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick – one never does when a shot goes home – but I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd. In that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get there, a mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant. He neither stirred nor fell, but every line of his body had altered. He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralysed him without knocking him down. At last, after what seemed a long time – it might have been five seconds, I dare say – he sagged flabbily to his knees. His mouth slobbered. An enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him. One could have imagined him thousands of years old. I fired again into the same spot. At the second shot he did not collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright, with legs sagging and head drooping. I fired a third time. That was the shot that did for him. 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. He trumpeted, for the first and only time. And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay.

I got up. The Burmans were already racing past me across the mud. It was obvious that the elephant would never rise again, but he was not dead. He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and falling. His mouth was wide open – I could see far down into caverns of pale pink throat. I waited a long time for him to die, but his breathing did not weaken. Finally I fired my two remaining shots into the spot where I thought his heart must be. The thick blood welled out of him like red velvet, but still he did not die. His body did not even jerk when the shots hit him, the tortured breathing continued without a pause. 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. I felt that I had got to put an end to that dreadful noise. It seemed dreadful to see the great beast Lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die, and not even to be able to finish him. I sent back for my small rifle and poured shot after shot into his heart and down his throat. They seemed to make no impression. The tortured gasps continued as steadily as the ticking of a clock.

In the end I could not stand it any longer and went away. I heard later that it took him half an hour to die. Burmans were bringing dash and baskets even before I left, and I was told they had stripped his body almost to the bones by the afternoon.

Afterwards, of course, there were endless discussions about the shooting of the elephant. The owner was furious, but he was only an Indian and could do nothing. Besides, legally I had done the right thing, for a mad elephant has to be killed, like a mad dog, if its owner fails to control it. 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 than any damn Coringhee coolie. And afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant. I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.

Published by New Writing , 2, Autumn 1936

This material remains under copyright in some jurisdictions, including the US, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the Orwell Estate .

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Shooting an Elephant

By george orwell, shooting an elephant summary and analysis of part two.

The elephant gun arrives and Orwell heads down to see the elephant. As he goes, he realizes that a massive crowd has mobilized. He attributes their interest to the presence of the gun; they want to see the spectacle of the elephant being shot. Orwell remarks that English people would be the same. The Burmese are also interested, he says, in the elephant meat.

Orwell is led down to some paddy fields below, where the elephant is said to be grazing. The excited crowd follows. Orwell feels unsettled by the attention and the idea of the spectacle that’s being created. He says again that he has no intention of shooting the elephant—again, he merely wants to defend himself.

When he sees the massive and remarkable elephant he is even more certain that he doesn’t have any inclination to kill it. The elephant is down in the paddy field grazing, entirely oblivious to the crowd. Orwell analyzes his instinct not to kill the elephant, explaining that the animal is like an elaborate piece of “machinery” and the idea of taking it down is antithetical to his instincts (33). It seems wrong. He analyzes this rationale and considers his resolve as he observes the elephant grazing and looking entirely harmless. He plans to leave it.

But as he turns back he sees that the crowd has grown exponentially. There are now at least two thousand people watching, eagerly waiting for him to shoot the elephant. He describes the feeling of their collective will bearing down on him. He realizes that he has no choice but to shoot the elephant. He feels an obligation to perform for these people.

In explicit terms he describes a revelation that he has about “the hollowness, the futility of the white man’s dominion in the east” (33). He stands with the gun as though he’s the one with power, yet he is entirely swayed by the will of the crowd. He realizes that everything he’s doing and everything “the white man” does in the east, is a performance for them, the colonized people. If he acts as a tyrant, he is, he states, the one who loses his freedom. He becomes a “puppet,” performing power and in that way, “trying to impress the ‘natives’” (33). He will let them down and they will see through his act if he doesn’t follow through with shooting the elephant. Most importantly though, he will give them cause to laugh at him, and as he says, his “whole life, every white man’s life in the East, [is] one long struggle not to be laughed at” (33).

Despite this immense pressure, Orwell feels a strong visceral aversion to killing the elephant. As he watches it graze on the grasses, he sees a beautiful and “grandmotherly” quality in the elephant (34). To kill it, he says, would seem like murder. He claims that at that age he isn’t squeamish about killing. He realizes that the right thing to do would be to test the animal, to see if it’s still mad. He should approach it and if it gets mad, then he should shoot it. But if it doesn’t, then he should leave it. But the soil is very soft and he’s not a good shot, so he doesn’t trust that he wouldn’t fall back in the mud. Again, the thing that scares him most about that is the humiliation to which he would be subjected by the crowd. If the elephant tramples him into the mud, he’s sure that some of the natives would laugh, “and that would never do,” he says (34).

Instead of doing the right thing, then, he puts the cartridges into the rifle, gets himself onto the ground and takes aim. The rifle has cross-hair sights. He aims for the head.

He pulls the trigger and the crowd erupts with glee as he hits his mark. The elephant stays standing, but it seems to age immensely. Orwell describes this chance that comes over it as a kind of “senility” (34). Slowly the elephant begins to sink down to the earth, onto its knees. He fires again and then the animal slowly rises. He describes every movement and shift of the elephant’s expression. He fires again and though the elephant seems to weaken, he also rises, up onto his hind legs, his trunk flinging up into the sky, before he goes down, trumpeting noisily, and thundering onto the earth.

Orwell goes toward the elephant and so do the Burmans, who are pleased by the spectacle and ready to get the meat. When Orwell reaches the elephant he realizes that it’s still breathing, totally alive. Orwell fires two shots into the area of its heart, but the elephant remains as it is, calmly breathing, though thick blood pours from the wounds. Orwell fires again and again, multiple shots into the heart and down the throat but the elephant doesn’t flinch and it continues breathing.

In the end Orwell cant’ take it anymore and he walks away. He hears later that it took the elephant half an hour to die. The Burmans, he hears, stripped the bones of all the meat.

Back with the other police officers there’s discussion about whether or not it was the right thing to do. The essay closes with the tellingly racist claim of some of the young officers that it’s wrong to kill such a beautiful creature, just because it killed a Burman.

The essay has a strong narrative element that serves to illustrate Orwell’s critique of British Imperialism. While Orwell presents a candid analysis of imperialist behavior, his ideas are also demonstrated through the events of the narrative. Orwell’s analysis of his own experience of shooting an elephant is simultaneously an analysis of colonial power. In realizing that he has to perform for the people, Orwell realizes the performative aspect of the encounter between colonizer and colonized. The pressure that he feels to perform emerges and is revealed as an essential engine of imperialism. What’s most important is that we see that the pressure the colonizer feels to perform comes down to personal discomfort: specifically, the fear of humiliation. In the climax of the narrative we see that Orwell will go against all of his instincts and better judgments and do something that feels entirely wrong by shooting an animal that he describes as “peaceful” and “grandmotherly,” rather than be laughed at or ridiculed in any way by the Burmese crowd. The fear of humiliation, we thus see, is a powerful motivating force in the policing and upholding of the British Empire. Orwell seems to be suggesting that when imperial power is reduced to individual performers (policemen and military rulers, etc.) the fear of ridicule may be the most pervasive and persistent motivators.

In order for the colonizer to maintain their image of power, they must be decisive. Orwell has the rifle in his hands, so now he must use it. If he hesitates or chooses not to shoot, the crowd will see through his performance of dominance, and in that way they will see through the entire charade of British imperial power.

The fear of being laughed at is the most important aspect of Orwell’s personal fear and this, he suggests, goes beyond himself. The crowd, the people on the streets, the Buddhist priests, etc. all have the power to laugh and to ridicule him. This is something they all deploy, something they make use of. This is where Orwell's personal pride becomes, despite his own wishes, entangled in imperial power.

Orwell despises the British Empire and hates its presence in Burma; he says that he’s on the side of the Burmese. Yet he’s compelled to uphold the imperialist image of power. The thing that drives him isn’t some idea of the importance of the British empire; it’s not for the glory of the empire; it’s the simple fear of looking ridiculous. He is driven out of personal pride, and yet this leads him to further a much larger political project, that of upholding the image of British imperial power. Orwell explicitly attributes this same fear of ridicule to all other white men in the East. He deduces an important motive of imperial power to the single actor’s fear of embarrassment.

His aversion to killing the elephant is vital in the story. Though he doesn’t elaborate on it or break it down beyond the one passage, he explains in simple clear terms that he doesn’t want to do it. Orwell’s lack of affect in his language in the part is important. His language is honest: he is going against his will.

Orwell gives substantial attention to his description of the elephant’s death. In clear prose he moves through every stage and detail of the elephant’s motions from the first shot, when it seems to age “a thousand years,” to the moment when it sinks to its knees, to its slow rise on the third shot, that causes it to go up on its hind legs in slow motion. The attention to descriptive detail in this moment speaks to the value that Orwell puts on the elephant’s life and indeed, the impact of its killing. This is the most dramatic part of the essay, seeing the elephant go down. In giving it this attention, we come to feel the inner conflict at work in the essay, a conflict at the heart of imperialism.

Shooting an Elephant Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Shooting an Elephant is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

According to Orwell, he was “hated by large numbers of people” during his time in Burma. Why was he so hated? Support your answer using textual evidence.

Orwell is a policeman, a representative of the British regime and an occupier of Burma: he was the face of oppression and subjugation.

In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people – the only time in my life that I have been...

Dilemma of the Narrator

The narrator's dilemma was whether or not he should shoot the elephant. The elephant, which had recently been ravaging the bazaar and had killed a man in its rampage was now calm. Thus, Orwell, was torn between shooting the animal who was deemed...

Here was i, the white man with his gun,standing in front of the unarmed native crowd seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind . Please line explanation

The power dynamic of the colonizer-colonized is reversed in this instance as Orwell feels himself, not a puppet of the Empire, so much as a puppet of the crowd. It’s them for whom he must perform. In that way, they are the ones with power. This is...

Study Guide for Shooting an Elephant

Shooting an Elephant study guide contains a biography of George Orwell, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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Shooting an Elephant essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell.

• George Orwell: Modernism and Imperialism in "Shooting an Elephant"
• Wibbly, Wobbly, Timey, Wimey Paradoxes: Rhetoric and Contradiction in "Shooting an Elephant"
• Shifting the Gaze from the Colonizer to the Colonized in Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” and Adichie’s “The Headstrong Historian”

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Shooting An Elephant — Summary of ‘Shooting an Elephant’: Imperialism, Power and Morals

Summary of 'Shooting an Elephant': Imperialism, Power and Morals

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Shooting an Elephant

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Authorial Context: George Orwell

Born Eric Blair, George Orwell is most well known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel 1984 (1949). Both critically acclaimed and highly controversial, Orwell made a career being vocal about sociopolitical issues at home in England and abroad. Highly educated and well traveled, as his father was in the British civil service in India, where he was born, Orwell consistently wrote about the abuse of power and his disgust for totalitarianism. He served as an officer in Burma (now Myanmar) between 1922 and 1927, an experience that inspired his first novel, Burmese Days. After years of drafting the novel and being rejected by agents and publishers who feared a case of libel given the controversial subject matter, the novel was published under his pen name in 1934.

After being injured while working as a journalist during World War II, Orwell continued writing, venturing into essays and, of course, publishing the novels that cemented his literary legacy. A 2008 poll ranked Orwell second on a list of the top 50 British authors since 1945, behind only Philip Larkin.

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Related Titles

By George Orwell

George Orwell

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Coming Up for Air

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Homage To Catalonia

Keep the Aspidistra Flying

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Such, Such Were the Joys

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