Commentary on Shooting an Elephant

Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell is an essay which is written during the early 20^th century and is set in India which is under the rule of Britain in this time. Orwell explains throughout his essay his dislike of imperialism and colonial Britain and their control. I think that Orwell is trying to show us how people’s decisions are effected by social influences, such as imperialism. Symbolism and chronology all enhance the meaning of the essay.

The shooting of the elephant is a symbolism to the narrators’ freedom. In the beginning of the essay when the narrator, who I think is Orwell himself, tells the readers about how he thinks “that imperialism was an evil thing” this shows us that he was against Britain and their ways of controlling people. Also for me this shows how Orwell enjoyed his freedom but also how it did not seem to have a lot if it due to his position. The narrator also talks about how the rule of Britain traps people into a system and that he is actually hindered by the all the hatred and rage for the empire he serves in. This reflects his behaviour later on in the essay when he has to make a decision between whether to kill the elephant or not to. He knows that if he does not kill the elephant it will causes problems for the village but at the same time he knows that he does not want to harm the elephant. Regardless of all the moral and ethical reasons to kill and not to kill the elephant he makes a decision because he believes that as a man of power he must control the situation but by doing that I think that he thinks he is surcoming to the rule of Britain and somehow losing his freedom from doing so.

The chronology of this essay matches the central meaning. I think that the story takes place in less than an hour or two and the actual decision of killing the elephant is only a mere second. In the beginning the narrator talks about himself and what he does. Not until the 4^th paragraph does the actually story take place. Once he gets to the village he talks about how he cannot find the elephant and this is written in a away where it seems like a lot of time has passed between the time he arrives to the village until he hears a “loud, scandalized cry of “go away, child! Go away this instant””. Once the narrator sees the elephant from a distance he waits to see if he will come back and ruin the village again. It can be assumed that he waited for a while because he talks about how the crowd of people grew every minute. He plans out what he will do about the situation and it seems like he is taking longer than necessary to kill the elephant. Finally he shoots the elephant and “in that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get there, a mysterious”. The chronology matches the central meaning because in the beginning he was taking a long time to find the elephant or even make up his mind on what to do about it but the pressure of the civilians coming and cheering him on helps him make a decision this matches how in the beginning he had this hatred for imperialism because of all the negative things that he associates with it. As soon as he realizes what he has to do and once he shoots the gun he realizes just as fast as the bullet hit the elephant his freedom was taken away from him become he had let he go to the ways of imperialism.

Overall what George Orwell is trying to say in this essay is that social influences affect people’s decision making and that without the people cheering on the narrator he might have left that elephant alone and not have shoot it but due to the social implications and how he was perceived as an authoritative figure he had to take control of the situation but when he did he realized that he lost some of his freedom and surcomed to imperialism.