shooting an elephant thesis statement

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’ .

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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

George orwell, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Colonialism

Orwell uses his experience of shooting an elephant as a metaphor for his experience with the institution of colonialism. He writes that the encounter with the elephant gave him insight into “the real motives for which despotic governments act.” Killing the elephant as it peacefully eats grass is indisputably an act of barbarism—one that symbolizes the barbarity of colonialism as a whole. The elephant’s rebelliousness does not justify Orwell’s choice to kill it. Rather, its…

“Shooting an Elephant” is filled with examples of warped power dynamics. Colonialism nearly always entails a small minority of outsiders wielding a disproportionate amount of influence over a larger group of local peoples. This imbalance of power in colonialism seems counterintuitive, and Orwell literalizes the imbalance by showing his ability to kill the elephant singlehandedly. But even this distribution of power is not clear-cut: Orwell and the British colonists do not in fact have absolute…

Orwell’s service in the British Empire places his reasoned principles and his basic intuitions in constant conflict. He recognizes that the empire is tyrannical and abusive, yet he is unable to overcome his visceral contempt for the local villagers who mistreat him. The decisions Orwell makes when confronted with the rogue elephant encapsulate these tensions between his different principles. Orwell could have followed his more humane, ethical impulses and chosen to spare the elephant. However…

Performance

When Orwell stands before the crowd, he likens himself to a performer, rather than a peacekeeper or powerful official. He repeatedly uses metaphorical language to develop this connection. The thousands of gathered Burmese regard him as they would regard “a conjurer about to perform a trick;” he describes how, as he loaded the rifle, “the crowd grew very still, and a deep, low, happy sigh, as of people who see the theatre curtain go up…

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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.

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George Orwell “Shooting An Elephant”: Metaphors and Analysis

• George Orwell “Shooting An Elephant”:…

George Orwell immediately begins the essay by first claiming his perspective on British Imperialism. He claims that it is evil and he is fully against the oppressors, the British.

Though he is a British officer himself at the time in Burma, he feels a certain hatred and guilt towards himself, his empire, and the “evil-spirited little beasts,” the Burma people.

In the essay, he writes not just about his personal experience with the elephant but how metaphorical the experience is to Imperialism and his views on the matter. Orwell’s feelings are the hostile feelings toward the British, Imperialism, and Britain’s justification for their actions in taking over Burma.

The entire mood of the essay is set when Orwell illustrates the setting to be a “cloudy, stuffy morning at the beginnings of the rains.” This in turn sets the tone of Orwell’s speech to be weak and discomforting. He already has established the fact that his character is weak when he introduces the Burma people and how they laugh and mock him, the British officer.

The build-up of finding the elephant is a metaphor itself showing the destructive power of imperialism: the elephant’s rampaging spree destroying homes, food shelves, and even killing a man whom Orwell described to have an expression of unendurable agony. Upon finally finding the elephant, Orwell says “I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him.”

But when he lays eyes at the huge mass of people behind him he changes his stance to “…but I did not want to shoot the elephant.” Orwell then repeatedly states how immoral and guilty it is to shoot the elephant. Despite the many reasons to not shoot the elephant such as how it is worth more alive rather than dead, or how he is a “poor shot,” he ultimately falls into the expectations of the Burma people.

Against his will and moral belief, he decides to kill the elephant. Orwell uses the death of the elephant as another metaphor for British Imperialism in Burma. On a side-note, Burma was a free kingdom until British expansion came in. There were three wars between the British oppressors and the Burmese. There was the first Anglo-Burmese War in 1824, and then the second in 1852.

Finally, the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885 was when the British finally took on total control of Burma. In George Orwell’s essay, he writes “When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick…I fired again into the same spot…I fired a third time. That was the shot that did it for him.” Three wars, three shots. The elephant is a symbol of Burma and its struggle to remain alive.

Finally staying down after the third shot the elephant still lives, just as the Burmese people are still there but with less strength and hope after the wars. They are now controlled by the British. It can also be looked upon that the elephant’s death was a metaphor for the decline of British rule in Burma too and how they slowly went away or died off. There is a sense of guilt Orwell gives when he mentions seeing the elephant laying there “powerless to move and yet powerless to die.”

As some Britians became doubtful of their right to rule others, both sides began to feel hatred, and resentment toward the British Empire. Orwell made himself believe that he was right and it was legal to kill the elephant, by making ideas to justify what he had done, by stating “legally I did the right thing, a mad elephant has to be killed, like a mad dog, if its owner fails to control it.”

Orwell even shows a different light when he admits he is glad the villager was killed in the attack because legally that too justifies what he has done. But still, he knows the truth to be false. The elephant could have been saved without unnecessary harm but Orwell chose the latter.

Orwell uses other metaphors such as when he compares himself to being a magician about to perform a trick, or as being a lead actor in a piece, and even an absurd puppet, a posing dummy, and to be wearing a mask. Holding the “magic rifle” the Burmans of course expected him to kill the elephant. Even being a white man, the authority, it was even more expected.

It is then Orwell claims he realizes the true position of whites in the East and how Imperialism hurts not only the victims but the oppressors. Orwell explains how when the white man turns tyrant it is their own freedom they destroy. Being the white man, Orwell says, they constantly must impress the natives and do what the natives expect of them. The natives have control of the white man. Thus Orwell must complete his role, what is expected of him, and do definite things.

Orwell realizes that throughout his entire rule in Burma he is actually the victim of the Burmese, and it is their expectations of what he should do with his power that force him to do what they want.

Orwell mentioned himself to be like an actor in a play. The Burman crowd behind him, the audience. He uses this image again later on when finally takes aim for the elephant’s head. He describes the feeling to be like theatre curtains finally opening to awaiting spectators. He makes many comparisons that demonstrate his weakness in character. He is a puppet being controlled.

He is forced to wear a mask constantly and play the role of a powerful white man. Orwell gives many small examples that hint at the double-edged sword factor of imperialism and how it is overall bad for everyone. George Orwell uses his personal experience with a moral dilemma to convey to the reader the evils which result from colonial politics and imperialism.

He blends his own personal thoughts and opinion into his story. Numerous times it can be seen he puts his personal commentary on some points in the story such as when he described how a dead man does not look peaceful or even the entire sequence when he contemplated on whether to shoot the elephant or not.

Orwell also uses some connotations and denotations in the essay. For example, he refers to the large crowd of people behind him as “an army of people.” Not only does the army make the reader think of a large crowd but it is military-like and forces Orwell to change his actions. George Orwell’s Shooting An Elephant is a great essay combining personal experience and political opinion.

The transitions he makes between narration and the actual story are so subtle the flow of the essay is easy to read. More than just falling into peer-pressure, Orwell proclaims what a dilemma it is when people expect groups of people to do certain things and do certain actions. Humans can be influenced so easily. And he shows how the influences of Imperialism harm both sides.

Orwell demonstrates this perfectly by turning himself, who is supposed to be the higher power, into the victim! Truly it is a tragedy, Orwell implies, how human beings will do certain things just to “avoid looking a fool.”

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Author:  William Anderson (Schoolworkhelper Editorial Team)

Tutor and Freelance Writer. Science Teacher and Lover of Essays. Article last reviewed: 2022 | St. Rosemary Institution © 2010-2024 | Creative Commons 4.0

thanks very helpful

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84 Shooting an Elephant Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best shooting an elephant topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 most interesting shooting an elephant topics to write about, 👍 good research topics about shooting an elephant, ❓ shooting an elephant essay questions.

• Imperialism in Shooting an Elephant: Symbolism & Themes The story captures the violent reality of colonialism as the narrator unfolds the events of the actual shooting and the description of the slow and painful death of the elephant that seemed peaceful in hands […]
• George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” Short Story The first example of the subverted power dynamic is at the very beginning of the story. The writer shows that power comes at a certain price, and in the case of the main character, he […]
• White Man and British Imperialism: “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell In the essay, Orwell realizes that he must shoot the elephant because as a representative of the British imperialism in the small town, not doing so would have shown the British Empire to be a […]
• Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant From the Perspective of Kolb’s Four-Stages As soon as the main hero resorts to action, the learning model forms a combination of active experimentation and concrete experience that guides the officer to the end of the story, with slight reference to […]
• “Shooting an Elephant” by G. Orwell Review Orwell uses the details surrounding the shooting of the elephant to bring out the sarcasm of imperialism, and the vulnerability of the imperialists to the otherwise primitive locals that they purported to rule over and […]
• “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell However, his job required him to support the imperialist rule and even as he knew the reasons for the British occupation, he also knows that by treating the people the way they did, the Brits […]
• Society’s Self-Reflection: “Shooting an Elephant” and “The Real Story of Ah Q” This paper endeavors to highlight some similarities and differences especially in the aims and the writing style of these two authors. The aim of these two pieces is to portray societies as notorious for curtailing […]
• “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift and “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell In case of the abovementioned Swift’s work it is the problem of poverty and other social problems of Ireland of the 18th century.
• “Shooting the Elephant” a Story by George Orwell The young narrator takes note of the fact that a tamed elephant is a revered asset in the country because it helps natives perform many difficult tasks.
• Hills Like White Elephants and Shooting an Elephant The validity of this suggestion can be well illustrated, in regards to the fact that, throughout his conversation with Jig, the American never ceased exhibiting the signs of being thoroughly arrogant.
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• Why Did Orwell Decide to Shoot the Elephant at Last?
• What ConflIct Was Orwell “Stuck” in Before the Incident With the Elephant in “Shooting an Elephant”?
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• What Is Orwell’s Attitude to Imperialism as Revealed in the First Two Paragraphs of “Shooting an Elephant”?
• What Is the Irony of “Shooting an Elephant”?
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• What Is the Purpose of the Short Story “Shooting an Elephant”?
• How Does George Orwell See the Real Nature of Imperialism in “Shooting an Elephant”?
• What Is the Main Point of “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell?
• What Is the Climax of “Shooting an Elephant”?
• Is George Orwell a Character in “Shooting an Elephant”?
• Why Is There No Dialogue in “Shooting an Elephant”?
• What Reasons Does Orwell Give for the Shooting of the Elephant in “Shooting an Elephant”?
• How Many Gun Shots Are There in “Shooting an Elephant”?
• Who Is the Main Character in “Shooting an Elephant”?
• How Was Orwell Treated by the Local Burmese in “Shooting an Elephant”?
• What Is the Meaning of “When the White Man Turns Tyrant” in “Shooting an Elephant”?
• What Is the Paradox in “Shooting an Elephant”?
• How Does the Burmese Crowd React When They See Orwell Approach the Elephant With His Rifle in “Shooting an Elephant”?
• What Rhetorical Devices Are Used in “Shooting an Elephant”?
• What Is the Burmese Attitude Towards Imperialism in “Shooting an Elephant”?
• What Did Orwell Learn About Himself and About Imperialism Through the Incident in “Shooting an Elephant”?
• Why Didn’t the Narrator Want to Shoot the Elephant?
• Why Does the Narrator Hesitate to Kill the Elephant in “Shooting an Elephant”?
• What Is Orwell’s Message in “Shooting an Elephant”?
• What Does the Slow Death of the Elephant in “Shooting an Elephant” Symbolize?
• How Would You Describe George Orwell’s Feelings About Killing the Elephant in “Shooting an Elephant”?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, December 11). 84 Shooting an Elephant Essay Topic Ideas & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/shooting-an-elephant-essay-examples/

"84 Shooting an Elephant Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." IvyPanda , 11 Dec. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/shooting-an-elephant-essay-examples/.

IvyPanda . (2023) '84 Shooting an Elephant Essay Topic Ideas & Examples'. 11 December.

IvyPanda . 2023. "84 Shooting an Elephant Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." December 11, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/shooting-an-elephant-essay-examples/.

1. IvyPanda . "84 Shooting an Elephant Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." December 11, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/shooting-an-elephant-essay-examples/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "84 Shooting an Elephant Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." December 11, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/shooting-an-elephant-essay-examples/.

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“Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell

In “Shooting an Elephant,” author George Orwell finds himself in a position of authority as an Indian community encounters a rampaging elephant.

Click on the link to view the essay:  “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell

As you are reading, identify the following:

• The “situation”
• The “complications”
• The “lesson” the author learned from the experience
• Provided by : Lumen Learning. Located at : http://lumenlearning.com/ . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Table of Contents

Instructor Resources (Access Requires Login)

• Overview of Instructor Resources

An Overview of the Writing Process

• Introduction to the Writing Process
• Introduction to Writing
• Your Role as a Learner
• What is an Essay?
• Reading to Write
• Defining the Writing Process
• Videos: Prewriting Techniques
• Thesis Statements
• Organizing an Essay
• Creating Paragraphs
• Conclusions
• Editing and Proofreading
• Matters of Grammar, Mechanics, and Style
• Peer Review Checklist
• Comparative Chart of Writing Strategies

Using Sources

• Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Avoiding Plagiarism
• Formatting the Works Cited Page (MLA)
• Citing Paraphrases and Summaries (APA)
• APA Citation Style, 6th edition: General Style Guidelines

Definition Essay

• Definitional Argument Essay
• How to Write a Definition Essay
• Critical Thinking
• Video: Thesis Explained
• Effective Thesis Statements
• Student Sample: Definition Essay

Narrative Essay

• Introduction to Narrative Essay
• Student Sample: Narrative Essay
• "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell
• "Sixty-nine Cents" by Gary Shteyngart
• Video: The Danger of a Single Story
• How to Write an Annotation
• How to Write a Summary
• Writing for Success: Narration

Illustration/Example Essay

• Introduction to Illustration/Example Essay
• "She's Your Basic L.O.L. in N.A.D" by Perri Klass
• "April & Paris" by David Sedaris
• Writing for Success: Illustration/Example
• Student Sample: Illustration/Example Essay

Compare/Contrast Essay

• Introduction to Compare/Contrast Essay
• "Disability" by Nancy Mairs
• "Friending, Ancient or Otherwise" by Alex Wright
• "A South African Storm" by Allison Howard
• Writing for Success: Compare/Contrast
• Student Sample: Compare/Contrast Essay

Cause-and-Effect Essay

• Introduction to Cause-and-Effect Essay
• "Cultural Baggage" by Barbara Ehrenreich
• "Women in Science" by K.C. Cole
• Writing for Success: Cause and Effect
• Student Sample: Cause-and-Effect Essay

Argument Essay

• Introduction to Argument Essay
• Rogerian Argument
• "The Case Against Torture," by Alisa Soloman
• "The Case for Torture" by Michael Levin
• How to Write a Summary by Paraphrasing Source Material
• Writing for Success: Argument
• Student Sample: Argument Essay
• Grammar/Mechanics Mini-lessons
• Mini-lesson: Subjects and Verbs, Irregular Verbs, Subject Verb Agreement
• Mini-lesson: Sentence Types
• Mini-lesson: Fragments I
• Mini-lesson: Run-ons and Comma Splices I
• Mini-lesson: Comma Usage
• Mini-lesson: Parallelism
• Mini-lesson: The Apostrophe
• Mini-lesson: Capital Letters
• Grammar Practice - Interactive Quizzes
• De Copia - Demonstration of the Variety of Language
• Style Exercise: Voice

Elephant Executions

At the height of circus animal acts in the late nineteenth century, animals who killed their captors might be publicly executed for their “crimes.”

A criminal guilty of killing several men is brought before an eager crowd to be hanged, electrocuted, strangled, or shot. In the late nineteenth century, historian Amy Louise Wood writes, this scene played out repeatedly. The criminals in question were circus elephants .

At this time, Wood writes, circuses were big business in the United States. Some had more than two dozen elephants. To audiences, elephants were fascinating partly because of their intelligence, long memories, and attachment to each other, and partly because they were viewed as exotic and dangerous—much like the colonized people of the Asian and African continents from which elephants hailed.

Under the strain of confinement and brutal treatment, it was fairly common for the animals to “go mad” and kill or injure their keepers. Earlier in the century, these kinds of incidents were handled either by shooting the animal immediately or by selling them to another circus or zoo.

This approach changed after an 1883 incident in which an elephant named Pilot went out of control during a performance and was pursued and shot. Newspapers reported breathlessly on the incident. Two years later, Albert, a star of the Barnum and Bailey Circus , killed his keeper. Aware of the public fascination over Pilot’s death, the circus conducted a public execution by firing squad before an audience of 2,000.

This version of animal crime-and-punishment emerged at a time when most US states had ended the public executions of human criminals—against the wishes of many Americans who wanted the satisfaction of seeing violent state retribution for themselves.

“In this context, elephant executions could act as a satisfying outlet for these desires,” Wood writes.

Electrocutions of elephants in particular offered a curious public a window into what killing a human in the same fashion behind closed doors might look like.

In 1894, when an elephant named Tip killed several men and continued to threaten others, the New York Times reported that a “jury” of park commissioners “tried and convicted him,” leading to execution by poisoning. In other cases, circus officials claimed that they were attempting to deter other elephants from lives of crime by having the miscreant strangled in front of them.

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Wood writes that discussions of killer elephants mirrored shifting attitudes toward human criminals. On one hand, some accounts described the animals as “monstrous” or “demonic.” On the other, some argued that their behavior was the result of mistreatment. As with human killers, the public might sympathize with the criminal’s difficult circumstances while also demanding retributive violence.

Reformers sometimes stopped public executions of elephants out of the same concerns that had prompted the end of their human counterparts. The president of the Illinois Humane Society objected not to the planned 1896 electrocution of Gypsy the Elephant itself but to staging the event as entertainment—which he called “barbarous,” “revolting,” and “not conducive to public morals.”

By the early 1900s, elephant executions were mostly a thing of the past, though they continued sporadically in small southern and midwestern towns through the 1920s.

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