Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell - Essay Example

Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell George Orwell is known as one of the major anti-imperialist writers of world literature. His greatest works, such as “1984” or “Animal Farm”, stand in opposition to totalitarianism and social injustice. But on the other hand, Orwell respected “old English values”, and this respect can be seen in his essay “Shooting an Elephant”. This is an interesting fact, since these “old values” are closely connected with British colonialism. His attitude towards colonialism and English values were mixed in this essay. Even despite several obvious quotes from the text, his attitude towards British presence in India is highly ambiguous. Prior to analyzing this essay, it is important to consider several facts. From Orwell’s letters and essays it becomes clear, that he was a great patriot of Britain. India, in the time of his service there, was one of the largest territories owned by Britain, and it was considered as “the jewel in the crown”. Since one of Orwell’s (his real name Eric Blair is not used in this paper to avoid confusion) grandmothers and his aunt lived in Burma, he decided to take this post. It is not known, what initially motivated Orwell to work in Burma in the service of the Empire. Probably, it was the expression of his patriotism. It is known, that he soon came to regret his choice. The time of his service as an imperial policeman was the time of the worst tensions between the British and Burmese since the beginning of British occupation. The people of Burma started demanding independence. Instead of the peaceful, interesting life Orwell expected to discover in the colonies, judging from the images created by writers like Kipling, he came to the country where injustice and hatred were normal. The White Man’s Burden appeared to be not what he had expected to find. As a British policeman, Orwell’s job was to uphold order, which sometimes meant arresting Burmese natives and having them punished. Sometimes, he was even required to manage hangings. Consequently, he developed a negative feeling of being in a country where he was not wanted. It can be seen in “Shooting an Elephant”: “As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so”. Additionally, he hated to perform cruel duties: “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”. Afterwards he used to say that had always hated the imperialism and that possessing absolute power had a negative effect on him. But is it really so? The essay contains a lot of obvious evidence of Orwell’s negative attitude towards imperialism: “…at that time I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing…”, “…I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British…”, “…I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny…”. However, Orwell was a representative of the Empire, and this fact made him hate the Burmese: “…the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest’s guts”. Orwell calls these feelings “by-products of imperialism”. By these words Orwell explains his position, in an attempt to absolve himself and draw a border between his personality and the duties he had to perform. This looks a little hypocritical, considering the following passages. Orwell writes: “I did not want to shoot the elephant… It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him”. The moment of making decision to kill is not described. Orwell says briefly: “I had got to act quickly”. It means that despite all his speculations “want/don’t want”, the decision and plan were already in his head. In fact, it was not obligatory to kill it. There are other measures. But the crowd wanted this elephant dead. The crowd wanted spectacle and food. And Orwell gave them what they wanted, realizing an ancient Roman principle “panem et circenses” (bread and circuses), a good imperial method of controlling the crowd: “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”. Another passage, which demonstrates Orwell’s adherence to imperial values, refers to his behavior and attitude towards the locals: “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”. An excellent evidence of the fact, that Orwell considered himself as the representative of a privileged, stronger, more developed race – the inevitable white man, previously described by Jack London. It looks that there was no moral dilemma at all. Orwell chooses to kill the elephant because he didn’t want to lose his privileged position, since it could ultimately lead to rebellion and his own death: “if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse”. Therefore he makes a quick decision: “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”. Orwell ends this essay with the following sentence: “I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool”. So, not looking a fool for Orwell cost the elephant its life. But several passages earlier he wrote that it was not about looking a fool, but about turning into a grinning corpse. Anyway, it seems that he wanted to preserve his position of white oppressor. In the context of this analysis it is interesting to look at the last passage. Orwell writes that he “was very glad that the coolie had been killed”, because it “put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant”. This phrase suggests that Orwell would have shot the elephant even if the coolie hadn’t been killed. It just made his life easier. It was not even the matter of saving lives of the natives. Moreover, in this sentence Orwell admits that he was not sorry for the coolie, on the contrary – he was glad. It was not the death of a human being, but merely a pretext. Orwell was a representative of the younger generation of the Europeans in Burma. He describes their negative attitude to killing: “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”. Again, the life of man is not taken into account at all. Compared with the attitude of older generation it looks inhumane. It appears that older generation of the English in Burma valued human life more than the life of animal. It appears that the people who were the beginners of colonial policy were more human than those who ended it. Maybe Orwell was one of such writers (e.g. Kipling), who considered imperialism as the white man’s burden, the duty of civilized nations to bring order and civilization to undeveloped countries. At least several passages from “Shooting an Elephant” prove it. At the beginning Orwell wrote: “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”. It is known what happened in India after the Empire left it – several million victims of civil wars, years of terror and bloodshed. Of course, imperialism was doomed, but besides its negative imperialist attributes Orwell could see its positive features, and there is no doubt he was proud to be a white man among the Burmese. He was a real British patriot, after all. Bibliography Orwell, G. “Shooting an Elephant.” Essay Writing for Canadian Students with Readings, 6/E. Ed. Kay L. Stewart, Roger Davis, Chris J. Bullock, Marian E. Allen. Toronto: Pearson Education Canada, 2008. 313-319. Print. Read More