George Orwell Shooting An Elephant Summary

It always seems as if life turns out to be much easier when people model their lives after the expectations of any kind of majority. George Orwell’s experience in Shooting an Elephant suggests that this isn’t always the case. In the essay, Orwell happens to be the police officer that gets tasked to re-gain control of a rampaging elephant that is destroying Moulmein, Burma. Orwell soon learns that the elephant is merely going through a period of “must” and is hesitant to kill the elephant. Orwell eventually kills the elephant with his special rifle after he was baited into doing the action by a large crowd of residents. While Orwell may have had good intentions, it was clear that he wasn’t going to stick to those initial plans. The imperial

Orwell makes it very clear that he never planned on killing the elephant, yet he decides to bring a rifle that’s capable of harming the elephant. Orwell backs up his decision by claiming that he “had no intention of shooting the elephant—I had merely sent for the rifle to defend myself if necessary” (326). But from the crowd’s perspective, they never noticed an officer who was trying to complete his task in a peaceful manner. All they saw was a police officer chasing after an elephant with his rifle, and to them it seemed as if Orwell wanted the elephant to die. Orwell was quick to notice that “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.” (326). By that point it was too late for Orwell to do anything as the crowd had arrived and was ready to watch Orwell kill the elephant. Orwell knew what he truly wanted to do, but also knew that he would upset the crowd if he let the elephant live. To make matters worse, the crowd wouldn’t leave him alone and even used his rifle as a tool to bait him into following their commands. With all of the pressure that was built up in his body, he decides to obey the crowd and kills the