How To Tell A True War Story And Shooting An Elephant By George Orwell

After the death of Curt Lemon, Rat Kiely fails to express his emotions and releases tension through violence. When the baby buffalo, a cultural symbol of Vietnam, refuses to accept Kiely’s advances, Kiely immediately resorts to shooting the animal with the goal of prolonging it’s suffering. O’Brien writes the scene to reflect the tension, “He put the muzzle right up to the mouth and shot the mouth away. Nobody said much”, The focus on Kiely’s aim towards its mouth shows his own need for communication and his continued attack mirrors how Lemon’s body was completely torn apart. In her essay “Truth and Fiction in Tim O’Brien’s If I Die in a Combat Zone and The Things They Carried”, Marilyn Wesley connects Lemon’s death and Kiely’s violent choices, “The horrific aattack on the body of the animal mimics his friend’s fragmentation and evisceration. The biblical motto of vengeance, ‘an eye for an eye’, is literally enacted in a narrative sequence meant to inscribe the sense of just retribution”. In order to gain a sense of control, Kiely take his feelings out through violence. There is no way to rationalize his reaction, just as there is no way to rationalize Lemons death, and the other men have no way to say that it was either right or wrong. He can’t tell the other men because they are all carrying their own trauma, “They were tough. They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing – these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight”. It wouldn’t be fair to make the other soldiers carry his suffering along with their own. Therefore, he takes it out on the animal, trying make it understand his pain without words. However, the violence is only a temporary solution, “Rat Kiley was crying. He tried to say something, but then cradled his

In the book The Things We Carried by Tim O'Brien, he tells the reader stories about his experience in the Vietnam war. He tells stories about before, during and after the war. O’Brien explains his feelings towards the war by hinting it in many of his stories. He uses juxtaposition, diction, irony, metafiction, and repetition. His feelings towards war seem to change, at times he shows the feeling of hatred, in other cases he’ll have the feeling of sorrow and tension, or his tone will go from humorous to solemn in a sentence. In the chapters They things They Carried, Enemies and Friends, How to tell a true War Story, Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong, and Style best explain his feeling towards war.

The power of peer pressure can evidently raise an error in judgement as it allows you to act in a manner to please others before pleasing yourself. Peer-pressure is an influential demonstration of how someone can neglect the morals of themselves in order to please others around them. This dilemma was evident in George Orwell 's “Shooting an Elephant” as the power of peer pressure forced George Orwell to shoot an elephant he originally didn’t want to shoot. Nevertheless, the power of peer pressure forced him to act out the will of others around him. This is an influential demonstration of how peer pressure can make a person neglect their own morals and consciousness just to please those around them. In George Orwell 's short story titled “Shooting an Elephant” presented an event that changed a countries civilization. George’s life in Burma, and the prejudice placed by the people he oppressed inspired his writing through the uses of setting, style, and theme.

“Hunting? Good God, General Zaroff, what you speak of is murder,” exclaimed Sanger Rainsford. Oftentimes, the line between right and wrong is blurred. “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell is a story that discusses the line and how thin it can be drawn. Sanger Rainsford stands on one side of the line and General Zaroff on the other. Through his brave nature, Rainsford drives the book’s theme of sticking to one’s beliefs.

How many times have you read a fact, but never truly connected to it? You probably didn’t have the emotional sense that you would have had if you were to read those facts, but in a story outline. Tim O’Brien expresses his experience in the Vietnam War, not by listing off facts, but by writing a fictional story so the readers can understand and feel the emotional connection.

Subject: The Jungle mainly focuses on poor living conditions for the working class in 20th century Chicago. I learned how corrupt politics in this time period were, how gross the meatpacking industry used to be, and how hard immigrants had it when they came to America. This text is controversial because it gives suggestion that socialism is the better government system. This would split the sides into those for capitalism and those for socialism.

“The pictures get jumbled; you tend to miss a lot… when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed” (O’Brien 318). Stories can reflect one’s lives, repeating unfavorable experiences, which we try to forget or ignore, troubling our mind to misinterpret dismal situations. This is what happens with stories. We try to believe in what benefits us, whether it being emotionally or mentally. War stories tend to have a strong position due to the aggressiveness it conveys, therefore instead of imagining the gruesome reality, we imagine the positivity out of war stories. From the concept of storytelling, the “seemingness” of a story is where the truth really is. First of all the communication between the storyteller and the listener is different, on one side there is the storyteller who delivers the sense of experiences of those who were present in the story. In O’Brien’s case he delivers the experiences soldiers went through during the Vietnam War. O’Brien only knows the truth behind the war: he only provides certain detailing which can be considered truthful. Rather than repressing the harsh events that come to his mind, O’Brien tries to reinvent their meaning not truthfully but at least honestly. The use of

Well known author and journalist, George Orwell, in his essay, Shooting an Elephant, describes his experiences as a Policeman in Moulmein, Burma during European Imperialism. Orwell’s purpose is to convey the ideal that what is right and what is accepted don’t always align. He adopts a remorseful tone in order to convey to the reader the weight of his actions. By looking at George Orwell’s use of imagery and figurative language, one can see his strongly conflicting opinions on Imperialism.

Propaganda is defined as misleading or biased information spread for the advancement of a cause. In the historical fiction novel Animal Farm written by George Orwell farm animals overpower their human leader and attempt to construct a movement in which all animals are equal. Propaganda is evident throughout the story. Not far in it becomes apparent that the pigs are the most intelligent. Squealer, the propaganda agent uses propaganda in the story as a way to manipulate the animals who are not pigs. He makes them believe everything he and the pigs are doing is for the greater good of the whole farm despite the fact that it is not. Squealer controls them in many ways but the strongest or most apparent are telling the other animals Mr. Jones their neglective abusive owner will come back, lying about Boxer the horse’s death, and finally changing the unalterable commandments into one that reads “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”.

Lots of stories are hard to comprehend because they’re more brutal and traumatic for listeners, even the story-teller. In three stories: “The Man I Killed”, “How To Tell A True War Story”, and “Speaking of Courage”, Tim O’Brien showed how changing certain parts of a story and making them graceful, can make them easier to comprehend. However sometimes telling the story the way it was makes it brutal and gruesome, though some listeners prefer that over gracefulness. Telling a true war story can be hard to do, because soldiers are tempted to change some traumatic aspects to make the story easier to comprehend, and not so traumatic for the listener.

“Animal Farm” by George Orwell, is a story to show how absolute power corrupts, just as Stalin’s power did during the Russian Revolution in 1917. In the allegory “Animal Farm” each character represents a political figure from the days around the Russian Revolution. For example, Joseph Stalin is represented by a pig named Napoleon, Squealer, another pig, represents Stalin’s propaganda department, and the dogs represent the Secret Police (KBG). Using the nine dogs that Napoleon raises (intimidation), Squealer (propaganda), and manipulation, Orwell illustrates how Napoleon was able to gain and maintain control of the farm. The nine dogs that stay by Napoleon at all times are useful for Napoleon to gain and maintain control of the farm because they scare the other animals, intimidating them so that they do not disobey Napoleon. Napoleon also uses manipulation to gain and maintain a firm control by changing the Commandments for the farm in ways that work to his benefit. Squealer, Napoleon’s propaganda department, Keeps the farm animals believing in Napoleon by describing what they hear and see to make it seem harmless. Using effective tactics of fear, convincing propaganda, and manipulation, Napoleon gains and maintains control of Animal Farm.

At a young age, parents tend to teach their child right from wrong. They teach you this to become responsible, so when your an adult you do not have to rely on them while making decisions. In George Orwell's Shooting an Elephant, we notice he wanted to do the right thing by not shooting the elephant but gave into peer pressure to fit in. The narrator felt the need he had to shoot the elephant because the people of Burma were frightened and he wanted to be their hero. Peer pressure can lead people to do bad things for what they think are good reasons but are actually not.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (Lord Acton) This quote is telling us that when people get into roles of absolute power they tend to become corrupt, as a result of that power. This quote can be applied to Napoleon from the book Animal Farm by George Orwell, because at the beginning of the novel Old Major’s words inspired Napoleon. As a result, he believed that humans were evil for forcing animals to work for them and that animals should be able to live freely, not under anyone’s control; however, as the story progresses his belief changed and the animals did not get to live their utopian dream.

The story “ Shooting An Elephant” by George Orwell is about a man who lives in Bruma as a police officer. Bruma is under British control and they are not aloud to own guns. Being a British officer, the narrator was aloud to own one at the time. The story is told in first person, as readers learn about a traumatizing experience the narrator had in his past. When the narrator heard the news about an elephant going wild and destroying most of the Burmese homes, he rushed to find the elephant and shoot it. During his journey, he told himself that he would not shoot the elephant. But when he arrived face to face with the large mammal, with thousands of people watching, he shot it multiple times until the elephant fell. Minutes later, he came back with a different weapon brutally killing the elephant.

George Orwell held a unique perspective on Britain’s involvement in Burma. Through his own experiences in Burma, he developed an inner struggle between following orders and opposing imperialism, that he expressed in the story Shooting an Elephant.