In the passages How to Tell a True War Story by Tim O’Brien and Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell, there are many similarities and differences between the two passages, but the differences exceed the similarities. While both sections talk about a shooter, human death, and animal death; they differentiate in the shooters motives, pacing, and narration structure. Just as How to Tell a True War Story has the death of Curt Lemon, Shooting an Elephant also has the death of the coolie. In Tim O’Brien’s story, Curt Lemon is killed by a boobytrapped bomb in which O’Brien leads himself to believe is the sunlight. The passage goes on to describe the events leading up to Lemon’s death and how O’Brien believes that Curt Lemon would have thought the sunlight killed him and not the 105-round, “It was not the sunlight.
Have you ever had a strong negative attitude towards a person that everything about them seems bad? In Rudyard Kipling’s novella, The Man Who Would Be King, this is exactly what he was doing. The novella is a story about imperialism in the British Empire and how it impacted its citizens and countries they conquered. Kipling portrayed his negative attitude toward the British Empire through the use of figurative language and diction. The Man Who Would Be King is a depiction of Kipling’s experience with the British Empire when he was growing up in India.
Kipling starts his short story “The Mark of the Beast” with an Indian native proverb that inquires which Gods of two opponents would be the stronger one. The tension evoked here is visible throughout the whole narrative, creating a rather spooky, mysterious atmosphere. Set in India during British Empire the tale tells the story of Fleete, a British landowner, who in a drunk state pollutes a temple statue of the Hindu god Hanuman; an act that provokes the resentment of the natives and even leads to physical violence on the part of a leprosy sickened, referred to as Silver Man. After this encounter, and physical contact with the Silver Man Fleete slowly transforms into a wolf. The process is however ceased by his friend Strickland and another companion who kidnap the Silver Man and torture him until he touches Fleete and thus, seems to break the curse.
In the year 1936, an essay entitled “Shooting an Elephant” was written by George Orwell in response to British imperialism. Orwell grew up in the imperial system; first his father then he himself worked within the imperial system. The essay was written after Orwell had retired from his job in imperial controlled Burma, and had “committed himself to democratic socialism, which included anti-imperialism philosophy” back in England(Kelly 307). Orwell explains in his essay that imperialism influences the people within its system to leave behind their morals. Orwell’s work within imperialism swayed his original standing on issues he once strongly believed in.
Like all Indians, who are obsessed (A colonial legacy, probably) with the outsider’s gaze he is stimulated to think-about his country and society by the imminent arrival of a foreigner and an important one. So he talks about himself and his country in the solitude of his room. However The White Tiger, Magnus Opus, attempts to highlight the issue of subalterns and their miserable conditions before the world audience. Adiga explains why Balram Halwai writes to the Chinese premier. Balram acknowledges “The future of the world lies with the yellow man and the brown man now that our erstwhile master, the white skinned man has wasted himself through buggery, mobile phone usage and drug abuseand he admires “It said that you Chinese are great lovers of freedom and individual liberty.
Burmese Days by George Orwell is a historical fiction novel centered around Flory, an englishman living in Burma during the 1920s. Being under British rule during this time period, Burma is an interesting place in which the few englishmen living in the society are highly prioritized and the native Burmese people are looked down upon as savages. In addition, the British colonial government in Burma experiences massive corruption due to poor and unfair leadership. Thus, the novel Burmese Days helps to bring light to the vast political and racial issues in Burma during this time period. In the story, the main character Flory struggles because unlike the other englishmen around him, he finds that he doesn’t share the same hate for the Burmese people.
Several chapters of the novel paint a picture of a harsh aristocracy that shamelessly exploits and maltreats the nation’s public. As the Marquis returns from a meeting with the Monseigneur, he barrels through the streets at break-neck speed. Most of the pedestrians scatter, but the carriage runs over a small child, who happens to be the son of a citizen named Gaspard. The Marquis shows little remorse over the death of the child, instead deciding to toss a small coin into the street for the grieving man. Before he turns to leave, the coin is thrown back into the coach, provoking an outburst from the nobleman.
Furthermore, Tony now becomes verbally abusive, calling Mary a “dumb sap”, yelling at her (“Peddling dope! !”) and punctuating it all with the at least condescending and otherwise insulting nickname “toots”, often used for prostitutes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toots, last checked: 12/10/2014). The next panel zooms in further, clearly showing us Mary’s distressed face. Again, her speech bubble leaves the walls of the panel, breaking into the gutter and into our world, only this time it communicates her extreme distress by being spiked. She is looking right at us.
The Hind Swaraj is a book written by Mohandas Gandhi in 1909 in which he expresses his contempt for modern civilization and by extension colonialism. The book is Gandhi’s fundamental work and lucidly presents his reasons for advocating nonviolence, self-sacrifice, and love in India’s independence movement, as opposed to violence and hate. Gandhi asserts India can gain its independence (Swaraj) only by rejecting modern civilization and its social institutions. He wrote his monograph while traveling from London to South Africa between November 13 and November 22, 1909. In his piece, he illustrates his diagnosis of what plagues contemporary society, its causes, and his solution through a dialogue between two characters, The Reader and the Editor.
In her reaction to the child handling the fruit, a racist undertone is laid down. She refers to the girl’s “monkey fingernails” in the voice of the European coloniser who equates blacks with lack of refinement and with apes. She is mimicking her master. The child responds with deep fear to the mother’s seemingly frivolous comment because it conveys the degree of insidiousness with which the Empire educated the colonial. The mother has obviously internalised a key racist stereotype.