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Imperialism In Shooting An Elephant, By George Orwell

2036 Words9 Pages

“Shooting an Elephant” is an essay by George Orwell, where Orwell is speaking to the British population about their imperial government and how it is hurtful, harsh and inefficient to all. This story is the central focus from which the author builds his argument through the two dominant character, the elephant and its executioner. In this essay, the elephant and the British officer help prove that imperialism is a double-edge sword. The story concerns a colonial officer’s obligation to shoot an elephant. The narrator does not want to shoot the elephant but feels forced by a crowd of an innumerable residents, before whom he does not wish to appear undecided. The situation of the narrator is universally undignified. In other hand “Salvation” …show more content…

In both the stories, the lead characters did not want to do what they did eventually. They did not do that from their heart but rather were forced to do so either to maintain faith in people and prove that he was doing good for the people, in the first essay or to avoid taking a lot of time and avoid being ashamed of oneself in the second essay. In both the essays, the leading characters seems to be protagonist with good heart however the situation that was created forced them to kill the elephant in the first essay and to lie in the second one. In “Shooting and Elephant” he did not want to upset the Burmans and in “Salvation” he did not want to upset his aunt.

The scenario of the events and the nature of conflicts of the essays were different. In “shooting an Elephant”, story of a soldier who did not like the oppression the Europeans were doing on Burmans, is portrayed however in “salvation”, the story of a boy being taken to church for some holy deeds is portrayed. Though the conflicts are similar, in the first one it lead the character to kill the elephant which is rather more violent act than in the second case of lying to his

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