Shooting an Elephant. And Other Essays by George Orwell

Caught between cultures. Schülerbuch. Colonial and postcolonial short stories

Summary of the story:
"Shooting an Elephant" is an essay by George Orwell, written during the autumn of 1936. Orwell tells of shooting an elephant in British-controlled Burma as an Imperial Policeman in 1926.

In Moulmein, the main character and first person narrator is a police officer during a period of intense anti-European sentiment. Although all his sympathies lie with the Burmese, he is obligated to act in his official role as a representative of the oppressive imperial power. As such, he is subjected to constant baiting by the Burmese, especially by the Buddhist monks, whom he calls the "worst of all".

After receiving a call regarding a normally tame elephant's rampage (due probably to the animal coming into 'musth'), the narrator, armed with a .44 caliber Winchester rifle and mounted on a pony, heads to the bazaar where the elephant has been seen. Entering one of the poorest quarters, he receives conflicting reports and contemplates leaving, thinking the incident is a hoax. The narrator then sees a village woman chasing the children who are looking at the corpse of an Indian whom the elephant has trampled and killed. He sends an orderly to bring an elephant rifle and, followed by a crowd of roughly two thousand, heads toward the paddy field where the elephant has stopped to graze.

The narrator originally sent for the elephant gun for his own protection, and when he sees that the elephant is obviously quite docile he knows that he ought not to shoot it. He is aware, however, that the crowd fully expects him to kill the elephant, and realizes that he is, in fact, trapped by the crowd's expectations, and by his own fear of looking foolish. He realizes as well that if one empire enslaves another, it places itself in a position of authority from which it cannot escape. He knows that if he decides to get closer in an attempt to gauge the musth of the elephant and if he has misjudged the animal's mood, his poor rifle skills would assuredly result in his death—perhaps to the delight of the crowd. From this the narrator concludes that he cannot avoid shooting this magnificent animal.

Aiming at his perceived location of the elephant's brain, the narrator fires a shot that brings the elephant to its knees. After another shot, the elephant gains its footing only to be brought down with a third round. The elephant being still alive, the narrator fires two more heavy rounds and then a clip of regular rifle rounds into the beast—all to no avail. Unable to stand the elephant's agony any longer, he leaves the scene, only to learn that it took the elephant a further thirty minutes to die before being stripped of its meat by the crowd. The incident leaves the narrator with a thorough distaste for any form of hunting and a deep realization of his part in the awful machinery of repression.

About the author:
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was a British author and journalist. Noted as a novelist, as a critic and as a political and cultural commentator, Orwell is among the most widely admired English-language essayists of the 20th century. He is best known for two novels critical of fascism, stalinism and totalitarianism written and published towards the end of his life: Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.







Buchdaten:
Shooting an Elephant. And Other Essays by George Orwell
Taschenbuch: 368 Seiten
Verlag: Penguin Books Ltd (UK); Auflage: New Ed (5. Juni 2003)
Sprache: Englisch
ISBN: 0141187395
Preis: € 14,23

Buchdaten:
Caught between cultures. Schülerbuch. Colonial and postcolonial short stories
Broschiert: 240 Seiten
Verlag: Klett; Auflage: 1 (Mai 2005)
Sprache: Englisch
ISBN: 3125775124
Preis: € 8,20