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“Shooting an Elephant” Chapter 12 Essays in English “Shooting an Elephant” George Orwell Sehjae Chun During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes arevolutionaryact. If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics - a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage - surely that proves that you are in the right. 2 Who is George Orwell? Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist and journalist. His work is marked by clarity, intelligence and wit, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and belief in democratic socialism. Considered perhaps the 20th century's best chronicler of English culture, Orwell wrote literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. He is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945), which together have sold more copies than any two books by any other 20th-century author. His book Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, is widely acclaimed, as are his numerous essays on politics, literature, language and culture. Orwell's work continues to influence popular and political culture, and the term Orwellian—descriptive of totalitarian or authoritarian social practices—has entered the vernacular with several of his neologisms, such as doublethink, thoughtcrime, and thoughtpolice. 3 Life of George Orwell (1903-1950) 1903 born in Motihari, Bihar, British India 1917-1921 studied at Eton 1922 went to Burma as a member of the Indian Imperial Police 1928 resigned from the Indian Imperial Police 1934 Burmese Days 1945 Animal Farm 1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four 1950 died in London, UK 4 George Orwell’s Time in History 1914-18 World War Ⅰ 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin 1921 T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land 1922 Fascism rises in Europe; Mussolini becomes dictator of Italy 1927 Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse 1928 Yeats, The Tower 1929 Stock market crashes; Great Depression begins 1939-45 World War Ⅱ 1945 First atomic bombs dropped, on Japan 1950-3 Korean War 5 Significance of George Orwell • An established anti-imperialist writer, Orwell promotes the idea that, through imperialism, both conqueror and conquered are destroyed. Orwell clearly states his displeasure with colonial Britain: "I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing... I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British.“ • The narrator's conscience plagues him greatly as he finds himself trapped between the "hatred of the empire [he] served" and his "rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to made [his] job impossible.“ He claims that he is "all for the Burmese and all against the British." and goes on to say that "feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism. Imperialism One of the most influential ideologies of imperialism came in response to the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin as adapted by Herbert Spencer, known as social Darwinism. Christianity and the Missionary Enterprise “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” Collecting cultures The Literature of Imperialism Jane Austen (1775–1817), the Bronte sisters, Charlotte (1816–1855) and Emily (1818–1848), and Charles Dickens (1812–1870) Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) By the early twentieth century, deep ambivalence characterized modern European writers who confronted the dehumanization of imperialism but were themselves caught in its web. Key Passages 7 I had halted on the road. As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him. It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant — it is comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery — and obviously one ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided. And at that distance, peacefully eating, the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow. I thought then and I think now that his attack of ‘must’ was already passing off; in which case he would merely wander harmlessly about until the mahout came back and caught him. Moreover, I did not in the least want to shoot him. I decided that I would watch him for a little while to make sure that he did not turn savage again, and then go home. 8 And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd — seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the ‘natives’, and so in every crisis he has got to do what the ‘natives’ expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing — no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man's life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at. 9 I fired a third time. That was the shot that did for him. You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant of strength from his legs. But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skyward like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first and only time. And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay. 10 Writing Topic Orwell describes acting against his better judgement “solely to avoid looking like a fool.” Have you ever done anything you believed to be wrong in order to save face, to avoid looking like a fool? Describe an experience and what it led you to understand about yourself and about the pressure to save face. 11.
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