The Price of Hubris

The Price of Hubris

Based on George Orwell’s experience as a imperialistic British police officer, “Shooting an Elephant” was set in Lower Burma. Orwell has already begun to question the presence of the British in the Far East. He says that, secretly, he was “all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British.” The natives resent the British’s being there, as would any people subjected to foreign rule. They ridicule the British from a distance, and mock them whenever an opportunity presents itself. In turn, many of the the British dislike the natives. And so, there is constant tension between the occupier and the occupied. Definition of Irony.

Orwell’s job is to respond to a report of the death of a local man who was killed by an elephant in musth. Orwell finds the man “lying on his belly with arms crucified and head sharply twisted to the side.” The corpse grins with “an expression of unendurable agony.” By now, Orwell feels pressured by the crowd to shoot the elephant, but Orwell has no intention of shooting the elephant. So he performs a little test, to see if the elephant would attack if he got closer to it. Of course it didn’t, but the pressure of the crowd behind him told him that he would have to kill the elephant. So, Orwell unleashes a barrage of bullets into the elephant- just to save face. Orwell caves in to peer pressure because he shot the elephant.

Orwell says, ". . . I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible." Although he is all for the Burmese he cannot take their constant ridicule, and is caught between a rock and a hard place. Helping to oppress the Burmese causes him to hate his job "more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear." Though he also wants the acceptance of his imperialist peers. Upon finding that a “coolie” was killed by the elephant, Orwell trades his .44 rifle for a much larger gun. Though it was simply for...