2/12/2024 0 Comments Plot outline shooting elephants![]() ![]() Next Section Metaphors and Similes Previous Section Part Two Summary and Analysis Buy Study Guide How To Cite in MLA Format Lynch, Molly. When we see him shooting the elephant, we are seeing the same demonstration of force the British imperialists use over the Burmese people. In the way that "the white man" or British officers in Burma must rely on force, and specifically on torture, to have the upper hand of the Burmese people, so Orwell must fall back on an unnatural use of force to demonstrate his power over the elephant. In the way that the elephant runs amok, and is impossible to contain without violence, the Burmese defiance of British rule is a constant, making itself known by jeers and humiliation. Orwell shows the Burmese people as having a particular power over their colonizers that expresses itself in the form of ridicule. The rampaging elephant is easy to read as a symbol of Burmese society: unwieldy, untethered and ultimately impossible to subdue. Nonetheless, we see how precarious that dynamic is when we see Orwell forced to perform his authority for the massive, unwieldy Burmese crowd. The British police hold the whip the Burmese people submit. The beaten flesh of the Burmese prisoner represents the power structure at play in the broader essay. ![]() This image has a symbolic function that resonates through the essay. The tortured body (symbol)Įarly in the essay we see an image of a naked, scarred buttocks of a prisoner. The policeman, in this way, upholds the image of the authority that it represents. If he fails, the British imperial project will be shown to fail. The people expect him to demonstrate this authority. When he goes to shoot the elephant, he does so as a police officer representing British colonial authority. He explains this in clear terms in the essay: the Burmese people at once despise him, ridicule him and expect him to perform on behalf of the empire that he symbolizes. The policeman (symbol)Īs a police officer, Orwell's presence holds symbolic power within Burmese society. This scene reflects the nature of colonial power of Burmese society: the British are incapable of ultimately fulfilling the punitive end of their project in Burma. Orwell puts multiple bullets into the elephant, but in the end he has to leave to bleed to death. On top of this, shooting the elephant does not kill the elephant just as policing Burmese society does not put them under the colonizer's control. ![]() This feeling represents the guilt of attempting to commandeer an entire culture and society. Orwell feels that it's wrong to kill such a large and wild animal. The actual shooting of the elephant works as an allegory for the British colonial project in Burma. The act of shooting the elephant (allegory) The crowd doesn't reflect a physical threat, however, so much as the threat of delegitimization and humiliation. As a motif, the crowd reflects the eyes of Burmese society, closely observing their colonizers, waiting for a wrong move. The large crowd appears and reappears in the essay, looming over Orwell as he self-consciously faces the elephant and prepares to shoot it. ![]()
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