I remember that it was a cloudy, stuffy morning at the beginning of the rains. We began questioning the people as to where the elephant had gone and, as usual, failed to get any definite information. That is invariably the case in the East; a story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes. Some of the people said that the elephant had gone in one direction, some said that he had gone in another, some professed not even to have heard of any elephant.
I had almost made up my mind that the whole story was a pack of lies, when we heard yells a little distance away. Go away this instant! Some more women followed, clicking their tongues and exclaiming; evidently there was something that the children ought not to have seen.
He was an Indian, a black Dravidian coolie, almost naked, and he could not have been dead many minutes. The people said that the elephant had come suddenly upon him round the corner of the hut, caught him with its trunk, put its foot on his back and ground him into the earth. This was the rainy season and the ground was soft, and his face had scored a trench a foot deep and a couple of yards long.
He was lying on his belly with arms crucified and head sharply twisted to one side. His face was coated with mud, the eyes wide open, the teeth bared and grinning with an expression of unendurable agony. Never tell me, by the way, that the dead look peaceful. Most of the corpses I have seen looked devilish. I had already sent back the pony, not wanting it to go mad with fright and throw me if it smelt the elephant.
The orderly came back in a few minutes with a rifle and five cartridges, and meanwhile some Burmans had arrived and told us that the elephant was in the paddy fields below, only a few hundred yards away. As I started forward practically the whole population of the quarter flocked out of the houses and followed me. They had seen the rifle and were all shouting excitedly that I was going to shoot the elephant.
They had not shown much interest in the elephant when he was merely ravaging their homes, but it was different now that he was going to be shot. It was a bit of fun to them, as it would be to an English crowd; besides they wanted the meat. It made me vaguely uneasy. I had no intention of shooting the elephant — I had merely sent for the rifle to defend myself if necessary — and it is always unnerving to have a crowd following you.
I marched down the hill, looking and feeling a fool, with the rifle over my shoulder and an ever-growing army of people jostling at my heels. At the bottom, when you got away from the huts, there was a metalled road and beyond that a miry waste of paddy fields a thousand yards across, not yet ploughed but soggy from the first rains and dotted with coarse grass. The elephant was standing eight yards from the road, his left side towards us. He was tearing up bunches of grass, beating them against his knees to clean them and stuffing them into his mouth.
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. 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. But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me. It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute.
It blocked the road for a long distance on either side. I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the garish clothes-faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant was going to be shot. They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. 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. 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. 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. But I did not want to shoot the elephant. Write your answer Related questions. What started the conflict between he man and the elephant in the gentlemen of he jungle? What is the cause of extinction of the elephant? What may cause elephant extinction? Why did Zeus feel hatred by Ares? When was Cause for Conflict created? Is zionism the cause of the conflict between Israel and Palestine? What are the problems with a multi ethnic society? What was the cause of conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans?
Why does religion cause so much conflict? Why are African elephant? Why are African Elephant endangered? What typical situations may cause conflict with other adults? What qualities of Darry and ponyboy cause them to conflict? What is the common cause of conflict?
What is the root cause of ethnic conflict in Rwanda? Why was the hatred of others important to the Nazis? Can conflict be healthy in a relationship? What is the cause of the conflict over kashmir? What is the most common cause of conflict? What was the cause of conflict in Mesopotamia? His description of the tortured bodies of prisoners in their cells illustrates in physical terms what he refers to when he speaks of the British Empire's dirty work.
In simple language he states that he is against the empire, and for the people of Burma. He hates the regime that he represents as a policeman and whose mandate he furthermore enforces. This fear of ridicule is the central motivation that drives Orwell through the story. Humiliation is an entirely psychic injury, unlike most other forms of injury. Nothing is lost from humiliation apart from personal pride. While Orwell may theoretically be opposed to his position as a police officer in Burmese society, he is driven to uphold it out of fear of ridicule.
When he hears of the elephant rampaging through the bazaar, he feels compelled to show his face, and demonstrate his responsibility. Upon arriving on the scene and seeing a man dead, he sends for an elephant rifle. But as he explains, this isn't out of some deeper sense of responsibility; it's simply to defend himself. The Question and Answer section for Shooting an Elephant is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.
Why does Orwell hate his job in Shooting an Elephant? Orwell hates his job because he doesn't believe that the British empire should be involved in Burma. How does the narrator feel about British empire based on his experiences?
It contains all the information you need to formulate an answer to your question. The speaker never offers his name. Why does the author make this choice? From the start, we are well aware that the author is narrating the story in the first person. This is Orwell's story
0コメント