Shooting An Elephant
As I was reading "Shooting An Elephant" by George Orwell, I loved the way he described his surroundings and the events that took place. His description of the people and how they acted toward him gave me a better glimpse of what he was really going through. He described the people of Burma as being "evil-spirited little beasts." I also loved the way he used symbolism in the beginning to kind of throw the reader off a little bit, but in the end he just comes flat out
At the end of the story, he had no choice but to shoot the elephant because he didn't want to look like a fool in front of people who hated him. Through most of the essay he gives little hints like when he always said, "I did not want to kill the elephant", to let the reader know that killing the elephant was wrong. I also liked the way he dragged out the death of the elephant, because it gave me a clearer perspective of how big his guilt was at this time and of how worried he beginning to be. In general I like this story because it shows the reader how evil imperialism is, and how low people will go to try and find little loop holes just to make themselves feel better because they know they have done something wrong. He uses the elephant to symbolize his own guilt. I think he uses such a large animal because in the end his guilt was so big that he needed an alibi, and this alibi was legal so he wouldn't get in trouble and it also made him feel better. Of course he could have used like a fox or a bear, but no, he uses a gigantic animal like an elephant.
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