shooting an elephant essay or short story

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Shooting an Elephant

This material remains under copyright in some jurisdictions, including the US, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of  the Orwell Estate . The Orwell Foundation is an independent charity – please consider making a donation or becoming a Friend of the Foundation to help us maintain these resources for readers everywhere. 

In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people – the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me. I was sub-divisional police officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way anti-European feeling was very bitter. No one had the guts to raise a riot, but if a European woman went through the bazaars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over her dress. As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so. When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter. This happened more than once. In the end the sneering yellow faces of young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe distance, got badly on my nerves. The young Buddhist priests were the worst of all. There were several thousands of them in the town and none of them seemed to have anything to do except stand on street corners and jeer at Europeans.

All this was perplexing and upsetting. For at that time I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better. Theoretically – and secretly, of course – I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British. As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear. In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been Bogged with bamboos – all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt. But I could get nothing into perspective. I was young and ill-educated and I had had to think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East. I did not even know that the British Empire is dying, still less did I know that it is a great deal better than the younger empires that are going to supplant it. All I knew was that 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. With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest’s guts. Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty.

One day something happened which in a roundabout way was enlightening. It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism – the real motives for which despotic governments act. Early one morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of the town rang me up on the phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about it? I did not know what I could do, but I wanted to see what was happening and I got on to a pony and started out. I took my rifle, an old 44 Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be useful in terrorem. Various Burmans stopped me on the way and told me about the elephant’s doings. It was not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tame one which had gone “must.” It had been chained up, as tame elephants always are when their attack of “must” is due, but on the previous night it had broken its chain and escaped. Its mahout, the only person who could manage it when it was in that state, had set out in pursuit, but had taken the wrong direction and was now twelve hours’ journey away, and in the morning the elephant had suddenly reappeared in the town. The Burmese population had no weapons and were quite helpless against it. It had already destroyed somebody’s bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and devoured the stock; also it had met the municipal rubbish van and, when the driver jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon it.

The Burmese sub-inspector and some Indian constables were waiting for me in the quarter where the elephant had been seen. It was a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of squalid bamboo huts, thatched with palmleaf, winding all over a steep hillside. 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. There was a loud, scandalized cry of “Go away, child! Go away this instant!” and an old woman with a switch in her hand came round the corner of a hut, violently shooing away a crowd of naked children. Some more women followed, clicking their tongues and exclaiming; evidently there was something that the children ought not to have seen. I rounded the hut and saw a man’s dead body sprawling in the mud. 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.) The friction of the great beast’s foot had stripped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins a rabbit. As soon as I saw the dead man I sent an orderly to a friend’s house nearby to borrow an elephant rifle. 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 took not the slightest notice of the crowd’s approach. 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. 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.

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. 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.

But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him. At that age I was not squeamish about killing animals, but I had never shot an elephant and never wanted to. (Somehow it always seems worse to kill a large animal.) Besides, there was the beast’s owner to be considered. Alive, the elephant was worth at least a hundred pounds; dead, he would only be worth the value of his tusks, five pounds, possibly. But I had got to act quickly. I turned to some experienced-looking Burmans who had been there when we arrived, and asked them how the elephant had been behaving. They all said the same thing: he took no notice of you if you left him alone, but he might charge if you went too close to him.

It was perfectly clear to me what I ought to do. I ought to walk up to within, say, twenty-five yards of the elephant and test his behavior. If he charged, I could shoot; if he took no notice of me, it would be safe to leave him until the mahout came back. But also I knew that I was going to do no such thing. I was a poor shot with a rifle and the ground was soft mud into which one would sink at every step. If the elephant charged and I missed him, I should have about as much chance as a toad under a steam-roller. But even then I was not thinking particularly of my own skin, only of the watchful yellow faces behind. For at that moment, with the crowd watching me, I was not afraid in the ordinary sense, as I would have been if I had been alone. A white man mustn’t be frightened in front of “natives”; and so, in general, he isn’t frightened. The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do.

There was only one alternative. I shoved the cartridges into the magazine and lay down on the road to get a better aim. The crowd grew very still, and a deep, low, happy sigh, as of people who see the theatre curtain go up at last, breathed from innumerable throats. They were going to have their bit of fun after all. The rifle was a beautiful German thing with cross-hair sights. I did not then know that in shooting an elephant one would shoot to cut an imaginary bar running from ear-hole to ear-hole. I ought, therefore, as the elephant was sideways on, to have aimed straight at his ear-hole, actually I aimed several inches in front of this, thinking the brain would be further forward.

When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick – one never does when a shot goes home – but I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd. In that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get there, a mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant. He neither stirred nor fell, but every line of his body had altered. He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralysed him without knocking him down. At last, after what seemed a long time – it might have been five seconds, I dare say – he sagged flabbily to his knees. His mouth slobbered. An enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him. One could have imagined him thousands of years old. I fired again into the same spot. At the second shot he did not collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright, with legs sagging and head drooping. 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.

I got up. The Burmans were already racing past me across the mud. It was obvious that the elephant would never rise again, but he was not dead. He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and falling. His mouth was wide open – I could see far down into caverns of pale pink throat. I waited a long time for him to die, but his breathing did not weaken. Finally I fired my two remaining shots into the spot where I thought his heart must be. The thick blood welled out of him like red velvet, but still he did not die. His body did not even jerk when the shots hit him, the tortured breathing continued without a pause. He was dying, very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him further. I felt that I had got to put an end to that dreadful noise. It seemed dreadful to see the great beast Lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die, and not even to be able to finish him. I sent back for my small rifle and poured shot after shot into his heart and down his throat. They seemed to make no impression. The tortured gasps continued as steadily as the ticking of a clock.

In the end I could not stand it any longer and went away. I heard later that it took him half an hour to die. Burmans were bringing dash and baskets even before I left, and I was told they had stripped his body almost to the bones by the afternoon.

Afterwards, of course, there were endless discussions about the shooting of the elephant. The owner was furious, but he was only an Indian and could do nothing. Besides, legally I had done the right thing, for a mad elephant has to be killed, like a mad dog, if its owner fails to control it. Among the Europeans opinion was divided. The older men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie. And afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant. I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.

Published by New Writing , 2, Autumn 1936

This material remains under copyright in some jurisdictions, including the US, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the Orwell Estate .

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A Summary and Analysis of George Orwell’s ‘Shooting an Elephant’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Shooting an Elephant’ is a 1936 essay by George Orwell (1903-50), about his time as a young policeman in Burma, which was then part of the British empire. The essay explores an apparent paradox about the behaviour of Europeans, who supposedly have the power over their colonial subjects.

Before we offer an analysis of Orwell’s essay, it might be worth providing a short summary of ‘Shooting an Elephant’, which you can read here .

Orwell begins by relating some of his memories from his time as a young police officer working in Burma. Although the extent to which the essay is autobiographical has been disputed, we will refer to the narrator as Orwell himself, for ease of reference.

He, like other British and European people in imperial Burma, was held in contempt by the native populace, with Burmese men tripping him up during football matches between the Europeans and Burmans, and the local Buddhist priests loudly insulting their European colonisers on the streets.

Orwell tells us that these experiences instilled in him two things: it confirmed his view, which he had already formed, that imperialism was evil, but it also inspired a hatred of the enmity between the European imperialists and their native subjects. Of course, these two things are related, and Orwell understands why the Buddhist priests hate living under European rule. He is sympathetic towards such a view, but it isn’t pleasant when you yourself are personally the object of ridicule or contempt.

He finds himself caught in the middle between ‘hatred of the empire’ he served and his ‘rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make [his] job impossible’.

The main story which Orwell relates takes place in Moulmein, in Lower Burma. An elephant, one of the tame elephants which the locals own and use, has given its rider or mahout the slip, and has been wreaking havoc throughout the bazaar. It has destroyed a hut, killed a cow, and raided some fruit stalls for food. Orwell picks up his rifle and gets on his pony to go and see what he can do.

He knows the rifle won’t be good enough to kill the elephant, but he hopes that firing the gun might scare the animal. Orwell discovers that the elephant has just trampled a man, a coolie or native labourer, to the ground, killing him. Orwell sends his pony away and calls for an elephant rifle which would be more effective against such a big animal. Going in search of the elephant, Orwell finds it coolly eating some grass, looking as harmless as a cow.

It has calmed down, but by this point a crowd of thousands of local Burmese people has amassed, and is watching Orwell intently. Even though he sees no need to kill the animal now it no longer poses a threat to anyone, he realises that the locals expect him to dispatch it, and he will lose ‘face’ – both personally and as an imperial representative – if he does not do what the crowd expects.

So he shoots the elephant from a safe distance, marvelling at how long the animal takes to die. He acknowledges at the end of the essay that he only shot the elephant because he did not wish to look like a fool.

‘Shooting an Elephant’ is obviously about more than Orwell’s killing of the elephant: the whole incident was, he tells us, ‘a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism – the real motives for which despotic governments act.’

The surprise is that despotic governments don’t merely impose their iron boot upon people without caring what their poor subjects think of them, but rather that despots do care about how they are judged and viewed by their subjects.

Among other things, then, ‘Shooting an Elephant’ is about how those in power act when they are aware that they have an audience. It is about how so much of our behaviour is shaped, not by what we want to do, nor even by what we think is the right thing to do, but by what others will think of us .

Orwell confesses that he had spent his whole life trying to avoid being laughed at, and this is one of his key motivations when dealing with the elephant: not to invite ridicule or laughter from the Burmese people watching him.

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.

Note how ‘my whole life’ immediately widens to ‘every white man’s life in the East’: this is not just Orwell’s psychology but the psychology of every imperial agent. Orwell goes on to imagine what grisly death he would face if he shot the elephant and missed, and he was trampled like the hapless coolie the elephant had killed: ‘And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do.’

The stiff upper lip of this final phrase is British imperialism personified. Being trampled to death by the elephant might be something that Orwell could live with (as it were); but being laughed at? And, worse still, laughed at by the ‘natives’? Unthinkable …

And from this point, Orwell extrapolates his own experience to consider the colonial experience at large: the white European may think he is in charge of his colonial subjects, but ironically – even paradoxically – the coloniser loses his own freedom when he takes it upon himself to subjugate and rule another people:

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.

So, at the heart of ‘Shooting an Elephant’ are two intriguing paradoxes: imperial rulers and despots actually care deeply about how their colonised subjects view them (even if they don’t care about those subjects), and the one who colonises loses his own freedom when he takes away the freedom of his colonial subjects, because he is forced to play the role of the ‘sahib’ or gentleman, setting an example for the ‘natives’, and, indeed, ‘trying to impress’ them. He is the alien in their land, which helps to explain this second paradox, but the first is more elusive.

However, even this paradox is perhaps explicable. As Orwell says, aware of the absurdity of the scene: ‘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.’

The Burmese natives are the ones with the real power in this scene, both because they are the natives and because they outnumber the lone policeman, by several thousand to one. He may have a gun, but they have the numbers. He is performing for a crowd, and the most powerful elephant gun in the world wouldn’t be enough to give him power over the situation.

There is a certain inevitability conveyed by Orwell’s clever repetitions (‘I did not in the least want to shoot him … They had seen the rifle and were all shouting excitedly that I was going to shoot the elephant … I had no intention of shooting the elephant … I did not in the least want to shoot him … But I did not want to shoot the elephant’), which show how the idea of shooting the elephant gradually becomes apparent to the young Orwell.

These repetitions also convey how powerless he feels over what is happening, even though he acknowledges it to be unjust (when the elephant no longer poses a threat to anyone) as well as financially wasteful (Orwell also draws attention to the pragmatic fact that the elephant while alive is worth around a hundred pounds, whereas his tusks would only fetch around five pounds).

But he does it anyway, in an act that is purely for show, and which goes against his own will and instinct.

Discover more about Orwell’s non-fiction with our analysis of his ‘A Hanging’ , our discussion of his essay on political language , and our thoughts on his autobiographical essay, ‘Why I Write’ .

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8 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of George Orwell’s ‘Shooting an Elephant’”

Absolutely fascinating and very though provoking. Thank you.

Thanks, Caroline! Very kind

One biographer claimed that the incident never took place and is pure fiction created to make the points you mention. Is there any proof that it actually happened ?

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Circuses – it still goes on, tragically. https://robinsaikia.org/2021/04/04/elephants-in-venice-1954/

Hmm now I make another connection here. A degree of the hypocrisy of human society. In a sense, the Burmese were ‘owned’ by their imperial masters – personified by Orwell – but the Elephant was owned by the Burmese. the Burmese hate Orwell for being the imperialist and yet they expect him to shoot their elephant who is itself forced into a role it clearly didn’t like. I know it is all very post-modernist to consider things from a non-human point of view, but there seems a very obvious mirroring here.

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Shooting an Elephant

Shooting an elephant by george orwell summary.

The narrator of the essay starts with describing the hate he is confronted with in a town in Burma. He says that he is a sub-divisional police officer and is hated by the locals in “aimless, petty kind of way”. He also confesses to being on the wrong side of the history as he explains the inhuman tortures of the British Raj on the local prisoners.

Consequently, Orwell decides to shoot the elephant or in another case, the crowd will laugh at him, which was intolerable to him. At first, he thinks to see the response of the elephant after slightly approaching it, however, it seems dangerous and would make the crowd laugh at him which was utterly humiliating for him. To avoid undesirable awkwardness, he has to kill the elephant. He pointed the gun at the brain of the elephant and fires.

Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell Literary Analysis

About the author:.

The story is a first-person narrative in which the narrator describes his confused state of mind and his inability to decide and act without hesitation. The narrator is a symbol of British colonialism in Burma who, through a window to his thoughts, allegorically gives us an insight into the conflicting ideals of the system.

Shooting an Elephant Main Themes

Ills of british imperialism:, more from george orwell.

Shooting an Elephant

43 pages • 1 hour read

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Summary and Study Guide

Summary: “shooting an elephant”.

“Shooting an Elephant,” is an essay by British author George Orwell , first published in the magazine New Writing in 1936. Orwell, born Eric Blair, is world-renowned for his sociopolitical commentary. He served as a British officer in Burma from 1922 to 1927, then worked as a journalist, novelist, short-story writer, and essayist for the remainder of his career, going on to produce celebrated works such as Animal Farm (1945) and 1984 (1949). Before penning this essay, Orwell wrote extensively about his time in Southeast Asia in his first novel, Burmese Days , also published in 1934. This guide refers to the edition of the essay in Orwell’s A Collection of Essays published by Harcourt Publishing in 1946.

At the beginning of the essay, the narrator (apparently Orwell himself) is in a difficult position—caught between his duty and his conscience, between what he is required to do and what he wants to do. Despite his job as a British officer in Burma, he states that he had “already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing” and that he “hated it more bitterly than I could possibly make clear” (148). He explains that he “is hated by large numbers of people” and that he “was an obvious target” (148). Orwell describes a state of stress and pressure, making it clear to readers that he is in an “us versus them” position and inviting them into the conflict . He describes the following events as “enlightening” because they gave him “a better glimpse” into the “real nature of imperialism—the real motives for which despotic governments act” (149).

Early one morning, a Burmese officer calls to let him know “that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar” (149) and asks him to do something. The narrator grabs a rifle, gets on a pony, and heads into town to determine what is going on. Many people stop him along the way to explain that it was “not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tame one that has gone ‘must’” (149). Although the elephant had been chained up, it managed to break free and escape. Unfortunately, the mahout , the one who would normally wrangle the elephant, was twelve hours away.

The elephant had apparently destroyed property, killed a cow, and turned over a van full of garbage. But after questioning people in town, the narrator could not get the story straight: “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” (150). The narrator then comes upon a hut and finds a dead body. Orwell writes, “He was an Indian, a black Dravidian coolie , almost naked, and could not have been dead many minutes” (150). The narrator assesses the body and sees the man was killed by the elephant. He adds, “Never tell me, by the way, that the dead look peaceful. Most of the corpses I’ve seen looked devilish” (151).

Knowing the elephant killed someone, and it was likely close by, the narrator sends an orderly for another rifle. People start to gather knowing that something is about to happen. Orwell writes, “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” (151). As the crowd grows, so too does the turmoil over what to do. The elephant and the Burmese people close in on the narrator as he considers the circumstances of the crowd and his duty, conscience, and ego. He writes, “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” (153).

He is conflicted as he charges forward, getting closer to the elephant. He writes, “Somehow it always seems worse to kill a large animal” (153). He continues to go hesitate—assessing the crowd, the elephant’s worth , the dead man’s worth, and his desire not to show fear in front of the native people. He finally shoots the elephant, and the topic of his internal dialogue moves from what he must do to the unease he feels watching the animal die. He writes, “I felt that I had to put an end to that dreadful noise. It seemed dreadful to see the great beast lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die” (155). Despite doing what he was supposed to do as a British officer, something that was legally his right to do, he feels no solace because he realizes he did it solely for appearance.

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George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” Short Story Essay

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Introduction

Applicability.

George Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm and a dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four . His realistic short stories that date back to his days as an imperial police officer in Burma often elude readers’ attention. The early years spent in a country colonized by the British Empire had a lasting impression on the writer and inspired him to explore the themes of morals, personal principles, and power dynamics in his works.

In Shooting an Elephant, Orwell’s character is an imperialist police officer in colonized Burma. As he hears about an elephant rampaging through a bazaar, he has nothing left to do than to slander the animal. The incident gives rise to strong feelings of grief and discomfort and impacts the fragile relationships with both his compatriots and Burmans. The short story Shooting an Elephant is significant to colonialism studies due to its structure, quality, and applicability.

George Orwell gives a panoramic view of the ambiguous power dynamics between the British Empire and its colony, Burma, through the perspective of one character. The writer does not show this relationship as strictly black-and-white as he does not label either of the sides as good or evil. Instead, by making the main character reflective and conscientious, Orwell lets the reader understand what motivates both parties.

The story is structured in a way that showcases the main conflict three times throughout the narrative. The first example of the subverted power dynamic is at the very beginning of the story. Orwell writes: “In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people (1).” Then the author notes that this hatred came from being “important enough for this to happen to [him]” for the first time in his life (Orwell, 1). The writer shows that power comes at a certain price, and in the case of the main character, he has to suffer hostility and isolation.

The second time that the topic of the flipped power dynamic resurfaces is when the main character gets a rifle for self-defense. The locals practically force him into killing the animal: “They had seen the rifle and were all shouting excitedly that I was going to shoot the elephant (Orwell, 3).” This scene is particularly interesting as it is placed in the very heart of the story. The main character is supposed to be the most influential among all since he is of British descent and armed.

However, the crowd has its own interests and can overpower him in case he does not oblige. At the end of the story, the main character does not gain any more respect from the locals. They feast on the elephant’s dead body while the animal’s owner is furious. Thus, the conflict in Shooting an Elephant never comes to any satisfying resolution.

Dynamic narration, believable characters, and the presence of complex topics such as power and colonialism attest to the high quality of Shooting an Elephant . It is not only easy to follow the events but also quite thrilling. Orwell accomplishes this effect by controlling the sentence length and contrasting short and long sentences by putting them back-to-back within the same paragraph. The following fragment is an excellent example of this strategy: “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 (Orwell, 4).” Stopping in the middle of a road is a short action described with a short sentence. Pondering, whether it is worth to kill an elephant, takes a little bit more time; therefore, a longer sentence is needed.

The believable main character adds to the overall quality of the short story. He is an ordinary man not devoid of character flaws, which makes his personality multilayered. Killing an animal is a cruel thing to do, and the reader sees the main character’s regret and repentance: “In the end, I could not stand [watching the elephant die] any longer and went away (Orwell, 7).” One should note that Orwell embarks on describing such complex emotions without being self-righteous. The author in this story is detached from the events. He does not make any judgment or tells what would be the right thing to do. By following the narration, sympathizing with the main character, and comprehending the depth of the discussed topics, the reader can draw his or her own conclusions and even take some life lessons.

Shooting an Elephant can help with understanding the struggles of colonialism. Even though the story depicts a specific situation that took place back at the beginning of the 20th century, its moral is timeless and still applies. While setting the scene for his story, Orwell writes: “One day something happened which in a roundabout way was enlightening. It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism — the real motives for which despotic governments act (2).” Thus, what happens next needs to be interpreted with regards to this perspective.

Usually, elephants are wild animals, but this one who ran amok in the village belonged to a resident. The animal was probably captured against its will and has been exploited its entire life. Keeping the previous citation in mind, it is possible to draw a parallel between an animal suffering in captivity and a nation oppressed by a colonist regime. From this standpoint, the reader can understand why the elephant wanted to break free, even if it meant wreaking havoc on its surroundings.

Continuing the allegory, the main character takes the role of the government. As it sees that a riot has started, it has nothing left to do than to use brutal power and violence to stifle it. In S hooting an Elephant , not a single person laments the animal’s death – instead, the main character hears “the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd (Orwell, 6).” Therefore, the reader can understand that imperialism does not allow for peaceful cohabitation. It implies exploitation for nothing in return and severe punishment in case of disobedience.

Published in 1936, Shooting an Elephant is one of Orwell’s masterpieces where topics of power and colonialism find reflection and development through both close-to-life descriptions and employment of allegory. The writer reminisces of his life in colonized Burma where, as a representative of the foreign superpower, he is hated and dismissed by locals. The structure allows for a careful exposition of the subverted relationship dynamic between the main character and Burmans.

The man’s origins and position make him influential only on paper. In reality, he has to consider what locals want, which eventually makes him cave to the crowd mentality. Quality-wise, Orwell creates a dramatic effect by manipulating the sentence length, adding dimensions to the main character, and putting complex emotions in the mix. The story can be of interest to those who would like to reflect on the legacy of colonialism through a real-life situation and the allegory of a killed animal that strived for freedom.

Orwell, George. Shooting an Elephant: And Other Essays. Secker and Warburg, 1950.

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IvyPanda. (2021, June 1). George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" Short Story. https://ivypanda.com/essays/george-orwells-shooting-an-elephant-short-story/

"George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" Short Story." IvyPanda , 1 June 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/george-orwells-shooting-an-elephant-short-story/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" Short Story'. 1 June.

IvyPanda . 2021. "George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" Short Story." June 1, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/george-orwells-shooting-an-elephant-short-story/.

1. IvyPanda . "George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" Short Story." June 1, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/george-orwells-shooting-an-elephant-short-story/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" Short Story." June 1, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/george-orwells-shooting-an-elephant-short-story/.

Shooting an Elephant

By george orwell, shooting an elephant themes, british imperialism.

Throughout the essay Orwell explicitly discusses the nature of British imperialism, specifically the way that he, as a police officer, both represents and internalizes the imperial project. He opens by revealing the brutality of British colonialism in Burma, with images of tortured prisoners, and he discusses his distaste for the empire's impact in Burma. He says that he's on the side of the "Burman," yet he also resents Burmese people for the way they perceive him. Orwell's self-consciousness as the face of British imperialism is central to his internal conflict as he tries to uphold the image of the impenetrable empire while going against his personal inclination, and killing an elephant that he doesn't want to kill.

Fear of humiliation

Orwell says that the bystanders would laugh at him if he were trampled to death by the elephant, and "that would never do" (34). In this way he is compelled to kill the (now peaceful) elephant. In the way that the elephant, in the essay, can represent the Burmese society, Orwell's fear of humiliation can represent the motive of the broader British colonial project. The imperial police officer is willing to sacrifice his sense of what is right, and to fulfill the role of oppressor and tyrant, in order to save face. The fear of humiliation is one of the most important motives in Orwell's essay.

Colonial resentment

One of the central themes threaded through the essay is the latent resentment of the colonized people of Burma for the British occupiers who aim to control their society, yet cannot fully do so. We see this resentment in the open disgust which the monks reveal for Orwell personally, a sentiment that he feels is hypocritical given their office; we see it in the cruel laughter of the Burmese for the British players on the football field; and ultimately Orwell's awareness of his resentment manifests in his explicit rationalizing for his motivation for killing the elephant.

The performance of power

Orwell describes power as being fundamentally performative; it's also illustrated as such through the heavily allegorical aspect of his act of shooting the elephant. Openly, Orwell discusses the ways that he must uphold the performance of power by not appearing to hesitate in shooting the elephant. With the crowd watching, he must appear to be in control of the situation. The performative element of power subsequently plays out as we watch him, in his role as British police officer, demonstrate his confidence in bringing a wild beast, literally, to its knees.

Taming of the colonized subject

Related to the theme of the performance of power is a clear theme of "taming" that plays out in the scenario of a man controlling a wild beast. Orwell's self-imposed task of upholding the impenetrable image of the British empire is part of a larger goal: to control or "tame" Burmese society. If he falters in his performance, he'll make room for the colonized Burmese to see through imperial control and to subsequently cease to respond to that control.

Police power

The experience of the imperial police officer is an experience of representing the empire as a whole. As the face of the British empire, Orwell is personally subject to the Burmese peoples' derisions of the empire. To them, he is the Empire. By seeing Orwell's personal criticisms of that Empire contrasted with his experience asa representative of it, we are able to reflect on the experience of policing, and of representing state power more generally. The personal feelings, beliefs and ideologies of the officer are irrelevant so long as he is in uniform and thus represents a whole other set of beliefs and ideologies.

Natural life

When we see the elephant grazing in the paddy field, we see the naturalness of its existence. The image of the Burmese inhabitation as a labyrinth of thatch huts is similarly an image of natural life. The presence of the "white man" or the British empire contrasts with this naturalness and literally physically disrupts it. In the way that Orwell's shooting of the elephant reflects a form of vandalism of natural life, so to do the beatings of Burmese bodies and the imperial policing of Burmese society.

Shooting an Elephant Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Shooting an Elephant is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

According to Orwell, he was “hated by large numbers of people” during his time in Burma. Why was he so hated? Support your answer using textual evidence.

Orwell is a policeman, a representative of the British regime and an occupier of Burma: he was the face of oppression and subjugation.

In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people – the only time in my life that I have been...

Dilemma of the Narrator

The narrator's dilemma was whether or not he should shoot the elephant. The elephant, which had recently been ravaging the bazaar and had killed a man in its rampage was now calm. Thus, Orwell, was torn between shooting the animal who was deemed...

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 . Please line explanation

The power dynamic of the colonizer-colonized is reversed in this instance as Orwell feels himself, not a puppet of the Empire, so much as a puppet of the crowd. It’s them for whom he must perform. In that way, they are the ones with power. This is...

Study Guide for Shooting an Elephant

Shooting an Elephant study guide contains a biography of George Orwell, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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Essays for Shooting an Elephant

Shooting an Elephant essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell.

• George Orwell: Modernism and Imperialism in "Shooting an Elephant"
• Wibbly, Wobbly, Timey, Wimey Paradoxes: Rhetoric and Contradiction in "Shooting an Elephant"
• Shifting the Gaze from the Colonizer to the Colonized in Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” and Adichie’s “The Headstrong Historian”

Lesson Plan for Shooting an Elephant

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Type of Work

....... "Shooting an Elephant" is a short story that is also sometimes classified as an essay. It first appeared in 1936 in the autumn issue of New Writing , published twice a year in London from 1936 to 1946. 

....... The setting is Burma (present-day Myanmar) in the 1920s, when the country was a province of India. The action takes place in the town of Moulmein in the southern part of the province, called Lower Burma, a rice-growing region on the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. 

Historical Background

The Narrator : Young Englishman serving as a police officer in Burma in the 1920s, when Burma was part of British-controlled India. He strongly opposes the oppressive British rule of Burma and the rest of India. At the same time, he resents the ridicule he receives from the natives, who are unaware that he is on their side politically. The narrator's views represent those of the author, George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Blair). Sub-Inspector : Burmese officer who calls the narrator for help after an elephant gets loose in town. Black Dravidian Coolie : Indian laborer from the town of Coringa, India, who is killed by the elephant. A Dravidian is a lower-caste Indian who speaks his own language, Dravidian. Friend of the Narrator : Man who provides the narrator an elephant gun. Police Orderly : Person who fetches an elephant gun for the narrator. Mahout : Owner of the elephant. He becomes very angry after learning that the narrator has killed his elephant. A mahout is a skilled elephant trainer and handler. Indian Constables Crowd of Townspeople British Who React to the Shooting

. ....... As a British police officer in the hillside town of Moulmein in Lower Burma, the narrator frequently endures jeers from the natives. They do not realize that he, too, opposes English occupation of Burma. In his position, he sees the misery that imperialism produces. ....... “The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos—all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt,” he says. ....... So here he is walking a line between anti-imperialism and "the evil spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible." ....... One morning at the beginning of the rainy season (between June and October), an incident occurs that enlightens him about the motives of imperialism. An elephant is loose in a bazaar in a poor section of town, and a Burmese sub-inspector phones him to come and remedy the situation. The elephant, normally tame, is in must, a state of frenzy brought on by sexual heat. After it had broken its chain and run away, its mahout pursued it in the wrong direction and was now many miles away. So far the elephant had demolished a hut, overturned a garbage van, killed a cow, and eaten produce in the fruit stalls of the bazaar. Because the Burmese have no weapons of their own, the elephant is free to run wild. ....... The narrator gets his .44 Winchester and travels to the site on a pony. The Winchester is not powerful enough to kill an elephant, but the noise it makes can frighten an animal. After the sub-inspector and several Indian constables greet the narrator, he investigates a hubbub at a nearby hut. Around the corner of the hut, he discovers the body of an Indian, a black Dravidian coolie, in mud. Onlookers report that the elephant captured him with its trunk and then ground him down with its foot. His body is a ghastly sight—skin torn from his back, head wrenched askew, teeth clenched in agony. ....... A friend of the narrator owns an elephant gun, and the narrator sends a police orderly to fetch it. After he returns with the rifle and five cartridges, the narrator heads down a hill toward paddy fields where the elephant was last seen. Throngs of people follow him to witness the shooting of an elephant and to reap the harvest of meat afterward. However, the narrator hopes it will not be necessary to shoot the beast. ....... At the bottom of the hill is a road, then the paddy fields. The elephant is on the other side of the road feeding on grass. He seems peaceful, as if his must frenzy has subsided and he has returned to normalcy. To kill the elephant would be a terrible shame. After all, he is a working elephant, just as valuable as an expensive machine. If he has indeed become docile again, his mahout will have no trouble controlling him. The narrator decides to observe the elephant for a while. If it continues to behave, he will go home. But when he turns around and looks at the spectators, now numbering about two thousand, he realizes that they expect him to shoot the elephant and that he is a puppet who must do their bidding.

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 . . . I had got to shoot the elephant . . . 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.

....... The narrator experiences three conflicts: one with the Brtitish Empire because of its unjust occupation of Burma, one with the Burmese because of their mockery of him as a representative of the British Empire, and one with himself in his struggle with his conscience and self-image. In literary terms, the first two are external conflicts (because they are outside him) and the third is an internal conflict (because it is inside him). All three conflicts complicate his ability to make objective, clear-headed decisions. 

Narrator's Point of View and His Shortcomings

....... The narrator tells the story in first-person point of view. He blames British tyranny and Burmese reaction to it for his troubles, as the following paragraph indicates:

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. With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest's guts. Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty.

The Evil of Imperialism

....... Imperialism is evil. First, it humiliates the occupied people, reducing them to inferior status in their own country. Second, it goads the occupiers into making immoral or unethical decisions to maintain their superiority over the people. In “Shooting an Elephant,” the narrator acts against his own conscience to save face for himself and his fellow imperialists. 

Loss of Freedom in a Colonized Land

....... When imperialists colonize a country, they restrict the freedom of the natives. In so doing, the imperialists also unwittingly limit their own freedom in that they tend to avoid courses of action that could provoke the occupied people. In “Shooting an Elephant,” the narrator realizes that he should allow the elephant to live, but he shoots the animal anyway to satisfy the crowd of natives who want him to kill it. He then says, 

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. 

....... Although the narrator seems to respect the natives as fellow human beings, other Europeans regard the Burmese and Indians with contempt—an attitude made clear near the end of the story: "[T]he younger [Europeans] said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie." ....... Historically, the British placed their own men in positions of authority in the colonial government in India, which then incorporated Burma, and natives in inferior positions. Moreover, the British generally did not socialize with the natives. 

....... The natives resent the presence of the British, as would any people subjected to foreign rule. They ridicule the British from a distance and laugh at them whenever an opportunity presents itself. In turn, many of the the British despise the natives. And so, there is constant tension between the occupier and the occupied. 

bazaar : Marketplace on a street with walk-in shops and outdoor stalls. coolie : Unskilled laborer. Coringhee : From or having to do with the town of Coringa, India. It is in the state of Andhra Pradesh in the southeastern part of the country. Dravidian : Lower-caste Indian who speaks his own language, Dravidian. imperialism : Policy of controlling weak or underdeveloped countries for economic, political, and military purposes. in saecula saeculorum : Latin for in this age and for all ages ; forever ; for eternity ; until the end of the world . mahout : Skilled elephant trainer and handler. Raj, British : British government rule in India, of which Burma was a part; the period when the British government ruled India.  sahib : Master, sir. Indians and Burmans used the word when addressing an Englishman.

....... Following are examples of symbols in "Shooting an Elephant":

mad elephant : Symbol of the British Empire. Like the elephant, the empire is powerful. When the elephant raids the bazaar (marketplace), he symbolizes the British Empire raiding the economy of Burma. When he kills the coolie, he represents the British oppressing the natives.  dead coolie : Symbol of the downtrodden Burmese. Note that Orwell says his arms are outstretched like those of the crucified Christ.  football (soccer) : Symbol of British imposition of their culture on their colonies. Modern soccer was developed in England in the the 19th Century. mud : Symbol of the squalor in which the Burmese must live under British rule. It is also a symbol of the political mire that the British created for themselves when they colonized India and Burma. 

....... Following are examples of figures of speech in the story.

Alliteration Repetition of a Consonant Sound

y ellow faces of y oung men that m et m e everywhere,  c owed faces of the long-term c onvicts I marched down the hi ll , l ooking and f ee l ing a f ool. . . . I w as m o m entarily w orth w atching.  He l ooked s udden l y s tricken,  An enormous s enility s eemed to have s ettled upon him. 

....... Anaphora is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of a clause or another group of words. Anaphora imparts emphasis and balance, as in the following examples: 

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 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. . 

I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. (Comparison of wills to a physical force) I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. (Comparison of the narrator to a puppet)

grinning corpse 

....... He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, 

Paradox Contradictory statement that may actually be true

[A] story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes.  I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.

The friction of the great beast's foot had stripped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins a rabbit.  (Comparison of the elephant's action to that of a man skinning ..... a rabbit) [T]he elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow. (Comparison of the elephant to a cow) [H]e seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skyward like a tree. (Comparison of the elephant to a rock) The thick blood welled out of him like red velvet. . . . (Comparison of blood to velvet)

....... George Orwell (1903-1950) was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair. Orwell, a British citizen, was born in Motihari, India, in 1903, and attended school in England. Between 1922 and 1927, he served the British government in Burma as an officer of the Indian Imperial Police. After becoming disenchanted with British treatment of the native Burmese, he left the police service, traveled in Europe, and in 1934 published his first novel, Burmese Days , which impugned British imperialism. He also wrote several fine short stories, including "Shooting an Elephant," which are based on his experiences in Burma. His most famous works, both of which warn of the dangers of totalitarianism, are his novels Animal Farm and 1984 .

1. ... Do you sympathize with the narrator? Explain your answer. 2. ... In an essay, compare and contrast the plight of native-born Burmans and Indians of the early twentieth century with the plight of American blacks in the same time period. 3. ... Write a short psychological profile of the narrator. 4. ... In an essay, discuss Orwell's use of irony in "Shooting an Elephant." 5. ... When and under what circumstances did India and Burma gain their freedom from British rule. .

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Shooting an Elephant

George orwell.

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Colonialism

Orwell uses his experience of shooting an elephant as a metaphor for his experience with the institution of colonialism. He writes that the encounter with the elephant gave him insight into “the real motives for which despotic governments act.” Killing the elephant as it peacefully eats grass is indisputably an act of barbarism—one that symbolizes the barbarity of colonialism as a whole. The elephant’s rebelliousness does not justify Orwell’s choice to kill it. Rather, its…

“Shooting an Elephant” is filled with examples of warped power dynamics. Colonialism nearly always entails a small minority of outsiders wielding a disproportionate amount of influence over a larger group of local peoples. This imbalance of power in colonialism seems counterintuitive, and Orwell literalizes the imbalance by showing his ability to kill the elephant singlehandedly. But even this distribution of power is not clear-cut: Orwell and the British colonists do not in fact have absolute…

Orwell’s service in the British Empire places his reasoned principles and his basic intuitions in constant conflict. He recognizes that the empire is tyrannical and abusive, yet he is unable to overcome his visceral contempt for the local villagers who mistreat him. The decisions Orwell makes when confronted with the rogue elephant encapsulate these tensions between his different principles. Orwell could have followed his more humane, ethical impulses and chosen to spare the elephant. However…

Performance

When Orwell stands before the crowd, he likens himself to a performer, rather than a peacekeeper or powerful official. He repeatedly uses metaphorical language to develop this connection. The thousands of gathered Burmese regard him as they would regard “a conjurer about to perform a trick;” he describes how, as he loaded the rifle, “the crowd grew very still, and a deep, low, happy sigh, as of people who see the theatre curtain go up…

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