George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant: Insights on Imperialism, Ethical Conflicts and Fear of Judgment Essay

George Orwells essay Shooting an Elephant, introduces an interesting insight on imperialism, ethical conflicts and fear of judgement finished the inner workings of a European police officer given the grueling task of take upings with an elephant in musk within Moulmein, in lower Burma. Imperialism, as defined in the Oxford English Dictionary, reads that Imperialism is a policy of extending a countrys queen and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means. Interestingly,Orwell shows imperialism in his work as a consensual hatred between the Burmese and a particular European cop causing a joint negativity. The ethical conflicts raised in this essay root from the vote counter, (who we can befool is the European police officer) who has been handed the task of circulariseing with a lubricious and aggressive elephant who was a threat to the Burmese deals land, possessions and lives. estimable conflicts raised in Orwells work, tie to the narrators fear o f judgement. It was because the narrator feared judgement so terribly, that he made the alternative to pull the trigger on the elephant.When an elephant in musk escapes from his chains with his Mahout far out of reach, the narrator is called in to deal with this ravaging creature. He beings along his rifle and says I had no spirit of guessing the elephant, I had merely sent for the rifle to defend myself if necessary. In essence, the pure reason for the rifle was for precautionary reasons, yet it had drawn a large amount of attention and excitement from a large gang of at least 2000 andgrowing every minute. (Page 284) The narrator has an ethical dilemma, as he knew with perfect certainty that he ought not to shoot him (page 284). Orwell compares the elephant to a valuable, expensive humans of machinery. (Page 284) He watches the elephant acting with that grandmotherly air that elephants have, (Page 285) realizing that the beast is calming down and feeler out of his lustful phas e. This later contrasts with the narrator actually shooting the elephant repayable to the twinge of the sea of yellow faces and their 2000 wills pressing him forward. (Page 284) As the narrator was enroute to localization of function this lustful elephant, he learns that it had already destroyed a bamboo hut, killed a awe and raided nearly fruit stalls and devoured stock. (Page 282) In learning these things, Orwell makes it clear that the narrator feels he has legal justification for shooting the elephant even though he morally knew he was in the wrong.Interestingly, the narrators ethics in the matter of shooting the elephant are broken because of his fear of judgement. He was hated by many people as a European subdivisional police officer in Moulmein. He was an axiomatic target and baited whenever it seemed safe to do so. When the narrator was called in to deal with this elephant in must, he came to a point where he was surrounded by thousands of Burmese people, left with th e choice to either shoot the elephant, or let him live. The imperativeness provided by the thousands of yellow faces, (page 284) and all of their hatred, left the narrator with no choice in his mind but to fire at this creature. After doing this, he wonders whether any of the others (Burmese) grasped that he had shot the elephant solely to avoid looking like a fool. (Page 287) This proves the narrators fear of judgement.Orwell does an excellent job in displaying the hatred between the Burmese and the Europeans, and the feeling that imperialism was an evil thing. (Page 281) He says that if a European woman went through the bazaars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over her dress. (Page 281) Orwell uses symbolism to demonstrate the evil of imperialism.The ravaging elephant that the narrator was called in to deal with is a symbol for imperialism and its evils. The actual shooting of the elephant unveils that imperialism not only inflicts equipment casualty on one side, bu t on both sides of the relationship. Europe, who is supposed to hold up control over the Burmese peoples, lost their control due to the pressure provided by the Burmese people in the actual shooting of the elephant. The military officer is effect into a large authority position, but the hate he received from the Burmese, as well as the emotional pressure they put on him to shoot the elephant, puts a sense of power on the Burmese, and slight on the greater European colony.Throughout this reading, Orwell demonstrates the evils of imperialism as well as the pressure that we as humans often have to succumb to base on societal pressures we face. He uses a story of a European police officerworking in Moulmein who is faced with the pressure of the local Burmese people to kill an elephant who is in must and has done some damage to peoples property.