Download Shooting an Elephant – George Orwell

Shooting an Elephant – George Orwell
English writer George Orwell is best known for his book Nineteen Eighty-Four, a dystopian novel
about a future society controlled by a leader known as Big Brother. To this day “Big Brother”
refers to an oppressive totalitarian state, and to call something “Orwellian” implies a culture
where people are under constant surveillance and the influence of propaganda and political
“double-speak.” To what extent has our current world of electronic surveillance, centralized
control, and biased media become the future that Orwell predicted?
Students can probably hold their own on a game show or at a cocktail party if the above is all
they know about George Orwell, but this particular essay recounts Orwell’s experience as a
police officer in Burma, part of Britain’s Indian Empire, in which he must shoot a wild elephant
in the town market, not to protect the people but to keep from embarrassing himself. The line
“when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys” asks the reader to
consider the oppressor as the oppressed.
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Define the concept of imperialism. How does Orwell describe British Imperialism? How
does this story expose the perplexity and irony of imperialism?
How is the narrator more of a spectator in his own life than a participant, like a prisoner
in Plato’s cave? What does the elephant represent metaphorically, and how is it seen
differently by the narrator and the natives? Describe the communication between
colonizer and native: What do they create in common?
What would Emerson say to Orwell about this experience? Does the narrator trust
himself? Civil Disobedience was the essay that influenced Gandhi and the revolution that
eventually overthrew the British empire in India, so what would Thoreau have done in
the narrator’s situation? How is the narrator morally disengaged? How is he able to pull
the trigger, and who is held responsible? Explain the difference between doing what is
right and doing what is legal.
Explain what W.E.B. Dubois would call the double consciousness of Orwell as a police
officer in the British army. Even though the narrator is in a privileged position as a white
male, how does Orwell show a conflict within that position? What would bell hooks say
about the oppressor being oppressed?
Have you ever had a job you hated? Did you hate the boss, the customers, your
coworkers, or yourself? How is a Burmese policeman like a fast food worker?
What are the consequences of the narrator’s alienation from himself? What are the
lasting consequences of the British empire? Are you personally more colonizer or native
in your own daily interactions? Who benefits from imperialism? Who benefits from
alienation? To what extent are police officers in America alienated from the
communities they serve?