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Summary
Shooting an Elephant
George Orwell (c.1936)

Orwell opened his essay with some backstory. He was working as a police officer in Moulmein, Burma. The
area, which was part of India at the time, was controlled by the British, and the Burmese people had negative
feelings towards Europeans. The narrator described that he had decided by that time that he was against
imperialism, so he was on the side of the Burmese people. However, the people around him did not know that.
They saw him as another white man in a position of authority that he was not entitled to, and they harassed him.
Not only did the narrator hate his job because it was part of the imperialistic schema, but he also hated it for the
way he was treated by the people of Burma.

One day he received a call about an escaped male elephant that was in "must" (musth)—a phase male elephants
go through when their testosterone surges, and they often become aggressive. The elephant's mahout, or
handler, had gone the wrong direction in search of his elephant, and he was twelve hours away. The officer
headed to the bazaar where the elephant was reportedly seen, but it had moved on by the time he arrived.He
noticed a woman trying to corral some children, and he went to investigate. The woman had been moving the
children away from the body of a man who had been trampled by the elephant. Upon seeing the body, The officer
sent someone after an elephant gun, as he had only brought his regular rifle, which was no match for an elephant.
He was told the elephant was by some rice paddies, and he started off in that direction.
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By the time he found the elephant, The narrator had a massive crowd of followers, which he said was over 2000
strong. The elephant was eating grass in a rice paddy, and it seemed to have calmed down. He asked a couple of
men how the elephant had been, and they said it was calm, but might attack if someone got too close. Too
unnerved to try to get closer, the officer felt he had only one choice—shoot the elephant.

Over and over, the narrator declared that he did not want to shoot the elephant. He knew, though, that the mass
of people surrounding him all wanted him to take the shot. They were excited by the action, and they could take
the meat once the deed was completed. It was then that he realized the irony of the situation and that he was not
truly the one in power, although he had a technical position of authority.

Urged on by the crowd and not wanting to appear silly or weak, the narrator took aim and fired, but he did not
know he had aimed wrong. His first shot did not bring the peaceful elephant down, nor the second. The third shot
brought the animal down, but did not kill it. He shot the remaining two rounds. After he was out of bullets, it took
the bull half an hour to die.

His actions received mixed responses. Some said he was in the right to shoot the bull, especially since it had killed
someone, and the meat fed many people. Others condemned him for shooting the peaceful animal, as the
elephant was the source of someone's livelihood and worth much more alive than dead.

1 By Aneel Hassan