Shooting Elephant

In the article ÐŽoShooting an Elephant,ÐŽ± Orwell describes his experience of killing an elephant to express the real nature and sorrow of imperialism. He first confesses his bitter life in Moulmein and the baiting by the native people of European. He goes on to narrate a tiny event of shooting an elephant which makes him to realize the real characteristic of imperialism. By reading and thinking this essay in depth, I perceive the main theme the essay is that the real nature of imperialism actually destroys the freedom of everyone, including the governor himself. Literally, the author expresses his notion by using the example of shooting an elephant which is supported by the sentence ÐŽoIt 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 actÐŽ± (Orwell 1). Therefore, I do agree with that the elephant itself symbolizes or be a metaphor to the theme of this essay. For person, I believe that the elephant is the symbol of freedom.

First of all, the elephant which describes in the essay is not a wild one; instead, it is a tame one which used to be chained. This reveals that the freedom of all citizens has been bound by the implementation of imperialism. Also, we can see that at the end of the story, the elephant has been killed by the rifle of author in front of the crowd who follow him. This displays that the freedom of people has been destroyed by the use of imperialism. Moreover, Orwell says that ÐŽoTo 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 impossibleÐŽ± (3). This shows the lost of freedom of the governor due to imperialism. Even though he has paramount authority, he still needs to be controlled by the crowd and he is just like ÐŽoÐŽ­an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behindÐŽ± (Orwell