Technique Analysis of ‘Shooting an elephant’
Written by George Orwell
Essay by Arthur Diennet
In 1936, George Orwell published his short story ‘Shooting an elephant’ in an English magazine. Since then, it has been republished dozens of times and holds a place as a definitive anti-colonial piece of literature, in an era where the British Empire was at its peak and covered almost 1/3 of the Earth’s surface. George Orwell believed that “…imperialism was an evil thing...” and uses much themes, symbolism and irony to convey his strong anti-colonialist feelings.
Theme is an integral part of this story and is mostly presented through the narrator. One of the major themes of the story is conscience, in which many of the conflicts in the story occur. The narrator has an unshakable mental division between his official position (Colonial Policeman) and his moral position (“Secretly, I was all for the Burmese and all against…the British.”) This is represented in......
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Approximate Word Count: 1032
Approximate Pages: 4 (260 words per double-spaced page) |