Shooting an Elephant                                                                                                                                     Sarig T. Cohen

George Orwell is the author of “Shooting an Elephant”, a short story that uses the small incident of the murder of an elephant to portray the horrors of British Imperialism. Due to the fact that George Orwell writes a short story in the form of an essay, it contains a thesis, which is the argument about the nature of imperialism. The great thing about George Orwell’s essay is that the theme is represented throughout the plot and can be analyzed from any part of the story. This essay will discuss this thesis and how it is represented in Orwell’s short story by analyzing the literary devices used. The most influential literary devices used by George Orwell are metaphors, repetition and alliteration; others include anaphora and paradox.

Right from the start Orwell mentions his hatred towards British imperialism, “I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better.” There is no elaborate diction or sophisticated syntax. He explicitly states his loathing of imperialism. This is quite ironic since throughout the rest of the essay Orwell uses the symbol of the elephant as a metaphor for the fall of imperialism. As the big moment looms on Orwell, the reader can notice that he gets uneasy and nervous from the main event. This is noticeable from Orwell’s indecision; he begins to raise excuses for him not to shoot the elephant, “It is always unnerving to have a crowd following you.” Orwell puts the blame on the Burmese people stating that they are the cause for his hesitation. This is a direct implication towards British Imperialism since the “ruled” people were always blamed upon.

Metaphors are used plenty in this essay. Orwell shows the reader how metaphors can be used to compare two unrelated events with the same meanings. One of the strongest metaphors in this story is the elephant and its destructive path; it portrays British Imperialism and its hostile takeover, “in the morning the elephant had suddenly reappeared in the town. The Burmese population had no weapons and were quite helpless against it.” The elephant is seen as a huge animal with a lot of power and being dominant over the Burmese people. Orwell states that they do not have the weapons and capability to control the elephant, similar to the rule of the British. The British Empire was one of the most advanced and brutal empires. She had the largest navy and would force labour throughout her colonies. So her enemies were most often less advanced than she was.

George Orwell uses a type of repetition, anaphora, to emphasize the role of the Burmese people. “Some of the people said that the elephant had gone in one direction, some said that he had gone in another, some professed not even to have heard of any elephant.” Here the word “some” is repeated to stress the notion that Burmese people cannot be trusted. This is evidence for the racist tone and the condescending tone George Orwell has to the people of Burma. Throughout the essay Orwell plants certain phrases about the Burmese people and Indians which compare to the actions of the British Empire. This is quite ironic since the thesis of the essay is Orwell’s hatred towards British Imperialism and all that it stands for.

Another form of repetition is used by George Orwell, alliteration. George Orwell uses alliteration to create a consistent pattern that catches the reader’s eye. This makes the reader read faster, thereby adding a sense of speed and intensity to the sentence. Right after Orwell had fired at the elephant he used alliteration to describe its pain, “He looked suddenly, stricken, shrunken.” George Orwell uses this technique throughout his essay. Here the effect is the emphases on the pain of the elephant. As mentioned before the slow death of the elephant is a symbol of the downfall of the British Empire. Therefore in order to support his opinion of Imperialism George Orwell magnifies the death of the elephant into something much more powerful.      

Even though seemingly not a very influential aspect of the essay, the technique of the paradox is very interesting. George Orwell uses a paradox to install some fresh thought and ideas into the readers mind, “A story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes.” He emphasizes a new approach and a new solution to the idea of Imperialism. Here Orwell is stating Imperialism looks good on the outside but internally it’s a mess, it will never work. This is a paradox since previously, nowhere has Orwell discussed the internal affairs of British Imperialism. Interestingly, by saying so Orwell is implying that the British Empire needs to manage its affairs better. 

Literary devices are key to George Orwell’s success to convey the weakness of Imperialism to his readers. Using a number of different literary devices lets George Orwell emphasize the theme in a number of different ways which makes his writing so special and such a joy to read. By doing so he also ensures himself that he reaches out to many different audiences of readers each preferring a different literary device for the message to be conveyed to them. Thus George Orwell makes it easy for the reader to understand his message which lets the reader enjoy the memory.