Reflection on 'Shooting an Elephant'

Foremost, I would say that I really like to read this short story. It seems like I can bring my emotion when reading it. I pity the elephant that had been shooting by the author. But one thing I that I want to talk about here is how successful Geogre Orwell (the author) to write and deliver this story with sensation. He himself never had been an elephant shooter before. He never experienced what it feels to live in burdensome duty. But, it is amazing that he can put himself in the situation and bring the reader to feel it also. This is what we call the fiction of fact.

I notice that the word ‘Empire’ in the story plays an important role to show what the author believes. In this story, the word Empire is actually refers to the British Empire. From this story we can see two types of people which are the colonial people (refers to the British) and colonized people (refers to the Burmise/local). From the story, we can see that the author perceives imperialism as ‘an evil thing’.

He also portrays what happened in prison in the second paragraph:

‘The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been Bogged with bamboos—all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.’

Other than that, we also notice his peculiar situation on how he sees himself as a colonial officer, in situation which he is controlled over.