Shooting an Elephant: George Orwell-Summary

The narrator, who we presumed to be the author of Shooting an Elephant,  George Orwell, talks about being a police officer in Moulmein, Burma, a town where “[he] was hated by large numbers of people.” Being a police officer during a tense of anti-European sentiment made him a target and a symbol of the cruel colonial power, the British, even thought his beliefs and supports go towards the Burmese. Every day, he wakes up to be mocked by the people whose his intellectual sympathies lie with.

Shooting an Elephant reached its climax when the narrator was informed that an elephant lost control under the attack of “must” was “ravaging the bazaar” Taking his rifle, “an old .44 Winchester” the narrator went to finish his mission, killing an elephant, along with a few thousand people. The elephant’s mahout, the person who controls the elephant, went the wrong direction, and it will take him awhile to go to the elephant’s whereabouts and cool it down. Therefore, the police officer has to do something about the elephant whether it is shooting it down or letting it live peacefully. A decision has to be made and the police officer gets so much pressure from his surroundings that it wasn’t permissible for him to think clearly. After all, putting bullets in the elephant’s heart seemed to be the only option he had. After a long time full of struggle and pain, it took the police officer five bullets to put the massive elephant down. Ultimately, at the end of the story the narrator confesses that he killed the elephant not to protect the elephant from hurting more people or destroying more properties but so that people can stop mocking him for working the oppressive imperial.