Table of Contents
In “Shooting an Elephant,” Orwell’s opinion about imperialism is that “when the white man turns tyrants, it is his freedom that he destroys. He means when a person becomes a tyrant, in a sense that person is giving up their own freedom because now they have to take on that role of a tyrant and that tyrant person is now not free to behave as a person who is not a tyrant.
In the early 1600s, England began to set up colonies along the Atlantic seaboard. There were four main reasons for the founding of these colonies. England, France, and Spain all have claimed in North America. The first reason for these reasons was political. Colonies would give new sources of wealth and power for their country. The English government also wanted to weaken Spain by establishing military and naval outposts. The second reason for establishing colonies was economic. The term, economic deals with money. How England did, this event was through the economic system it practiced called mercantilism.
England and Colonialism in the Book
In this system, England controlled the economies of its colonies. England will take gold and silver from the colonies and send it back to England and add it to its own treasury. The second part of mercantilism was a favorable balance of trade or England. It is when you have more export which is goods going out than you have an import good coming in. The colonies will send things like gold, silver, Fur, Cumberland Foodstuffs to the mother country England. They will, in turn, make manufactured goods and send them back to the colonies. In what this idea means is the colony could only buy and sell from England, and of course benefit in England. This system led to triangular trade. The best-known triangular trading system was the transatlantic slave trade, which operated from the late 16th to early 19th centuries, carrying slaves, cash crops, and manufactured goods between West Africa, to the Caribbean, and America and Britain. In the triangular trade, colonies will produce things like tobacco and cotton, sugar cane and offer other material that will then, in turn, send to England. England will send the product to the slave. The slave will send back to the colonies to work on plantations primarily in the South. The third reason for English colonization is religion. Some people left England because of religious persecution (punishment). They then established colonies of their own religious principles. Others wanted to practice religious freedom and did so but tolerated other faiths. This issue introduced freedom of religion found in the U.S. today.
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The fourth reason for English colonization is social. Many people came to the colonies to escape poverty (being poor), famine (lack of food), political turmoil, the availability of land, and to start a better life. The 13 English colonies were founded for political, economic, religious, and social reasons. Orwell’s revealed some other uglier aspect of the British Empire, he mentions the jails and the cages people are in “The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lockup, the gray, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flooded with bamboos”. He mentions that there are entitled British feeling among the populous which is natural because they’re being ruled over by this British empire. Orwell himself thinks that bad. His on the side of the native people, he is the enemies of these people even though he likes them on the inside. In his mind, he is on their side but physically he is a police officer in the British machinery and he has to be a cog in that larger wheel. And so these people do not like him even though he likes them. But for them he admits, he doesn’t like them all the time because sometimes they insult him, they tripped him on the soccer field.
There’s this resentment there as one would expect “As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so”. These folks are being controlled and ruled over in their own country. They have been invaded so of course they are unhappy with that and he represents the empire so they don’t like him either. This is a tuff position to be in. So, he’s in a struggle already because he doesn’t like his job. He said I should have chucked up a long time ago because I already decided it was a bad thing to be part of the empire. “For at that time I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and go out of it the better”. When the elephant comes along. He finds himself acting in this role of a powerful British officer, so he should know what to do. He is supposed to be courageous and act decisively. He ends up fulfilling the role instead of following his personal will. When he says “he wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it”. He is talking about the role of the empire and the role of a police officer in this empire his gonna grow to fit that role and do what a police officer is supposed to do. Instead of what he knows is right, so being in the role he takes away some of his personal freedom. Remember that he was young at the time too maybe as an older person he might have been able to courageously made a different decision.
But he was fulfilling the role that was expected now the whole empire is doing something similar. The British ruling people and Burma and other places like India find themselves acting out the role instead of actually being human beings following what they know to be right. Everybody kind of caught up in the system and because the system is bad and wrong then people in it start acting badly and wrongly inspire themselves because there feeling the role. The whole empire is being examined through the land of one officer and his one experience. He shot the elephant because he had pressure from these thousands of people expecting him to act a certain way. That makes him frightening about what would happen if he disappoints these people. He does not want to be laughed at. He mentions at the end of the story that he did it to avoid a fool. “I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool”.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the the story shows that not anyone walks around proud of every single thing that they ever did or said. That is because in life there is an external pressure, which asks us to always do better and faster, it is necessary to know our personality and be calm to make the right decision.
