Scribd
Upload
121 views1 page

Student Response 5

Uploaded by

Nicky Robertson
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
121 views1 page

Student Response 5

Uploaded by

Nicky Robertson
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

The text gives what seems like an autobiographical account of Orwell as a young man in Burma when

he was called to shoot an elephant. The reflective and sombre tone throughout the text and the
imagery created in the writing show the reader Orwell’s state of mind and clearly portray the
memory as he experienced it.

Orwell ‘did not want to shoot the elephant,’ though he felt that there was no other option. Besides
stating so, the effect that he was hesitating because this was not a decision he wanted to make was
made clear by showing his internal thought process where he was looking for another option than
shooting the elephant. The use of modals show his struggle between what he ‘ought to’ and ‘could’
do and what he knows his duty requires of him. He felt it would be ‘murder’ to shoot this animal and
was looking for alternatives, but realized that he only had one option, though it wasn’t one that he
liked. The decision to not conjugate words, like ‘did not’ and ‘I had’, make the statements seem
more rigid and creates the effect that the writer had his mind firmly made up that this was
something he did not want to do.

Orwell portrays the elephant as a vulnerable and non – threatening being. The writer’s view of the
elephant, which ‘took no notice’ of the people around it and just stood there with its ‘preoccupied
grandmotherly air’, is clear from the description of the elephant which gives the impression that it
was calm and gentle. Using the personal pronouns ‘him’ and ‘his’ rather that ‘it’ as he’s talking about
the elephant shows that the writer sees the elephant as an individual and that he had a more
personal connection to the animal. The pitying description after it was shot also doesn’t give the
impression that the elephant was a dangerous beast the had finally been slain, but rather a
defenseless creature that has been defeated, ‘sagg[ing] flabbily to his knees’, succumbed to ‘senility’
and looking a ‘thousand years old,’ as if the animal is being weighed down by its age. The beast is
portrayed as vulnerable and easily knocked down by the description of it ‘climb[ing] with desperate
slowness’ and how it stood ‘weakly upright’ and seeing the ‘agony of it jolt his whole body.’

However, the crowd’s view is contrasted against the writer’s view as they did not have such a
sentimental attachment to the animal and seemed to have thought of shooting the beast as a kind
of show, a theatre play. The crowd’s anticipation is sensed when the writer notes that they ‘grew
very still,’ as a crowd does before a performance starts. The description of their ‘deep, low, happy,’
sigh has a connotation of satisfaction rather than sadness at the elephant being shot. The scene is
further dramatized by describing the sigh as one of when people see the ‘theatre curtain’ go up and
it is reinforced that that this is not a tragic event for the crowd, but rather a ‘bit of fun.’ The crowd’s
applause described as a ‘devilish roar of glee,’ creates the image of a crowd applauding after a
performance which pleased them.

The writer created a sense that the elephant is valuable, and more so alive than dead. He states that
the elephant was worth ‘at least a hundred pounds’ alive, while dead he would ‘only’ be worth
around five pounds. When shot, the elephant’s blood being ‘like red velvet’ also suggests that the
elephant is worth more alive. Red velvet can be seen as a more luxurious fabric and it seems that
this value is pouring out of the elephant as it is dying.

You might also like