~P.O.V.~

Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell (1936)

From the narrator’s point of view:

He was a policeman during an anti-European era in Burma. He often finds himself being ignored and hated by the Burmese. The experience was upsetting him because he thinks imperialism was an evil thing. When the elephant ran amok and killed a "coolie", only then the locals find him "momentarily worth watching". They were anticipating for him to kill the elephant. His action of asking the orderly to get an elephant gun was mainly for protection. He got no intentions of using it. The elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow when he found it. After he fired some shots and killed the elephant, he was glad it killed the "coolie" as that gave him a legal reason to do so. At the end of the story, he wondered if they will even understand his motive for having killed the elephant as he merely wished to uphold his pride.

From the people’s point of view:

The policeman was a conqueror. They hated him so much. They had shown no interests in their ravaged home compared to shooting the elephant. They were shouting excitedly and asked the elephant to be shot because they think it was "fun" and they wanted the meat.

From my point of view:

I’ve asked myself these questions:

The policeman killed the elephant to sustain his pride but will he be able to do so?

No, he won’t because he was a conqueror to the natives.

Will the natives accept him after he killed the elephant?

No, because it was the show and its meat they were after.

I think the narrator should label the elephant as a "little beast" and the natives as "great beast" instead of the other way in the text. It is because they think that killing is "fun". I’m sure any normal human being on earth will not think so unless the person is crazy.

I think shooting the elephant is so inhumane. If there’s one thing called "tranquilizer" at that time, they should use it instead of using a gun and killed the elephant.