Introduction & Overview of Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell

Shooting an Elephant Introduction

George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" first appeared in 1936. The British public already knew Orwell as the socially conscious author of Down and Out in London and Paris (1933), a nonfiction study of poverty, homelessness, unemployment, and subsistence living on poorly-paying menial jobs, and Burmese Days (1934), a novel of British colonialism. "Shooting an Elephant" functions as an addendum to Burmese Days. The story and novel share the same setting, and draw on Orwell's experience as a colonial official in India and Burma, two regions of the British Empire, in the middle of the century between the two world wars. The story (which some critics consider an essay) concerns a colonial officer's obligation to shoot a rogue elephant. The narrator does not want to shoot the elephant, but feels compelled to by a crowd of indigenous residents, before whom he does not wish to appear indecisive or cowardly. The situation...
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