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Shooting an Elephant Summary
George Orwell

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Shooting an Elephant Summary & Study Guide
8 Student Essays
1 Encyclopedia Article
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30 Shooting an Elephant Lessons
20 Activities
180 Multiple Choice Questions
60 Short Essay Questions
20 Essay Questions
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Shooting an Elephant Summary

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...

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Encyclopedia Articles (1)

"Shooting an Elephant"

4,225 words, approx. 15 pages

Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell George Orwell (1903-50) was born Eric Arthur Blair in Motihari, Bengal, where his father worked for the Opium Department of the Government of I... Read more

George Orwell Biographies (6)

George Orwell

1,230 words, approx. 5 pages

The British novelist and essayist George Orwell (1903-1950) is best known for his satirical novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-four.George Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair at Motihari, Bengal, In... Read more

George Orwell

10,314 words, approx. 35 pages

George Orwell's remarkable international reputation is primarily due to his last two novels, Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which have spoken to the Cold War consciousness with s... Read more

George Orwell

2,523 words, approx. 9 pages

George Orwell is most widely known today as the novelist who wrote Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), but in the 1930s and 1940s readers of left-wing intellectual periodicals and week... Read more

George Orwell

4,784 words, approx. 16 pages

George Orwell's three major books of travel writing--Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), and Homage to Catalonia (1938)--revived the tradition of excursionary liter... Read more

George Orwell

4,889 words, approx. 17 pages

George Orwell gained an enduring international reputation with his two last works of fiction, the political fable Animal Farm: A Fairy Story (1945) and his near-future dystopia, Nineteen Eighty-Four (... Read more

George Orwell

10,847 words, approx. 37 pages

Biography EssayGeorge Orwell's remarkable international reputation is primarily due to his last two novels, Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which have spoken to the Cold War cons... Read more

Essays & Analysis (8)

On Orwell's "shooting an Elephant"

512 words, approx. 2 pages

On Shooting an Elephant Officer Blair received a report of a run away elephant within his jurisdiction. Leaving in response to the emergency, he is followed. The crowd following him swe... Read more

Defining Public Spaces in "Shooting an Elephant"

984 words, approx. 4 pages

Public spaces are defined in many different ways in the story of "Shooting an Elephant". First, the people of lower Burma did not like the English people being there. Next, the narrator also explained... Read more

George Orwell and "Shooting an Elephant"

532 words, approx. 2 pages

Throughout his life Orwell was critical of Imperialism - that was the reason he resigned from the Imperial Guard. This point of view is evident in his short story Shooting an Elephant. Orwell felt he ... Read more

An Analysis of Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant"

3,946 words, approx. 14 pages

"Shooting an Elephant" is one of the most popular of George Orwell's essays. Like his essays "A hanging" and "How the Poor Die", it is chiefly autobiographical. It deals with his experience as a polic... Read more

George Orwell's Essay

856 words, approx. 3 pages

In most of George Orwell's writing, Orwell strives to simultaneously politicize readers while creating an absorbing piece of writing, as is the case in his two essays "A Hanging" and "Shooting an... Read more

Summary of "Shooting an Elephant"

370 words, approx. 2 pages

The Summary of "Shooting An Elephant" George Orwell, in the essay, narrated the whole process of killing an outrageous elephant when he was in the post of a police officer in Burma. (One kernel t... Read more

The Interaction of Society and the Individual in Literature

1,703 words, approx. 6 pages

In every society of the world, there is a direct relationship between its values and its individuals. Whether it is the values of society that shape the individual, or the individual that shapes the v... Read more

Critique of Imperialism in "Shooting an Elephant"

1,143 words, approx. 4 pages

Many people may misinterpret George Orwell's tone in the essay "Shooting an Elephant." People often construe that the story is about Orwell's decision to either shoot the elephant, or to just peaceful... Read more

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