This essay examines George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" through the lens of symbolism, irony, and inner moral conflict. The narrator, a British police officer in colonial Burma, is torn between his personal beliefs and the social pressures of his role as an imperial official. The paper explores how the narrator and the elephant function as powerful symbols of oppression and subjugation under British imperialism. It also analyzes the deep irony in the narrator's behavior — acting against his own moral judgment to avoid ridicule — and argues that Orwell uses these literary devices to illuminate the difficulty of following one's conscience under the weight of institutional power and social expectation.
George Orwell's essay "Shooting an Elephant" reveals a great deal about human nature. Orwell writes about the inner struggle between doing what is right and doing what merely appears right in the eyes of others. Using his own experience as a police officer in the British Empire, he shows that doing the right thing is not always straightforward, especially when one is caught between the expectations of one's peers and the people one governs. The narrator struggles intensely with his desire to maintain respectability in the eyes of both the Burmese and his fellow officers.
Orwell also makes extensive use of symbolism: both the narrator and the elephant become powerful figures that invite reflection on power and subjugation. The essay is deeply ironic as well, since the narrator experiences profound internal conflict yet still behaves like a puppet controlled by the very people he is supposed to govern. Orwell demonstrates that life is rarely as simple as it appears, and that social pressure can twist even a person of conscience into acting against their own will.
The inner struggle of the individual is central to the essay's themes, as the narrator must weigh his professional duties against his moral beliefs. In Burma, he is hated "by large numbers of people" (694). He explains that this hostility stems entirely from his role as a colonial official. As a sub-divisional police officer in a foreign land, his position demands that he maintain the respect — or at least the deference — of the local population. Making matters worse, he is an "obvious target" (694) for sneers and hostile gestures, precisely because he represents the European imperial presence that the Burmese deeply resent.
These experiences lead the narrator to conclude that "imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better" (694). He admits that he sided emotionally with the Burmese and was "all against their oppressors" (694). Yet he also confesses to being "stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible" (694). His reputation among the Burmese is constantly at risk, and this vulnerability distorts his decision-making at every turn.
This tension is most clearly illustrated by the incident with the elephant. The narrator understands that he should not kill the animal. Yet because the crowd has gathered and is watching, he realizes that he must shoot the elephant or risk being ridiculed. A white man "mustn't be frightened in front of 'natives'" (697), he reflects. He later acknowledges that he did the "right thing" (699) in a legal sense, but he is fully aware that he acted "solely to avoid looking like a fool" (699). His moral code tells him that European imperialism is harming Burma, yet his professional role prevents him from expressing or acting on that belief. This internal contradiction is embodied in the killing of the elephant — an act carried out for entirely the wrong reasons.
Beyond the personal, the narrator himself becomes a symbol. He is placed in a situation he despises, mirroring the position of the Burmese, who are equally trapped under a system they did not choose. The Burmese hate him in much the same way he hates those who hold power over him. At the same time, he also symbolizes British imperial rule itself — he embodies the very force that oppresses the people around him, and they resent him for it. The Buddhist priests jeer at Europeans; ordinary Burmese sneer and shout. The narrator witnesses the "dirty work of the empire at close quarters" (694) and is revolted by it, yet he is that empire when he walks the streets of Burma.
This dual role — both victim and instrument of oppression — is one of Orwell's most pointed observations about imperialism. No one within the colonial system is truly free, not even those who appear to hold authority. The narrator's position strips him of the ability to act according to his own values, reducing him to a representative of a system he morally opposes.
"Elephant represents Burma's suffering under British rule"
"Narrator becomes puppet of the crowd he claims to control"
"Shooting an Elephant" gets to the heart of human nature from several angles. The narrator's perspective is the most important because he is forced to confront truths about himself and others through the act of killing the elephant. The theme of an individual's struggle to do the right thing emerges as the essay's central concern. The dangers of imperialism are revealed through the narrator's specific circumstances: he cannot act in accordance with his true self because of his profession and because of how others will judge him.
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