Shooting an Elephant Reading Mini Test Answers
By George Orwell (1903-1950)
A Study Guide
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Study Guide Prepared by Michael J. Cummings . � 2009
Blazon of Work
....... "Shooting an Elephant" is a short story that is also sometimes classified as an essay. It start appeared in 1936 in the fall outcome of New Writing, published twice a year in London from 1936 to 1946.
Setting
....... The setting is Burma (present-solar day Myanmar) in the 1920s, when the state was a province of India. The action takes place in the town of Moulmein in the southern function of the province, chosen Lower Burma, a rice-growing region on the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Ocean.
Historical Background
....... Burma (present-solar day Myanmar) became a province of India on January 1, 1886, when Republic of india was role of the British Empire.
....... European interest in India began when the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama arrived there in 1498. In 1600, England chartered the East Republic of india Visitor to exploit Asian
resources and within decades established trading posts in primal Indian cities. Over the next two-and-a-half centuries, United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland expanded its economic interest in Bharat. In 1858, United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland transferred command of India from the East Republic of india Visitor to the British government. The British overlords directly imposed their will and their means on three-fifths of the populace in what became known equally "British India" and indirectly on two-fifths of the populace in autonomous native states.
....... Meanwhile, after fighting three wars with the Burmese�the beginning from 1824 to1826, the second in 1852, and the tertiary in 1885�the British gained control of Burma and incorporated information technology into India.
....... Britons dominated the economic, political, and social life of the their conquered lands. The British got the best jobs, held the top government posts, and exploited the natural resources. They also erected social barriers between themselves and the natives. All the while, native resentment of the English was edifice. In the twentieth century, this resentment connected to increment. George Orwell and other writers, including E.One thousand. Forster, were amidst dissident voices that called attention to the evils of British imperialism.
Characters
The Narrator: Immature Englishman serving as a constabulary officer in Burma in the 1920s, when Burma was part of British-controlled India. He strongly opposes the oppressive British dominion of Burma and the rest of Bharat. At the same time, he resents the ridicule he receives from the natives, who are unaware that he is on their side politically. The narrator'southward views correspond those of the author, George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Blair).
Sub-Inspector: Burmese officeholder who calls the narrator for help afterwards an elephant gets loose in town.
Black Dravidian Coolie: Indian laborer from the town of Coringa, India, who is killed past the elephant. A Dravidian is a lower-degree Indian who speaks his own language, Dravidian.
Friend of the Narrator: Man who provides the narrator an elephant gun.
Police Orderly: Person who fetches an elephant gun for the narrator.
Mahout: Possessor of the elephant. He becomes very angry after learning that the narrator has killed his elephant. A mahout is a skilled elephant trainer and handler.
Indian Constables
Crowd of Townspeople
British Who React to the Shooting
By Michael J. Cummings . � 2009
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....... As a British constabulary officeholder in the hillside boondocks of Moulmein in Lower Burma, the narrator frequently endures jeers from the natives. They do not realize that he, as well, opposes English language occupation of Burma. In his position, he sees the misery that imperialism produces.
....... �The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the greyness, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos�all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt," he says.
....... Then here he is walking a line betwixt anti-imperialism and "the evil spirited little beasts who tried to make my task impossible."
....... Ane morning time at the beginning of the rainy season (between June and October), an incident occurs that enlightens him about the motives of imperialism. An elephant is loose in a bazaar in a poor department of town, and a Burmese sub-inspector phones him to come up and remedy the situation. The elephant, normally tame, is in must, a country of frenzy brought on past sexual rut. After it had broken its chain and run away, its mahout pursued it in the wrong direction and was now many miles away. Then far the elephant had demolished a hut, overturned a garbage van, killed a cow, and eaten produce in the fruit stalls of the boutique. Because the Burmese take no weapons of their ain, the elephant is free to run wild.
....... The narrator gets his .44 Winchester and travels to the site on a pony. The Winchester is non powerful enough to kill an elephant, but the noise it makes tin affright an animal. After the sub-inspector and several Indian constables greet the narrator, he investigates a hubbub at a nearby hut. Around the corner of the hut, he discovers the trunk of an Indian, a black Dravidian coolie, in mud. Onlookers report that the elephant captured him with its trunk and then footing him down with its foot. His body is a ghastly sight�skin torn from his back, head wrenched askew, teeth clenched in agony.
....... A friend of the narrator owns an elephant gun, and the narrator sends a police orderly to fetch it. After he returns with the rifle and 5 cartridges, the narrator heads downwards a hill toward paddy fields where the elephant was last seen. Throngs of people follow him to witness the shooting of an elephant and to reap the harvest of meat afterward. However, the narrator hopes it will non exist necessary to shoot the creature.
....... At the bottom of the hill is a road, then the paddy fields. The elephant is on the other side of the road feeding on grass. He seems peaceful, as if his must frenzy has subsided and he has returned to normalcy. To kill the elephant would be a terrible shame. After all, he is a working elephant, only as valuable equally an expensive car. If he has indeed become docile again, his mahout will have no trouble controlling him. The narrator decides to detect the elephant for a while. If it continues to acquit, he will go habitation. But when he turns around and looks at the spectators, now numbering nigh two yard, he realizes that they expect him to shoot the elephant and that he is a puppet who must practise their bidding.
And it was at this moment, as I stood at that place with the burglarize in my hands, that I starting time grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white human being's dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front end of the unarmed native oversupply�seemingly the leading histrion of the slice; but in reality I was only an cool puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant information technology is his own freedom that he destroys . . . I had got to shoot the elephant . . . To come all that way, rifle in mitt, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and so to trail feebly away, having done null�no, that was incommunicable. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man'southward life in the East, was i long struggle not to be laughed at........ The elephant, meanwhile, remains at-home, ignoring the crowd. His left side is parallel to the route, the narrator, and the crowd. Having never before killed an elephant, the narrator is unsure of the verbal location of the its brain. Withal, he loads the gun, gets down on the basis in order to steady his aim, and fires at his caput, in front of the ear. (He should take fired at the ear.) After about five seconds, the elephant falls to its knees. The narrator fires once more. The elephant rises. He is wobbly. The narrator fires a 3rd time, and the elephant collapses. The people blitz across the road to view information technology close up. He is withal breathing. The narrator fires his remaining 2 cartridges into its side, where he thinks its heart is. Blood flows from the wound, only still he breathes. Then, with his Winchester, he fires one shot after another into the beast�outset into the side, so into the throat. The elephant continues to breathe.
....... Unable to stand up there and spotter it suffer, the narrator leaves. He finds out afterward that the beast lasted some other half-hour and that the Burmans �had stripped his trunk almost to the basic by the afternoon."
....... Afterward, the Burmans and the Europeans were divided on what should accept been done. The possessor, of course, is angry. But as an Indian, he is powerless to accept action. Besides, the narrator has the police force on his side. An elephant has to be killed if its owner fails to command information technology. The older Europeans defend the narrator. The younger ones say it is wrong to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, for the it is worth much more the victim. The narrator says, "And afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; information technology put me legally in the correct and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant. I ofttimes wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool."
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....... The narrator experiences three conflicts: one with the Brtitish Empire because of its unjust occupation of Burma, one with the Burmese because of their mockery of him as a representative of the British Empire, and one with himself in his struggle with his conscience and self-image. In literary terms, the first two are external conflicts (because they are outside him) and the third is an internal disharmonize (because it is inside him). All three conflicts complicate his power to make objective, clear-headed decisions.
Narrator's Point of View and His Shortcomings
....... The narrator tells the story in starting time-person betoken of view. He blames British tyranny and Burmese reaction to information technology for his troubles, as the following paragraph indicates:
I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage confronting the evil-spirited piddling beasts who tried to brand my chore impossible. With i part of my listen I thought of the British Raj equally an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the volition of prostrate peoples; with another role I thought that the greatest joy in the globe would exist to bulldoze a bayonet into a Buddhist priest's guts. Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism; enquire any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty........The narrator also asserts that �when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys." But is he but making excuses for his own shortcomings? Later all, he could refuse to shoot the elephant and walk away. True, he would lose face. Simply he would retain his honour; his censor would remain clear. Nonetheless, under pressure to kill the creature, he cannot muster the courage to oppose the will of oversupply. So he decides to shoot the elephant (even though he admits that he is a �poor shot with a rifle"). Just that decision is not his but mistake. He also errs when he fails to seek advice�from someone in the oversupply, from the sub-inspector, or from the owner of the elephant gun�on where to direct his shot. After firing the first shot at its skull in forepart of an ear, he wounds but does not kill the elephant. He then fires ii more cartridges at the aforementioned spot. But the elephant, though downward, refuses to die. The narrator then makes a bloody mess of things. First, he fires the last two elephant-gun cartridges into the body of the elephant in hopes of striking the heart. When that strategy fails, he fires several rounds from his Winchester into the elephant's rima oris and body. The elephant remains alive, and the narrator can do zippo simply walk away. The elephant lies in agony for some other one-half-hour before dying.
.......One may conclude that, yes, the British government is condemnable for its subjugation of the people of Burma. Ane may as well conclude that private British overseers are reprehensible for allowing authorities policy to run roughshod over their consciences.
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Themes
The Evil of Imperialism
.......Imperialism is evil. Get-go, information technology humiliates the occupied people, reducing them to junior status in their ain country. Second, it goads the occupiers into making immoral or unethical decisions to maintain their superiority over the people. In �Shooting an Elephant," the narrator acts against his ain conscience to salve face for himself and his fellow imperialists.
Loss of Freedom in a Colonized Land
.......When imperialists colonize a country, they restrict the freedom of the natives. In and so doing, the imperialists also unwittingly limit their own freedom in that they tend to avoid courses of action that could provoke the occupied people. In �Shooting an Elephant," the narrator realizes that he should allow the elephant to alive, only he shoots the animate being anyway to satisfy the crowd of natives who want him to impale it. He then says,
I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For information technology is the status of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "natives," and and so in every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" wait of him. He wears a mask, and his confront grows to fit information technology.Prejudice
.......Although the narrator seems to respect the natives every bit fellow human beings, other Europeans regard the Burmese and Indians with contempt�an attitude made articulate most the terminate of the story: "[T]he younger [Europeans] said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, considering an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie."
.......Historically, the British placed their own men in positions of authority in the colonial government in India, which then incorporated Burma, and natives in junior positions. Moreover, the British more often than not did not socialize with the natives.
Resentment
.......The natives resent the presence of the British, equally would any people subjected to foreign rule. They ridicule the British from a distance and laugh at them whenever an opportunity presents itself. In plow, many of the the British despise the natives. And so, there is constant tension betwixt the occupier and the occupied.
Vocabulary
bazaar: Market on a street with walk-in shops and outdoor stalls.
coolie: Unskilled laborer.
Coringhee: From or having to do with the town of Coringa, India. It is in the state of Andhra Pradesh in the southeastern office of the country.
Dravidian: Lower-caste Indian who speaks his own language, Dravidian.
imperialism: Policy of controlling weak or underdeveloped countries for economic, political, and war machine purposes.
in saecula saeculorum: Latin for in this age and for all ages; forever; for eternity; until the terminate of the world.
mahout: Skilled elephant trainer and handler.
Raj, British: British authorities rule in Republic of india, of which Burma was a part; the period when the British authorities ruled Bharat.
sahib: Master, sir. Indians and Burmans used the word when addressing an Englishman.
Climax
.......The climax occurs when the narrator decides under pressure that he must shoot the elephant.
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Symbols
.......Post-obit are examples of symbols in "Shooting an Elephant":
mad elephant: Symbol of the British Empire. Like the elephant, the empire is powerful. When the elephant raids the boutique (market), he symbolizes the British Empire raiding the economy of Burma. When he kills the coolie, he represents the British oppressing the natives.
dead coolie: Symbol of the downtrodden Burmese. Note that Orwell says his arms are outstretched like those of the crucified Christ.
football game (soccer): Symbol of British imposition of their culture on their colonies. Modern soccer was developed in England in the the 19th Century.
mud: Symbol of the squalor in which the Burmese must live under British rule. It is also a symbol of the political mire that the British created for themselves when they colonized Republic of india and Burma.
.......Following are examples of figures of speech in the story.
Alliteration
Repetition of a Consonant Sound
y ellow faces of y oung men that thousand et m eastward everywhere,Anaphora
c owed faces of the long-term c onvicts
I marched downwards the hello ll , l ooking and f ee l ing a f ool. . . .
I w as thou o one thousand entarily w orth w atching.
He fifty ooked s udden 50 y due south tricken,
An enormous s enility south eemed to have s ettled upon him.
.......Anaphora is a figure of spoken language in which a word or phrase is repeated at the first of a clause or another group of words. Anaphora imparts emphasis and balance, as in the following examples:
Some of the people said that the elephant had gone in 1 management, some said that he had gone in another, some professed not even to have heard of whatever elephant.Metaphor
I looked at the bounding main of yellowish faces above the garish apparel�faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant was going to be shot. .
Comparison of Unlike Things Without Using Like, As, Than, or Equally If
I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. (Comparison of wills to a physical force)Oxymoron
I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro past the volition of those yellow faces behind. (Comparison of the narrator to a puppet)
Combination of Contradictory Terms
grinning corpseOnomatopoeia
.......He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps,
Paradox
Contradictory statement that may actually be true
[A] story ever sounds clear enough at a distance, merely the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes.Simile
I perceived in this moment that when the white human being turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.
Comparison of Different Things Using Like, As, Than, or Every bit If
The friction of the great brute'south foot had stripped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins a rabbit. (Comparison of the elephant's action to that of a man skinning .....a rabbit)Writer Information
[T]he elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow. (Comparison of the elephant to a cow)
[H]due east seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skyward like a tree. (Comparing of the elephant to a rock)
The thick claret welled out of him like ruby-red velvet. . . . (Comparison of blood to velvet)
.......George Orwell (1903-1950) was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair. Orwell, a British denizen, was built-in in Motihari, India, in 1903, and attended schoolhouse in England. Betwixt 1922 and 1927, he served the British government in Burma as an officer of the Indian Imperial Law. After becoming disenchanted with British handling of the native Burmese, he left the law service, traveled in Europe, and in 1934 published his first novel, Burmese Days, which impugned British imperialism. He also wrote several fine short stories, including "Shooting an Elephant," which are based on his experiences in Burma. His virtually famous works, both of which warn of the dangers of totalitarianism, are his novels Animal Farm and 1984.
i....Do yous sympathize with the narrator? Explain your reply.
two....In an essay, compare and contrast the plight of native-built-in Burmans and Indians of the early twentieth century with the plight of American blacks in the same time period.
three....Write a brusque psychological profile of the narrator.
4....In an essay, discuss Orwell'south use of irony in "Shooting an Elephant."
5....When and under what circumstances did Bharat and Burma proceeds their liberty from British rule.
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