"Shooting an Elephant": Summary

Orwell opened his essay with some backstory. He was working as a

police officer in Moulmein, Burma. The area, which was part of India at
the time, was controlled by the British, and the Burmese people had
negative feelings towards Europeans. The narrator described that he had
decided by that time that he was against imperialism, so he was on the
side of the Burmese people. However, the people around him did not
know that. They saw him as another white man in a position of authority
that he was not entitled to, and they harassed him. Not only did the
narrator hate his job because it was part of the imperialistic schema, but
he also hated it for the way he was treated by the people of Burma.
One day he received a call about an escaped male elephant that was in
"must" (musth)—a phase male elephants go through when their
testosterone surges, and they often become aggressive. The
elephants mahout, or handler, had gone the wrong direction in search of
his elephant, and he was twelve hours away. The officer headed to the
bazaar where the elephant was reportedly seen, but it had moved on by
the time he arrived.
He noticed a woman trying to corral some children, and he went to
investigate. The woman had been moving the children away from the
body of a man who had been trampled by the elephant. Upon seeing the
body, The officer sent someone after an elephant gun, as he had only
brought his regular rifle, which was no match for an elephant. He was told
the elephant was by some rice paddies, and he started off in that
direction.
By the time he found the elephant, The narrator had a massive crowd of
followers, which he said was over 2000 strong. The elephant was eating
grass in a rice paddy, and it seemed to have calmed down. He asked a
couple of men how the elephant had been, and they said it was calm, but
might attack if someone got too close. Too unnerved to try to get closer,
the officer felt he had only one choice—shoot the elephant.
Over and over, the narrator declared that he did not want to shoot the
elephant. He knew, though, that the mass of people surrounding him all
wanted him to take the shot. They were excited by the action, and they
could take the meat once the deed was completed. It was then that he
realized the irony of the situation and that he was not truly the one in
power, although he had a technical position of authority.
Urged on by the crowd and not wanting to appear silly or weak, the
narrator took aim and fired, but he did not know he had aimed wrong. His
first shot did not bring the peaceful elephant down, nor the second. The
third shot brought the animal down, but did not kill it. He shot the
remaining two rounds. After he was out of bullets, it took the bull half an
hour to die.
His actions received mixed responses. Some said he was in the right to
shoot the bull, especially since it had killed someone, and the meat fed
many people. Others condemned him for shooting the peaceful animal, as
the elephant was the source of someone's livelihood and worth much
more alive than dead.

‘Shooting an Elephant’ is a 1936 essay by George Orwell (1903-50),

about his time as a young policeman in Burma, which was then part of
the British empire. The essay explores an apparent paradox about the
behaviour of Europeans, who supposedly have the power over their
colonial subjects.