SHOOTING AN

ELEPHANT
CHARACTERS

 George Orwell
SETTING

Shooting an elephant takes place in Moulmein,

Burma, during the british rule there. While the
year is not mentioned in the story, we can
assume the event might happen in the early
1920’s.
PLOT
EXPOSITION

As a young british police imperial

officer in Moulmein, Burma, the narrator
routinely subjected to hateful stares,
jeers and insults.
RISING ACTION

He gets called by a sub-inspector who

says that the an elephant is on the loose
in the town.
CLIMA
X
Influenced by the pressure from the
crowd, the officer shoots the elephant
multiple times before leaving it there.
FALLING ACTION

He walks away, feeling bad about

his actions, as the elephant dies
slowly.
RESOLUTION

He does not want to shoot the elephant. The elephant

is an important and expensive prossession and he
sees no sense in killing him. But his pride and his
position as a white police officer makes him to decide
anyway. The narrator doesn’t know how to shoot to
kill an elephant and the elephants falls to the ground
in agony, but does not die.
ATMOSPHERE

Shooting an elephant is tense, as the diction

is rather frank and joyless. This is established
by the situation: as the narrator despises his
occupation, yet the people are pinned against
him as well as the fact the natives view as one
with the crowd.
POINT OF VIEW

The story is toled completely from his

memory and perspective… This makes
Orwell’s narrative style very effective; the
reader finishes the story believing that
imperialism truly is an evil and destructive
force.
SYMBOLISM

The Burmese chaining the elephant ( British

empire) symbolizes how the British most live up
to the expectation of its colonies. The elephant
symbolizes the imperialistics British empire. His
death at Orwell’s hands shows the fall of the
British empire at the hands of its own officials.
IRONY

‘’When the white man turns tyrant, it is

his own freedom that he destroys’’. This
is situational irony, which occurs an
action has unintended consiquencess that
are the opposite of what was expected or
desired.
FIGURE OF SPEECH
In this passage in which the elephant is
killed. Orwell uses similes connoting elements
of inanimate nature the collapsing body like
‘’a huge of rock’’ and the trunk like ‘’a tree’’.
The effect of similes reinforces Orwell’s
description of the elephant as a peaceful
creature and the killing at it as a form of
vandalism.
NON FICTION

The narrative opens wit Orwell giving a

description of the nature of the animosity
between the British and those they oppress
with imperial rule especially in India
where the story takes place.
FICTION
In George Orwell’s ‘’Shooting an Elephant’’ theme, plot,
setting, tone, point of view, characterization, irony,
symbolism and language work together to create an impact
on the reader. Certainly, all of the key literary elements
cause a total effect of repulsion towards imperialism and its
atrocities. Orwell wants to create awareness in the reader
understand metaphorically how, even in modern times,
imperialism can be a double edged sword that destroys both
the conqueror and the conquered.
THANKYOU FOR YOUR
LISTENING!!!