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LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Shooting an Elephant, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Orwell’s service in the British Empire places his reasoned principles and his basic intuitions in constant conflict. He recognizes that the empire is tyrannical and abusive, yet he is unable to overcome his visceral contempt for the local villagers who mistreat him. The decisions Orwell makes when confronted with the rogue elephant encapsulate these tensions between his different principles. Orwell could have followed his more humane, ethical impulses and chosen to spare the elephant. However, in the same way that his resentment of the villagers compromises his principled objection to the British Raj, Orwell ends up compromising his humane impulses and killing the elephant because he fears humiliation. His motivation to do so is nothing more than his visceral (and racist) conviction that it would be improper for him to back down in front of the Burmese.
At the end of the story, Orwell describes the debate surrounding his choice to kill the elephant. The arguments his colleagues offer for and against the act are largely legal, but this legal justification is clearly a secondary concern for Orwell. It is only a fortunate coincidence that his actions were legally justified. Ethical principles did not factor heavily in his decision-making process: his real motivation was simply to “avoid looking a fool.”
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Principles ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Principles appears in each section of Shooting an Elephant. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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“Shooting an Elep...
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Principles Quotes in Shooting an Elephant
Below you will find the important quotes in Shooting an Elephant related to the theme of Principles.
“Shooting an Elephant” Quotes
With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest's guts. Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty.
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The narrator, George Orwell, is a British police officer stationed in the British colony of Burma. Though he is employed by the British Empire, he feels disdain regarding the nature of colonialism and the brutality that it imposes upon the colonized people. However, as a policeman imposing the rules of the colonizing empire, he is consistently taunted by the Burmese people who resent the oppressive British rule. In this quote the narrator reveals his conflicting feelings regarding colonialism: he is morally opposed to the underlying tenants of the British Empire, but holds the colonized people he feels sympathy for in Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaq
And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd – seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd 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 it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "natives," and so in every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant.
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As he walks through the town, wondering whether the story of the rampaging elephant is true or not, the narrator comes across a coolie, or laborer, who has been trampled to death by the elephant. Realizing that the elephant, and its danger, is very much real, Orwell commands a subordinate to fetch him a rifle that is strong enough to kill the beast should it act violently towards him. However, when the townspeople see the gun, they are very excited at the prospect of seeing the elephant killed, as both a spectacle and as a chance for free meat. A Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea.
It seemed dreadful to see the great beast lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die, and not even to be able to finish him.
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After the elephant falls to the ground, it continues to breathe laboriously, but it still does not die. Orwell uses his handgun at close range and fires shot after shot into the elephant, but it does not seem to notice the extra bullets.In this quote, Orwell takes note of the horror he feels at the sight of the breathing, bloody beast that is mortally wounded but cannot die to end its pain. Orwell realizes then that he has begun something--the death of the elephant--that he cannot seem to finish, but rather must wait for nature, cruelly, to take her course. Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo
And afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant. I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.
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By the afternoon of the elephant's death, the Burmese townspeople have stripped its body of meat. Though the owner of the elephant was very angry that it had been killed, Orwell did not face any repercussions for killing the elephant due to his position of superiority as a British officer. In this quote, he notes that in retrospect, he was actually happy that the coolie was killed, since he could claim that he killed the elephant in self-defense. Tragically, and ironically, it was due to the death of the coolie that Orwell felt forced to summon the elephant-killing rifle in Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molesti
