Shooting an Elephant

English writer George Orwell is best known for his book Nineteen Eighty-Four, a dystopian novel about a future society controlled by a leader known as Big Brother. To this day “Big Brother” refers to an oppressive totalitarian state, and to call something “Orwellian” implies a culture where people are under constant surveillance and the influence of propaganda and political “double-speak.”

Orwell’s essay, 'Shooting and Elephant,' is set in Burma, a Southeast Asian country now known as Myanmar. In a series of wars in the 19th century, the British gained control of Burma and made it a province of British India. The Burmese resented British rule, under which they endured poverty and a lack of political and religious freedom. Like many of his fellow British officers, Orwell was inexperienced in police work when he arrived in Burma at age 19. This particular essay recounts Orwell’s experience as a police officer in Burma, part of Britain’s Indian Empire, in which he must shoot a wild elephant in the town market, not to protect the people but to keep from embarrassing himself

The line “when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys” asks the reader to consider the oppressor as the oppressed.