While the British may have systematically had power over the Burmans during this period of Imperialism, in the case of “Shooting an Elephant,” it is the other way around. While Europeans are poorly treated in the area Orwell works, it is particularly bad for Orwell, as a police officer. Being in this position, Orwell must not show that he is frightened by his abuse. To show his true feelings would be interpreted as a sign of weakness by the people. In this way, the Burmans have power over Orwell because the system forces him to adhere to a strict set of expectations that keep the social status quo in check. While the British system Orwell takes part in may oppress the native people, he himself is actually oppressed in a non-legal and non-physical sense.
Further, Orwell is bound to the expectations of his social inferiors. When surrounded by a large group of Burmans, he knows that the only way to preserve his legitimacy as a powerful man is to shoot the elephant. “Every white man’s life in the East was one long struggle not to be laughed at.” As a member of the ruling class, Orwell is bound to much stricter regulations of conduct than the Burmans. If he loses his clout among them, either he will be replaced or the social structure will disintegrate. Meanwhile, the Burmans are free to taunt him on the street or trip him in soccer, with no consequence. Orwell is oppressed not by the native people but by the system.

Orwell’s recantation of shooting an elephant touches on an interesting example of irony in a power dynamic reversal. One might assume that authority in the British colony of Burma resides in British officials, but to the contrary, Orwell’s account points towards the power of the Burmese people influencing his actions. In this regard, I think there’s an interesting correlation between James Scott’s “Weapons of the Weak” and Orwell’s story because it makes the reader and Orwell cognizant of how ordinary Burmese people conduct their lives while galvanizing subtle change that will eventually rise to the dismantlement of imperial rule. Orwell manifests this concepts in his thoughts of shooting the “mustly” elephant which: “made me (Orwell) vaguely uneasy. I had no intention of shooting the elephant — I had merely sent for the rifle to defend myself if necessary– and it is always unnerving to have a crowd following you” (Orwell 2). Orwell’s unsteadiness can be attributed to how he feels coerced by the Burmese people to make the elephant topple by gunshot and demonstrates the power of crowd influence over British colonial rule. Likewise, in the preceding moment before aligning his rifle to shoot the elephant, Orwell has an epiphany where he understood 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 this yellow faces behind” (Orwell 3). Orwell’s revelation reveals the accumulation of power in the masses, but also undermines the inefficiency and vanity of the British Empire’s fluke to subjugate Burmese to British power — further exhibiting Scott’s theory of slow subversion by the masses.

In Orwell’s classic account, “Shooting an Elephant,” it can be easily concluded that Orwell himself has the least amount of power. Orwell highlights his powerless predicament when he writes, “All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil- spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible.” However, it can also be said that perspective matters a lot in this account, and that if it were written from the perspective of a Burmese citizen, the conclusion about power dynamics may appear to be a little different. Taking into account Scott’s notions in “Weapons of the Weak,” one can argue that the British Raj maintains the most power in the system described. Though the Burmese citizens assert some power, especially over Orwell himself, their main role tends to be defying the power that is being exerted over them from the officers. The Burmese people are “foot dragging” and subtly resisting this authority, while at the same time setting the standard and expectation for how Orwell is to act in order to legitimize his authority. Orwell is socially still their superior, and he still has the recognized power over them even if he is “wearing a mask” which his face has grown to. So, it can be said that the Burmese people are acting as agents of their own subordination, and the British Raj is controlling both Orwell’s and the citizen’s position in the power hierarchy.

In George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” what strikes me is the strong will and unity of the people Orwell ostensibly has power over, while the citizens in both Wedeen and Havel’s models of authoritarian rule are driven in some way to perpetuate the system through either social self-preservation or drawing upon a public transcript. It seems to me that the citizens in Orwell’s story have found a way to alter their political system such that unspoken social threats drive Orwell to responds to their needs. This is reminiscent of what many would think of as the ideal democracy, as it gives the leader no option but to act in accordance with the will of the masses. I’m positive that a large percentage of the public wishes that they had this degree of influence over our government’s proceedings, yet at the same time the story highlights the ways in which direct responsiveness can be dangerous by depicting a scene in which Orwell is essentially forced to destroy what he believes is a potentially useful tool. This has proven to be the case in many referendums, one example being Brexit. However, this also highlights how leaders must have both a public and private transcript when put in a system where they are in some capacity reliant on social relations. In this sense, it seems as though most, if not all, governments that appear to act in the interest of the people will simultaneously be making personal judgements that might come into conflict with the public’s condoned course of action.

Orwell’s “Shooting the “Elephant inhabits an uncomfortable space in the historical record in that it is both an admission of guilt and complicity in imperialistic violence by a figure who would ultimately be renowned as a critic of the violent injustice he participated in. and a self-aware but nevertheless persistent document of the racism on which imperial Britain was built. That self-awareness is key, in that it is an honest account of the nature of imperial power by one who might object to its principles but is resigned to his place in enforcing both it and the white supremacy it depends on. Orwell’s account reveals that the authoritarian power the British exert with their degradation of the indigenous peoples only goes so far in maintaining the imperialist objective. While the British likely posses the capacity to crush any insurrection, the imperialist narrative would prefer to justify itself by not having their moral authority subverted in the first place, specifically by “not being laughed at” (Orwell 3). That Orwell feels compelled to shoot the elephant to maintain an illusion of dignified governance (regardless of whether that illusion is maintained in any context other than the immediate one) is not, in fact, a display of power in any meaningful sense by the people the British Empire seeks to control but an inconvenience for an agent of their violence who cannot keep his hands or his moral conscience clean in the way he would like too without outwardly turning in some way against the system that employs him.

There is certainly no definite answer as to who has power in George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant”. The answer depends on perspective. From the perspective of the Burmese natives, George Orwell and his fellow English officers unequivocally have the power. In fact, most people, I think, would agree that the English have the power in this scenario. After all, the English were the ones to come assert their rule and establish a colony in Burma. The officers are the ones with the weapons and the ones that enforce the laws created by the English.

However, Orwell offers us a very interesting perspective from the view of the officer. To them, though they do enforce the rules, they also feel forced to act a certain way because of the natives. They are required to act in a certain way so as to fill their role of ruler. Yet, as Orwell speaks about, this often leads them to acting in ways they would not act out of their own volition (i.e. shooting the elephant).

So in many ways, both the Burmese natives as well as the English officers have power. The English force the Burmese to act a certain way and conform to their laws through the use of violence and fear. However, the Burmese force the officers to act a certain way and embody their positions though the use of their numbers and their opinion: the officers do not want to “disappoint” the natives.