{"id":299,"date":"2017-09-25T07:59:07","date_gmt":"2017-09-25T11:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/?p=299"},"modified":"2017-09-25T07:59:07","modified_gmt":"2017-09-25T11:59:07","slug":"power-in-shooting-an-elephant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/second-blog-power\/power-in-shooting-an-elephant\/","title":{"rendered":"Power in “Shooting an Elephant”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although the manifestations of power differ, both the British and the Burmese demonstrate power in George Orwell\u2019s accounting of \u201cShooting an Elephant.\u201d Burma was a British colony at the time, and Orwell represents British authority, so though he feels that imperialism is evil, he also feels the need to wear the mask of authority that the Burmese expect of him. As a result, the very system that empowers the British also entraps them in a code of conduct that limits British officers like Orwell to acting within their roles. Orwell sums up the dynamics between the power of the Burmese and that of the British when he says, \u201cI 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\u201d (3). The British have the power to control the Burmese people\u2019s actions, but they are able to freely use this power to act however they wish as the instruments of their power also trap them into behaving a certain way themselves. Therefore, while both parties hold a certain amount of power, no party is able to use it outside of the rules of the established system.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although the manifestations of power differ, both the British and the Burmese demonstrate power in George Orwell\u2019s accounting of \u201cShooting an Elephant.\u201d Burma was a British colony at the time, and Orwell represents British authority, so though he feels that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1728,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-second-blog-power"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1728"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":300,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions\/300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}