Once Orwell realizes “the hollowness, the futility of the white man’s dominion in the East” and continues to play his role designed by the British Empire, he gives power to the Empire (page 3). In the beginning of his essay, he states that his mind is detached from the work he does. In certain schools of thought, Orwell’s self realization can be interpreted as having the ultimate power. He understands the Imperial role that he has to play and feels guilty about how much power he owns in a land that is not truly his. What Orwell does not understand is that mentality of the establishment bleeds into one’s thoughts and feelings. This is because the public still sees Orwell as a part of the establishment and he feels compelled to play the part. Because of this, the power gets fed back into the larger image which is the British Empire.

The power comes from the Empire’s manipulation of Orwell’s desires. He is deathly afraid of looking weak in front of the natives. In Orwell’s mind, it is akin to survival: the natives can never see themselves as the superior people. When he thinks about death, it is not because he is scared to die, but it is because he is scared of the joy that the natives will get out of the image of his corpse. Everything Orwell does is revolving around his perceived power. In a larger scheme of things, Orwell is not unique to this issue as he states. This issue of perception and the image of the British Empire plagues “every white man’s life in the East” (page 3). Everyone has this internal struggle in their lives and they all choose to play their role in the imperialistic world.

George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant is about how imperialism distributes power between the colonizer and the colony. We intuitively think that the imperial power, as the obviously stronger force, should be able to control the colony and its people. We’d also imagine a British officer (such as Orwell in this story) should dominate his relationship with natives, especially considering the power his position should give him over them.

The dilemma Orwell presents in Shooting an Elephant shows us that the power in an imperial relationship can often lie with the colonized people despite the colonizer holding all the official power: he doesn’t want or need to shoot the elephant, but does so anyway because the Burmese crowd that has gathered expects him to and – as a representative of the British empire – he needs to maintain (or gain) the respect of the natives by appearing resolute. Orwell’s writing makes it clear that the crowd’s expectations of the him control his actions. This is because the leader figure – in this context or any other- must continuously prove that he is worthy of his position.

The events of Shooting an Elephant also emphasize the power of groups. In the story, Orwell shoots the elephant because of the expectant Burmese crowd. Presumably, then, he would have acted differently if there were only a couple of natives watching him. Here, the Burmese show that they have influence and power in numbers. This relates to the notion (discussed in class) that a subjugated population or people have more power over when they form a large group.

A final word on Orwell’s decision to shoot and kill the elephant: I think his actions were arguably necessary and think his reasoning is acceptable. To have word go round that the British imperialists are soft would make the occupation of Burma more difficult. Put in a similar position, I probably would act as he did.

Orwell’s Shooting An Elephant represents an interesting display of the power dynamic between the British Imperialists and the Burmese population they are oppressing. While Orwell attempts to create a sympathetic look on the white man oppressed by his own system and tries to discover some type of power that lies with the Burmese people, his story fails to recognize the violence and systemic race politics that clearly keep any power from the larger oppressed majority.

A quote from the story, “And my who life, every white man’s life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at (3),” shows the starkly ironic contrast between the fears of the Burmese people and the white officer. The Burmese are subjected to violence, regardless of failing to perform their social roles, and they have no choice in the matter. The lives of these people are not valued in this system, and only at the end of the story does Orwell acknowledge this, “…because an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie (4).” Orwell’s characters inability to reconcile his own power dynamic in contrast to the one he perceives in the elephant situation elucidates his lack of understanding of the way his race and position really affect the performances of those around him. He seems absurdly concerned about his public image when he could easily use his own power along with the incredible power of the system he works in to reinstate his place above the Burmese.

What I think is most important to analyze in George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant are the feelings Orwell elicited throughout the story as he is tasked to shoot the elephant. What Orwell is getting at is that by being an Englishman–white and representing (though not willingly) British imperialism–he is forced to act as “an absurd puppet” to the “yellow faces behind.” Although he states that he is secretly against the Burmese Oppressors, his vocabulary suggests that his hatred for the Burmese citizens far exceeds that of the “dirty work of Empire.” Ultimately, this–what I presume–fictitious hatred towards the British, is superseded primarily by an anger and frustration with the Burmese who fail to give him the respect he feels he deserves.

When confronted with the problem of the once rampaging elephant, Orwell decides to shoot the animal not due to an allegiance towards his occupation as a police officer nor a feeling of retribution considering the elephant did kill someone, but rather due to the mere fear of being laughed at by the “natives” who are, in that society, below him. I ascertain that this feeling of (absurd) “fear” and “vulnerability” is exacerbated by the fact that those who surrounded him are of a lower class than him. The idea that his façade performance of dominance will be exposed for its real weakness, is unacceptable for Orwell, a man who has been given the power to decide who or what lives or dies based upon his rank as an official. This pivotal exposure demonstrates the varying and dichotomous stakes of the oppressor-oppressed dynamic. In total, whether or not Orwell shoots the elephant, the only thing at stake is his pride. He understands this but does not understand how ludicrous and comical it is; rather he accepts the role he feels he needs to play and shoots the elephant. Only once the gun is shot and the huge animal staggers at the sudden blow, does this “veil” of the dominant fall from Orwell’s eyes. Unlike what Orwell expected however, the animal does not die immediately, but instead half an hour later and only after couple of more bullets had been shot into its rough skin. During this process, Orwell seems to believe that he is taking the higher road by trying to quell the anguished cries of the poor beast. And yet when he can no longer deal with the elephant’s whimpers, Orwell leaves–unwilling and unable to accept the consequences of his actions. And to think that all of this could have never happened if only he had the will to get over a fear of ridicule.

In Shooting an Elephant, Orwell asserts that the system of imperialism has the power. Orwell says referring to the role of the colonizers, “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.” Orwell attributes his actions to “the condition of his rule”, demonstrating that he is bound by structure, just like the Burmese. He also presents in this quote the argument that performance shapes attitudes (i.e. the mind and the body become blurred). These arguments are very similar to Havel. Also like Havel, Orwell believes that the system is absolute. He presents his decision to shoot the elephant as the only option, because deviating from the role of the “sahib” would undermine the system.

Orwell contradicts this argument at the beginning of the essay. In the first paragraph, he describes the small actions of the Burmese, in the streets and on the football field, which served to demonstrate their hatred towards Europeans. These small acts of defiance are not performative of the roles of the Burmese in this system and therefore would not be allowed to exist if in fact the system was absolute. Orwell therefore also had a choice to not shoot the elephant. He falsely attributes his insecurities, of “looking a fool”, to his powerlessness under the system of imperialism.

As illustrated by Orwell’s account in Shooting an Elephant, talking about power as simply being the force which constrains the oppressed is an insufficient account of the way in which it truly works. The power that Orwell wields in this account is the institutionally granted power of domination and coercion over the natives. Orwell, as an agent of the British Empire, wields the might of the British military and legal system over the natives, able to arbitrate disputes as he chooses and indeed even kill if the situation dictates it. This is the prima facie manifestation of power, one which all can recognize and must submit to.

The more subtle and interesting form of power is that which the natives hold over agents of the British Empire like Orwell. While they certainly do not possess legitimate claims over the use of force, through watching these agents and implicitly holding the agents to the routinized conventions of the Empire, the natives are able to push the ostensible oppressors towards certain actions. In this case, it comes in the form of needlessly killing an elephant.

This is a more insidious form of power as it is less readily apparent but is in many ways more fundamentally constraining as agents of the Empire are held to the narrow confines of what is institutionally justified. This notion of power operating not from the top down but having a reflexive nature is an insight that is very much Foucauldian. Thus, while the British Empire and its agents wield all of the formal power in this scenario, a true and full account of power would show that all actors hold and use it to varying extents.