In “Shooting an Elephant,” George Orwell argues that the colonized hold an exceptional amount of power over their colonizers. To prove this point, he describes his experience as a British police officer in Burma. One day, he is called in to take care of an elephant that went on a rampage in town. When Orwell finds the elephant, it has returned to a tranquil state. While he has no interest in killing the elephant, a crowd from the village has followed him and they expect the elephant to be killed. Due to this, Orwell ultimately kills the elephant. He ends the story with, “I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.”

While Orwell believes the natives drove his eventual decision, I think his story speaks to the power of British imperialism over its own officials. Orwell continuously bashes the British Empire throughout his story. He mentions, “…I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better.” However, even with this belief, Orwell loyally obeys the Empire when he kills the elephant. While he may have been concerned about his own personal pride, it seems just as likely that he was unconsciously concerned with the image of the Empire. Imperialistic powers can never appear weak. That often means officials have to perform actions they disagree with. Perhaps the strongest forms of power are only evident below the surface.