{"id":155,"date":"2018-02-18T18:11:46","date_gmt":"2018-02-18T23:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/?p=155"},"modified":"2018-02-18T18:11:46","modified_gmt":"2018-02-18T23:11:46","slug":"excuses-of-being-an-an-absurd-puppet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/uncategorized\/excuses-of-being-an-an-absurd-puppet\/","title":{"rendered":"Excuses of being an “An Absurd Puppet”"},"content":{"rendered":"

What I think is most important to analyze in George Orwell\u2019s Shooting an Elephant<\/em> 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\u2013white and representing (though not willingly) British imperialism\u2013he is forced to act as \u201can absurd puppet\u201d to the \u201cyellow faces behind.\u201d 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 \u201cdirty work of Empire.\u201d Ultimately, this\u2013what I presume\u2013fictitious hatred towards the British, is superseded primarily by an anger and frustration with the Burmese who fail to give him the respect he feels he deserves.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cnatives\u201d who are, in that society, below him. I ascertain that this feeling of (absurd) \u201cfear\u201d and \u201cvulnerability\u201d is exacerbated by the fact that those who surrounded him are of a lower class than him. The idea that his fa\u00e7ade 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<\/em> 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 \u201cveil\u201d of the dominant fall from Orwell\u2019s 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\u2019s whimpers, Orwell leaves\u2013unwilling 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What I think is most important to analyze in George Orwell\u2019s 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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1889,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1889"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions\/156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}