Shooting an Elephant Essay

Joey Arnold

1am: Wednesday, February 2nd 2011

English 101: Critical Analysis of

Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell

Professor Finly

Task on Goal (TOG): Emphatically capture the persona to Shooting an Elephant.

Dock on Goal (DOG): the inspiration behind writing this came while at Matt Kurtz's, in Vancouver, Washington, since he's in school and I'm not. His English 101 assignment is titled Paper Two: Critical Analysis of an essay. It reminds me of my English, Creative Writing, Marketing, Basic Bible Methods, Hermeneutics, Apologetics classes I've had during high school and college. Let's just say, for now, that Matt's favorite quote from his Psychology book: "One thing I've learned in a long life is that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike: and yet, it is the most precious thing we have."

Critical thinking is a doorway to understanding: they say it might be the most important academic skill a student can develop: since it's archeological: digging beneath the surface to words. This assignment gave Matt, and others in his class, to choose between the following fivepieces to choose from:

1. Martin Luther King Jr: I Have a Dream

2. Jonathan Swift: A Modern Proposal

3. George Orwell: Shooting an Elephant

4. Judy Brady: I want a Wife

5. E.B. White: Once More to the Lake

Who wouldn't want to shoot an elephant? Don't answer that question, at least not yet. I am going to attempt to write an essay mirroring what Matt's essay, since he has to, and I'm just trying to show off or I'm trying to do something selfish, since it sure does feel good to accomplish something in life, right? I haven't finished college yet, because I'm so against robotic rules of organized socieites and cultures. Anyways, speaking of rules, the rules includes emphasizing the persona found from the piece that one is analysing. It should also emphasize ideas that are also included, which includes the following: use of language, argumentative strategies, themes, the qualities to the themes thereof, ideas expressed, and even the ultimate intent from the writer, too. Matt's teacher writes that this paper should emphasize on the persona of the piece that each student is writing about: don't just wait till the conclusion to bring up the persona: because that would totally defeat the purpose of truly emphasizing on persona.

Here are the rules, the questions, to this assignment:

1. What, how, and why is the writer's general persona the way that is? (use adjectives, if you must)

2. Who's the target audience: who's the writer writing to: who's the writer communicating to?

3. What, how, and why are the points, the persona, the ideas, the arguments, related, connected, appropriate: how does it fit together: why or how is the persona appropriate to the substance?

4. Is the persona well-matched or mismatched and ineffective?

5. Can you break the persona into parts, sub-parts, into different elements for farther analzying?

6. Does the persona feature irony: as in incongruity between appearance andreality as far as the persona is concerned?

7. To what extent, or how exactly is the persona connected to the personality of the writer?

8. How is the writer in comparison to the writer's contemporaries?

9. The essay may also include any other additional elements found from the piece that the student is doing the assignment on.

The teacher adds that the paper is to be typed, doubled-spaced, 12 point fonts, 800 to 1,000 words, worthed 15 points, and turned in with the rough draft included.

Personally, I'm not totally interested in these five pieces, mainly because I'm a spoiled brat: I'm more interested in Zelda than I am in these essays from writers I do not know, writers I cannot relate with. That's one of the things that I find discouraging about college: their textbooks are often written without creativity: you know, the kind of Reader Digest innovation. People usually want to read in the same way they talk.Once upon a time, things were written like that because not everybody could talk. Nowadays, everybody's expected to find a way to be educated. Tom Sawyer never liked that idea.

Unmasking the Elephant

Once upon a time lived George Orwell, a Brittish Burma-living sub-divisional cop, who was living far far away, in Moulmein, lower Burma: who was way out of his comfort zone.

George was out of his comfort zone not just because he was living so far away from home, as a cop, but also since he was a joke, both to the locals and to his own people, the so-called Brittish oppressors, who were also there, making trouble in the neighborhood.

Trouble in the neighborhood includes just the simple fact that George, as a cop, was always being targetted or attacked, in one way or another.

For example, a Burman tripped George in a football field while the referee was looking the other way, which was then joined with condescending laughter from the audience.

George reminds me of John Smith, from Pocahontas, because he was living in a far away land, and he was being mocked at from both parties, the indians and the Englishmen. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if George ever found his Pocahontas.

George also reminds me of Sharon, from Battlestar Galatica, who was half human and half Cylon. Again, she was also living in a far away land. The humans wanted to kill her because she was Cylon. The Cylon wanted to kill her because she was human, or because she was being a trader.

George reminds me of Jesus who was both God and man. God has never hated Jesus, but never mind that for now.

George also reminds me of Orphan Annie, Lilo & Stitch, and especially Tarzan, who lived far from his relatives, and close to his animal family. He felt really close to his apes and other Jungle Book friends until Jane (his version of Pohacontas) came along: breaking that Elephant eating George curse.

George reminds me of Darth Vader who was half Jedi Master and half Sith Lord. He came from a far away land and accidentally became the Hitler of Star Wars (Hitler also was born almost Jew, by the way).

Speaking of Star Wars, George (not to be confused with George Lucas) even concluded that imperialism was clearly evil, to an extent.

Besides, George Orwell was basically on the dark side of the force, since he was a Brittish cop.

George was stuck between a rock and a hard place (not to be confused with a Simpson's Movie scene) because neither people liked him. It doesn't actually say that the Brittish tyranny hated him, but you never can never know. We only know what is written down.

What was written down, in the introduction, George wrote, was that he was hated by tons of the locals in Burma. He remarks that this must be because this was "The only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me."

George adds, "The young Buddhist priests were the worst of all. There were several thousands of them in the town and none of them seemed to have anything to do except stand on street corners and jeer at Europeans." This was clearly perplexing, upsetting: because it was tearing George apart.

George emphasizes the persona of an Aladdin-to-Jasmine optimism: because George wanted to be part of the Burma world, wanted to abandon his ties with the Brittish empire, and to free the Burma nation from such oppression.

Let me add, after actually reading all of the article now, that my conclusion is not too different than what it was when I first only skimmed it and read the intro and conclusion to it. Matt was telling me that I was taking too many short-cuts, but I have to object to some extent. Throught the details are intriguing.

White people (Sahib) must try to please the locals. That is why he ended up shooting the elephant. Peer pressure got to him.

Shooting an Elephant

George Orwell writes that his intention is not in shooting down an elephant, but rather in shooting down the Brittish empire, who were illegally suppressing the people of Burma.

Optimistically speaking, as a Brittish sub-divisional policeman in Moulmein (lower Burma), he wanted to leave that imperialistic connection, to cling to the more simpler ways of the Burma people.

The Burmese population apparently had no weapons: which only adds to their helplessness or dependancy to Brittian.

Unfortunately, he experienced persecution: Burman would mock him: one even tripped him during a football game while the referee was not looking.