Sarabia 1

Tania Sarabia
Professor Lynda Haas
Writing 37 (11am class)
February 28, 201522, 2015
Shooting an Elephant: Historical and Cultural ContextDesire for Power and Control
From 1922 to 1927, George Orwell served as a British officer for the Indian
Imperial Police force in Burma.Writers are like music composers, in the sense that they write
what they feel and allow for the readers and listeners to interpret the meaning of their work. That
life-changing experience sparked his interest in becoming a professional writer.Short-stories
are usually intended to deliver a specific message that is relatable to any audience worldwide.
Throughout those five years of policing he began to notice the bigger picture of colonialism
and its effects on the oppressed and the oppressors. Symbolism is an effective method of how
the meaning of literary texts can be persuaded. Moral and political conflicts internally
emerged for Orwell and created an unstable mindset. In 1931, George Orwell decided to
indirectly express his opinions about imperialism through a short story, Shooting an
Elephant.However, the era in which a short-story is written is significant in relation to the
message it conveys. Historical events impact people to write in any form that allow them to
express their feelings about a life changing event. George Orwell was an English novelist,
essayist, and critic. Orwell is portrayed as the main character, the man, who is called to take
action on a community disturbance of an elephant that has gone wild. The man feels
pressured by the community to kill the elephant but knows that it is wrong, however
progresses in doing so for the motive of gaining power and respect from the natives. The

Sarabia 2
short story was published for the first time in 1936 in a literary magazine and due to the
historical and cultural context critics were able to analyze the symbolism embedded. A great
amount of his work was politically influenced. Orwell opposed totalitarianism, advocated for
democratic socialism, and rose awareness of social injustice through his writing. Although
George Orwells Shooting an Elephant has withstood the test of time and is seen as a classic
story of the human-animal relationship, its fullest meaning is understood when it is read in light
of the historical time and culture in which it was created. The story of a man who kills an
elephant because he doesnt want to look weak works as a story about man vs. animal, but both
the man and the elephant are symbols of British Imperialism in India, and Orwells main point is
about power and control in human relationships.