George Orwell - "Shooting an Elephant" (1936).

... George Orwell - "Shooting an Elephant" (1936) Non Fiction "Shooting an Elephant", by George Orwell, is a highly effective piece of non-fiction. Although written about an event many years ago, in a society that no longer exists as it did then, the essay still holds relevance in the ideas it contains. It is how Orwell puts across his views on colonialism and human nature that I intend to investigate. The essay revolves around Orwell recounting an incident which he experienced as a policeman in colonial Burma, in the 1920's. Orwell was called to act when a tame elephant went 'must' and started ravaging a bazaar, killing one of the indigenous Indians. However, by the time he had located the elephant, the attack seemed to have passed, so there was no need to destroy it. Yet such was the pressure from the local populace, and Orwell's fear of being mocked, that he shot the

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