Shooting An Elephant

 Shooting An Elephant

“Shooting An Elephant” by George Orwell is a very deep and descriptive story about an intense journey that leaves the reader wanting to read more. One of the most fascinating things I discovered while reading this story is the purpose, not just the purpose but how it evolves around the writer’s emotion in the moment. In the beginning paragraph, the writer says, “It was perfectly clear to me what I ought to do. I ought to walk up to within, say, twenty-five yards of the elephant and test his behavior.” Just from these two sentences we can see that the writer is one-hundred percent confident that he is going to end up shooting the elephant. On the flip side, in the ending paragraph after shooting the elephant, the writer says, “In the end I could not stand it any longer and went away.” The purpose of the story isn’t about shooting the elephant or anything about the elephant at all, the purpose of the story is to observe the main character’s personal journey. 

The main character’s emotions change just like the purpose of the story. He goes from pulling the trigger to regretting his decision about shooting the elephant when the sound of the gun echoes through him. Ultimately, his fantasy of killing an elephant is short lived. If you think about it, the main character’s emotions are similar to the elephant in a way, both the elephant’s spirit and the shooter’s spirit are dispatched at the end.

Throughout the story, there are many words that add an extra level of emotion and detail. An example of this is right after the elephant gets shot and the audience lets out a “devilish” cheer. This is an oxymoron because a cheer cannot be negative. The reason the writer included “devilish” as a descriptive word is because the word relates to the inner feelings of the main character - regret. Another example can be seen when he talks about the mud and how when people take a step they “sink” into it. This word relates to the elephant because not only do humans sink into the mud, but this elephant will also sink into the mud after it is shot.

The structure of this story is told in a chronological, linear order. This structure type helps keep the reader on track and less confused while reading. Also, this type of structure keeps the reader intertwined with the raw emotion of the story by telling it in order. Another thing that this structure aids with is giving the audience the ability to understand the metaphors and deeper meanings more easily. One of the main metaphors in the story is the elephant. The elephant represents life. In the beginning the elephant is happy and strong, but one decision can change the state of the elephant, or life. 

The tone of the writer is very descriptive and emotional. Throughout the story, he uses words and phrases like “tortured gasps”, “dreadful”, “climbed with desperate slowness”, and other that make the audience be able to connect with story and visualize it. Even the way he describes his rifle to take down the beast, “.. a beautiful German thing with cross-hair sights”. These words and phrases add a level of depth to the story that would not be possible without them.

Overall, this story combines pure emotion, beautiful storytelling, perfectly described imagery, a wonderful tone, and the deep purpose to form a very interesting story that leaves you filled with a lot of different emotions. As a member of the audience, I was left with the main emotion of relatability because most people have made decisions that they later regretted but seemed good in the moment.