Shooting An Elephant

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impossible to do his job. He had to deal with a lot of hatred and disrespect, but yet he was expected to do what the town’s people asked of him when they asked. When the elephant got loose the first person the sub-inspector at the opposite end of the town called was the main character, who was to be nameless throughout the entire story. He wanted him to go do something about the loose elephant because the mahout (the keeper and driver of an elephant) was away and no one else could handle a situation such as this. The main character grabbed his 44 rifle and set out to find the elephant. The purpose of the gun was not to kill the elephant but to just scare it with the noise. Little did the officer know the act of grabbing the gun to just scare the elephant would lead to its demise. On the way to find the elephant the officer learned it had destroyed a garden, a bamboo hut, devoured some stock and had trampled a cow. As the officer went further on he found that the elephant had killed a ...

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author chose to present it. The message was very clear in that there was a common problem between people in general and certain races in the mid-thirties. The message was that even though peers may expect something of them it is not always the right thing to do. This is displayed in the paragraph at the top of page 683 and continues until the middle of the page. The main character mentions right before he shoots the elephant the first time that " he was a puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind" (683). He also describes why he is expected to shoot the elephant by saying " a sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and ...

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