Previous
Situational Irony
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
Orwell’s writing style in “Shooting an Elephant” is both philosophical and poetic. The philosophical nature of his writing style comes across in the sections of the story in which he investigates the nature of colonialism and how it harms both oppressor and oppressed. For example, during the scene in which he is surrounded by 2,000 Burmese people expecting him to shoot and kill a rampaging elephant, he writes, “I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.”
In addition to these philosophical musings, Orwell also uses a lot of poetic and figurative language to engage readers emotionally and bring them more closely into the story. Take the following passage, which comes after Orwell has shot the elephant:
He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and falling. His mouth was wide open – I could see far down into caverns of pale pink throat. […] Finally I fired my two remaining shots into the spot where I thought his heart must be. The thick blood welled out of him like red velvet, but still he did not die.
Here Orwell uses imagery when describing the “long rattling gasps” of the elephant and the way that its side was “painfully rising and falling.” He then uses a metaphor when referring to the elephant’s throat as “caverns” and a simile when describing how the elephant’s blood “welled out of him like red velvet.” All of this poetic language helps readers to empathize with the elephant and feel its pain, thereby feeling and understanding the pain of colonized people who are likewise attacked at will by colonizers like Orwell.
Related Themes:
