- Sit in one of the groups of four desks - Take out your reading questions - Grab 2 or 3 class sets of the reading (at the front table)

“Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell Seminar

In your groups, discuss your first thoughts after reading the story, using the questions on the worksheet to get you started. It’s okay if you have different interpretations! Did you like it? Did you hate it? What’s even the point of this story?

Discuss examples of literary devices used in the story. Were they successful? Why use literary devices?

Simile “It was an immense crowd… They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching.” Why use such language? Conjurer, trick, magical…

Metaphor “I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly… in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind.”

Metaphor “in every crisis he has got to do what the ‘natives’ expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it…” What are some of the internal conflicts Orwell describes feeling in his role as a colonial police offer?

Symbolism “He was lying on his belly with arms crucified and head sharply twisted to one side. His face was coated with mud, the eyes wide open, the teeth bared and grinning with an expression of unendurable agony… The friction of the great beast’s foot had stripped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins a rabbit.”

What does Orwell mean when he writes that he was “theoretically…all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors”? Orwell states that he was against the British in their oppression of the Burmese. How can he be against the British and their empire when he is a British officer of the empire?

Does Orwell believe these conflicting feelings can be reconciled Does Orwell believe these conflicting feelings can be reconciled? What does he mean by “the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East”?

What is the significance of the statement “I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.”

What does the elephant symbolize? Possible interpretations: Elephant = the Burmese people and their struggle to not be conquered by the British Elephant = the British Empire ravaging the colonies and ultimately being brought down Elephant =

Compare Orwell’s story with excerpts from the poem by Rudyard Kipling. “The White Man’s Burden” Take up the White Man's burden— Send forth the best ye breed— Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild— Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child. … Take up the White Man’s burden – The savage wars of peace – Fill full the mouth of Famine, And bid the sickness cease; And when your goal is nearest (The end for others sought) Watch sloth and heathen folly Bring all your hope to nought

Closure Activity Choose one of the following activities to individually complete on your own piece of paper. Create a political cartoon about British imperialism from either the British or the colonized perspective (not using elephants ) Rewrite one portion of the story from a Burmese person’s point of view (at least 2 paragraphs)