Victim and Perpetrator in George Orwells Shooting an Elephant - Book Report/Review Example

of Interrogating the categories of ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ in George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” George Orwell’s treatment of imperialism and its multifarious repercussions forms the chief subject of his short story “Shooting an Elephant.” Set in present day Myanmar, which was then known as Burma, an English colony, the story delves deep into the psyche of the author-narrator who works for the colonial administration. The essay shall seek to establish that Orwell’s story destabilizes oversimplified definitions of perpetrator and victim within the paradigm of colonialism, as the narrator, seemingly powerful is crippled under the expectations of the empire and the colonized are shown to be comprador participants in the larger oppressive network of imperialism. Furthermore, this interrogation lays bare the farcicality of the proverbial myth of the “white man’s burden” (Kipling “The White Man’s Burden”) as people of all races are shown to be affected adversely by the machinations of imperialism. The story begins with the ruminations of an acutely self-aware narrator as he gauges at once the hostility of the Burmese and voices his own dislike for the indigenous people. The author-narrator is thus portrayed in a realistic manner. He is neither a stereotypical colonial administrator immune to the detrimental nature of the institution that he represents, nor is he a sentimentalist who wishes to make amends for the excesses of colonialism through altruism. It is crucially important to note that his views regarding the colonial situation in Burma remains deliberately ambivalent. Though he is all too aware of the ills of imperial rule, many of his beliefs and sensibilities are shaped by his own privileged racial and class position. Very often, his statements are blatantly intolerant, especially in instances where he uses offensive racial epithets such as “yellow” and “black” to describe the Burmese and the Indian worker killed by the elephant. Thus, Orwell refrains from a tendency to create simple didactic boundaries as we are shown the moral depravity of both the narrator and the colonized people. It is perhaps significant that the chief victim of the actions of both the narrator and the indigenous onlookers is an elephant, a non-sentient being. The story underscores the sheer apathy that both the colonial administration and the Burmese display during the heinous act of murdering the animal. The actual act of killing is accompanied by a shocking degree of voyeurism from the Burmese. While the for the Burmese the killing becomes a spectacle, the colonial administrators measure the elephant’s life in utterly utilitarian terms, evidenced in lines such as these­-“… it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie” (Orwell n.p.).The story thus portrays the vicious circle of violence that prevails within the colony as neither the ruler nor the ruled are conscientious enough to prevent the killing of an innocent animal. The harmlessness of the elephant is self-consciously reiterated by the author-narrator as he observes, “And at that distance, peacefully eating, the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow” (Orwell n.p.). It is also worth taking cognizance of the fact that the story presents an intricate, almost macabre description of the dying elephant. Besides repudiating any easy sentimentalism, this depiction perhaps also likens the body of the injured elephant to the zeitgeist of an increasingly apathetic world. In this regard the story transcends its immediate context and becomes a critique of universal moral degradation. The climactic moment in the story’s handling of the subject of colonialism lies perhaps in the moment where the narrator realizes that the position of mastery that imperialism confers onto him has been reversed in the act of killing an elephant. Thus, he writes, “And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East…And my whole life, every white man's life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at” (Orwell n.p.). What the story brings to the fore here is a mutually destructive, symbiotic relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, where both must stifle their personal beliefs and ethics to maintain the uneasy equilibrium of the colony. At numerous points the story uses dark humour to emphasize the existential absurdity which characterizes the predicament of people whose lives are shaped by colonialism. It is evident that the attempt at rendering the elephant demonic was made for fortifying imperial authority in the colony, as also purely for the frenzied excitement that it evokes. Here, the story lends itself well to interpretations through ecology criticism. While the imperialism practiced by the British in Burma is its immediate subject, the story perhaps also addressed the subject of a second and more insidious form of imperialism that which human beings, across cultures, often exercise over the natural world. A discussion of the historical setting of the story is crucial to an analysis of its depiction of colonialism. The story was first published in 1936, a time when there were widespread anti-colonial movements across the erstwhile colonized nations. 1936 was also located in the short interim period between the two world wars which witnessed the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy, and portended the advent of WWII. The story is thus reflective of the sweeping cultural changes which were to soon dismantle European supremacy in various parts of the world. The disillusionment that the author-narrator feels with the false sense of power that imperialism bestows on him is perhaps a feeling borne out of its times. However, the sense of loss experienced by the narrator is not one triggered by nostalgia for the golden days of the empire but stems rather from the loss of essential humanity that imperialism forced upon its workers and its victims. This loss of humanity is brought about most evocatively in the writer’s strategy of pitting human beings against the animal who was brutalized by them. The opening lines of the story show the narrator voicing his prejudices against the Burmese, in an offensive and irrational manner, while the actions of the Burmese are shown to be governed by an unproductive anger against the colonisers which fails transform into a sustained political movement. In their actions they become almost bestial, shorn of the rationality that the Enlightenment believed to be man’s greatest strength. It is also through the fallacious belief in their superior rationality that White Anglo-Saxons justified the very institution of imperialism. By rendering his characters, irrespective of their racial belonging, bestial in their actions, the story thus undercuts not merely the myth of European intellectual superiority but also of man’s unquestioned authority over nature. In numerous instances of the story, the role of colonial officer is rendered performative and is often caricaturized. When the narrator states “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,” (Orwell n.p.) he is shorn of the dignity of his position and is almost lampooned as he must act upon the wishes of the onlookers. This emphasis on performance points also to the artifice of the master-slave within colonialism, and shows these categories to be constantly under the threat of being made porous. To conclude, George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” confronts us with a complex portrayal of the subject of victimhood within the dynamics of imperialism. The story reverses categories and satirizes both the English colonial psyche and the psyche of the comprador colonized. Works Cited Kipling, Rudyard. “The White Man’s Burden.” Internet Modern History Sourcebook. Fordham University. Web. 10 June 2013. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/kipling.asp. Orwell, George. “Shooting an Elephant.” Short Stories for Students. Gale Cengage, 2012. Web. Read More