Shootingan Elephant
The rhetorical strategies George Orwell uses in his short story "Shooting An Elephant".
The seventh paragraph of Orwell's “Shooting an Elephant” marks a change in consciousness of the narrator.
Prior to Orwell's realization, he approaches the elephant and knows “with perfect certainty” (127) that he should not shoot it. He remarks that the animal looks peaceful and “no more dangerous than a cow” (127); subsequently, he decides that he will watch the elephant for a moment, make sure that it did not become savage again, and go home. However, Orwell then looks at the crowd of two thousand around him and feels the mounting pressure that the Burmese people are placing on him to shoot the elephant. By later repeating “crowd” and “two-thousand,” he ironically emphasizes the majority that the Burmese, a supposed minority, have over him, the representation of the white majority and superior power. The Burmese, Orwell states, are “watching [him] as they would watch......
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Approximate Word Count: 457
Approximate Pages: 2 (250 words per double-spaced page)
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Shootingan Elephant
Shootingan Elephant. The rhetorical strategies George Orwell uses in his
short story "Shooting An Elephant". The seventh paragraph ...
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