Response to George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant

Although many people believe that racism has disappe atomic number 18d from our minds after all those solutions of hard to set equal even ups in the worlds history, it still exists today, and exit probably never vanish from our thinking. Some may clearly press it, whereas other(a)s may express racism un noniceably, even to themselves. George Orwell, in Shooting an Elephant, tells a story of his past when he killed an elephant in piece to interest the Burmese crowd. At the time, Orwell was a white Indian Imperial Police policeman who was disliked by the countrys natives due to the fact that he was European.One day, he heard of an elephants doing of ravaging the town, so he ran to the scene with a perish. When he finally arrived, he found himself observing a peacefully cater elephant while a huge crowd of Burmans gathered excitedly to keep open his future action. Even though he does not feel it right to shoot the elephant, he has this huge, unavoidable pressure from the Burm ese crowd. Eventually, his final decisiveness was to shoot the elephant and satisfy the natives hunger for excitement.Although the situation must(prenominal) have been severe from Orwells perspective, his action of cleansing the elephant cannot be warrant. George Orwells situation was definitely burdensome, looking from his perspective. He had his judgments and feelings yet, he vividly felt the pressure dawning on him as the natives assembled at the scene, eagerly and impatiently waiting for him to simply shoot the elephant. particularly for a person who was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British, he must have experienced an unbearable moment of making a decision.We all experience such burdensome pressure numerous generation, starting from discipline as a kid. Students have such thing called peer pressure, where you are usually forced to do make a decision of whether or not to follow others ways. Whether in academic studies, sports, or social life, they everlastingly tend to end up following others beliefs and ways. For instance, peer pressure is the effort why the number of students who smoke since young age is rapidly increasing.However, conforming to others beliefs and ways means that person is lacking self-confidence and self-respect. In order to survive this world at least a little more joyfully, people must follow their own beliefs and practices as many times as possible. Even though he had his belief about killing the elephant, Orwell purely abandoned the idea of following his way, and concentrated on how to please the natives. Only after he carried out the action did he harbour that he had done it solely to avoid looking a fool, core he had no self-confidence or self-respect.In fact, by doing so what he decided to do, Orwell became a fool who was too afraid to come up to out his belief that the elephant does not deserve to be killed. As Orwell states, he wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. Basically, pe ople first hide their belief and conform to others, consequently without knowing, they become to be one of them completely, losing their reliable selves. adjacent our own moral beliefs does not mean we must be bestial of all outside beliefs. In other words, ignoring rules while living in a country with differing beliefs and laws is definitely a foolish act.For example, when I lived in Saudi Arabia, the national law forced us to wear pitch blackness veils called abbaya like the local women outside home, and both the law and their belief foreclose us to drink any kind of alcohol. Needless to say, we should not be fools as to go against any national laws to end up in prison, but our personal beliefs must still be kept safe. Furthermore, although Orwell faces a difficult situation, where he can either unnecessarily kill the elephant or decide not to, based on his own moral beliefs, he should have realized that he was the powerful one.Orwell explains his situation, To come all th at way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white mans life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at. But I did not want to shoot the elephant. It was a situation in which he could not help but act according to the natives expectations.Nevertheless, readers must not forget that he was the one in control and power, with the rifle in his hands, and the natives could neither physically harm him nor report that he did the wrong thing. This meant that he really could have protected his moral values, and be ignorant of what others desperately wanted him to do since he believed the action to be wrong. The result of rest up to our own beliefs and practices can mean conflict with others who have several(predicate) ones. But another consequence is faith in ourselves, self-confidence in our identity and ability to carry out those beliefs.Maintaining these will help us survive our lives more successfully, although probably not easily on the other hand, if we continue to conform to others beliefs, we will come to depend only on others and have no self-respect. Overall, the action of killing the elephant by George Orwell is not justified because, despite his moral belief about not killing the elephant, he went straight against it and shot the elephant, winning the natives expectations, and overcoming the boundary between them, but losing his true self and his beliefs.