Why did he shoot the elephant?

There are many different reasons as to why George Orwell chose to shoot the Elephant in the short story, ”Shooting an Elephant”. In the following essay, there will be a wide and deep response of why George Orwell chose to shoot the elephant in the end.
The first and primary reason for George Orwell shooting the elephant is simply Orwell being afraid. He was originally not intending to shoot the elephant; he merely brought the rifle for his own protection. “I had no intention of shooting the elephant – I had merely sent for the rifle to defend myself if necessary – and it is always unnerving to have a crowd following you. I marched down the hill, looking and feeling a fool, with the rifle over my shoulder and an ever-growing army of people jostling at my heels” . This quote first of all shows that Orwell actually did not intend the shooting of the elephant. It also shows the pressure he is being held upon by the Burmese crowd. It might seem a bit strange that Orwell feels pressured, as he is the superior and the Burmese is the inferior, but the thing is, Orwell is pressured because he is in fact the one without power in this situation. He is being laughed at and ridiculed buy the locals, which of course touches his emotions and he is greatly outnumbered by the thousand man crowd. So in reality a part of the cause of George Orwell shooting the elephant is social motives. Being pressured by the Burmese is not his only motive; Orwell also wants to feel himself as something more. He wants respect, just like any other man would, if they on a daily basis were being ridiculed and laughed at. “As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so. When a nimble Burman tripped me 10 up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter. This happened more than once. In the end the sneering yellow faces of young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe distance, got badly on my nerves. The young Buddhist priests were the worst of all. There were several thousands of them in the town and none of them seemed to have anything to do 15 except stand on street corners and jeer at Europeans” . Orwell justifies the shooting of the elephant by saying that he would otherwise have been laughed at even more, and he would have become the object of ridicule. “The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly” . This quote also shows that George Orwell shot the Elephant for the good of it all. If Orwell had chosen not to shoot the elephant, the British might have lost their image, although it doesn’t fit into the equation of shooting the elephant. Orwell shot it primarily because he was afraid of being laughed at and tired of being shown nothing but disrespect from the locals.

Another completely different reason might come in relevant when looking at why Orwell chose to shoot the elephant. Some might arguably say that George Orwell was in fact afraid in the commotion of it all. “If the elephant charged and I missed him, I should have about as much chance as a toad under a steam-roller. But even then I was not thinking particularly of my own skin, only of the watchful yellow faces behind. For at that moment, with 150 the crowd watching me, I was not afraid in the ordinary sense, as I would have been if I had been alone. A white man mustn't be frightened in front of "natives"; and so, in general, he isn't frightened”. Orwell claims that a white man must not be frightened in front of “natives”, so he wasn’t, but who knows, he might have been just as afraid for his own life as the natives.

To sum up the reasoning behind George Orwell shooting the elephant, one must conclude, that there had been put great pressure on his shoulders. He had two ways to go, both with major problems. Some might say he chose the right thing, while others will be opposed, but one thing is right. He did it for the better of himself.