A ELEPHANT/ SWEET SALVATION

    In Orwell’s autobiographical essay, “Shooting an Elephant” He writes about his experience working as a police officer in lower Burma. Although well hidden Orwell was “disgusted by the inhumanity of colonial rule that he witnessed while stationed in Burma” (2835 Orwell). Orwell would use his writing to confess the inner conflict of an imperial police officer. One day while on duty Orwell gets a call from the sub inspector from the police station.  The sub inspector assigns Orwell to go shoot a ravaging elephant in the bazaar. The choice Orwell makes will leave him with a guilty conscience, and feeling like a person who hides behind a mask.

 

   He notes that the Burmese civilians were not allowed to own guns during his stay – a testament of British control over Burmese resources. Feeling “stuck between his hatred of the empire he served and his rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make his job impossible” he knew that “the sooner he chucked up the job and got out of it the better” (2844 Orwell). Orwell repressed his emotions because acting out as the only white man would have been foolish. If he betrayed his country, he risked treason. If he sided with the Burmese, he would never fit into their culture. Every white man’s life long struggle in the East was to not be laughed at, so the safest choice for a man like George was to live without action. However, when ravaging animal gets loose Orwell is called to take action.

 

   Orwell responds to the call, taking his rifle, “an old 44 Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant” (2845 Orwell) in hopes of frightening it with the noise. This elephant was not wild, but normally tame and broke loose due to sexual frustration this first action is just an exercise of authority in maintaining order; however, in seeing a dead native victim he requests an elephant rifle and five cartridges. This is when the Burmese become quite excited and an “immense crowd of two thousand” (2846 Orwell) follow him. They believe that the imperial police officer is going to shoot the elephant when, in actuality, he just wanted to defend himself from becoming another corpse. Orwell’s chooses to “wear a mask that is fit to his face” and be something he wasn’t. Orwell decided to give in to the Burmans by shooting the elephant which is what they wanted. If the elephant came at him, he would shoot. If not, he would reveal that the tame elephant no longer posed a threat. Yet, his insecurities with a gun get the best of him and he discards a strategy that would have allowed him to remain neutral.

 

   Shooting the elephant only made Orwell a follower and someone who he isn’t and now he has to deal with the guilt and grief from the shooting of the elephant. He shoots the elephant five times with the elephant gun, but it does not die. He calls for a normal rifle to finish the job, but it does not die. He leaves to avoid the dying, gasping elephant and later learns that it took another half hour for it to die. The Burmese get the meat that they wanted and Orwell learns that he is legally right for shooting the elephant. He is thankful for this because he often wondered “whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking like a fool” (2848 Orwell). This is how the colonizer became colonized.

 

Some of us are born into situations that are not easy and we’re forced to navigate through the chaos and disorder. In result, we may make bad decisions. In my opinion, the life of an imperial policeman would have been quite difficult. I applaud Orwell for being brave enough to confess his inner dilemmas and questions about the situation he lived out. Honestly I would have done the same and shot the elephant even though he had his own personnel feelings towards the British rule when presented with a problem he did the smart thing and showed no mercy in the presents of the burmes. Life is nothing but choices and some choices don't feel right but are for the best.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    In the narrative “Salvation” Langston Hughes vividly paints a picture of himself as a little boy in a charismatic scene of a church or better known revival where he takes us into his feelings of pressure, confusion, and disappointment in himself during his “saving” from sin by Jesus. Langston Hughes brings emotion and drama to his childhood story by what seems to be almost taking himself back in time into the mind of a young boy and his youthful writing techniques and styles that would represent the story being told by a young boy. I believe that this literary device allows the reader to listen to the boy instead of an older man. This almost forces sympathy onto the reader and causes the reader to become more emotionally attached to the boy, ultimately making the pressure, confusion, and disappointment in the end of the story more prominent. Although the use of writing from the perspective of a young boy helps Hughes tell his experience, the various range of emotions would not be as prominent without the use of dialogue. Feeling the pressure from his aunt she would say such things as "Langston, why don't you come? Why don't you come and be saved? Oh, Lamb of God! Why don't you come?" or another example   "My aunt told me that when you were saved you saw a light" but he saw no light which made the younger Langston Hughes frustrated and upset which is apparent when he wrote such trials as  - I cried. I cried, in bed alone, and couldn't stop. I buried my head under the quilts, but my aunt heard me.- He uses literary devices ,to build up and develop detail of his experience, such as his use of dialogue, compression, and he writes in the mind of a young boy. After reading salvation it’s apparent that Langston Hughes puts religion on stage and how he shows readers that people often expect God to fix all their problems. Apart from his apparent disgust for the desolate life that the African Americans were subjected to, Langston Hughes also portrays an evident misunderstanding of religion, not necessarily towards religion itself but particularly towards those individuals who use religion as a cloak to conceal their true oppressive nature. I think what Hughes is showing is that people look to religion as a way to erase what they are going through. Instead of facing the trials and tribulations head on and learning from this experience. While reading this I realized that Hughes painted a picture clearly of the conformity that takes place in his youth.