A sub-divisional police officer of Moulemein, a town in lower Burma, Orwell takes a seemingly minor incident-shooting an elephant that has caused destruction throughout the town-and uses it to illustrate the evils of imperialism. Through the use of specific examples and straightforward, clear language, Orwell concludes that “when the white man turns tyrant, it is his own freedom that he destroys.”

Orwell is introduced to the readers as feeling out of place and futile in a place where “anti-European feeling was very bitter” (125). He employs specific examples to illustrate the tormenting of Europeans by the Burmese people; in one instance, he is tripped by a Burman man while playing football, and the crowd proceeds to roar with “hideous laughter” (125). Orwell clearly displays his hatred for the Burmese, particularly the young Buddhist priests, who were the “worst of all” (125), and his feeling of helplessness as an official who was supposed to be able to control them. Ironically, although he is supposed be of a high position in the town, he is constantly jeered at and insulted by those over whom he should have power.

Despite his antipathy towards the Burmese people, however, Orwell also sympathizes with him. In a very explicit, straightforward passage, he describes his hatred for imperialism. In a plain cumulative sentence, Orwell states that “imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better.” There is no ornate diction and no sophisticated syntax; he is explicitly stating his abhorrence of imperialism. He goes on to use detailed imagery to describe the “dirty work of [the] Empire” (126)-prisoners in stinking cages, grey faces of convicts, and scarred buttocks of men who had been flocked with bamboo appeal to the emotions of the reader and allow them to understand Orwell’s utter hatred of imperialism. Even with this hatred, however, Orwell is torn between his contempt for the tyrants and the tyrannized. He claims to be “all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors” (126), but this assertion only serves to further reveal his ambivalence; he is an oppressor, and he is therefore against himself. His parallels this statement by affirming that the torture he witnessed “oppressed [him] with an intolerable sense of guilt (126). By establishing himself as both one who oppresses and one who is oppressed, Orwell further illustrates his torn mindset. He ends this passage with a generalization, claiming that feelings of ambivalence such as his are normal by-products of imperialism.

Through his hatred for his own position and his ambivalence towards the Burmese and the British, Orwell illustrates his obligation to both groups of people. He is employed as a tool for the British to control their conquests and a tool for the Burmese to achieve what they want. Although he does not want to shoot the elephant, he is pressured by the people around him. The elephant comes to symbolizes British imperialism and reflect Orwell’s ambivalence; it is dying, but it can’t move-just as British imperialism dies shortly thereafter.