Consider what each text the lottery and shooting an elephant is trying to suggest about the relationship between civilisation and violence.
Text the lottery and shooting an elephant is
Consider what each text the lottery and shooting an elephant is trying to suggest about the relationship between civilisation and violence.
“Shooting an Elephant”
THE LITERARY WORK
An essay describing an incident from Orwell’s time as a policeman in Burma in the 1920s; published in 1936.
SYNOPSIS
Orwell’s responsibility for dealing with a rogue elephant becomes an occasion for reflection on the nature and effects of imperialism.
Events in History at the Time of the Eassy
George Orwell (1903–50) was born Eric Arthur Blair in Motihari, Bengal, where his father worked for the Opium Department of the Government of India. He had a relatively comfortable middle-class upbringing in England, first attending a private preparatory school and then winning a scholarship to Eton, an exclusive “public” secondary school (the name in England for a private school). On leaving Eton in 1921 he joined the Indian Imperial Police; he was posted to Burma in 1922. After five years of service, however, he resigned, unable any longer to stomach doing “the dirty work of Empire” and harboring an ambition to be a writer (Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant,” p. 501).
On his return to Europe, he spent a year and a half living in poverty in London and Paris, trying to share the life of the destitute and oppressed and doggedly teaching himself to write. In 1933, using the name George Orwell, he published his first book, based on these experiences, Down and Out in Paris and London.
The next three years saw Orwell publish three novels, Burmese Days (1934), A Clergyman’s Daughter (1935) and Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936); he honed his skills as a reviewer and essayist during these years too. In 1936 the publisher Gollancz commissioned him to write a book on the economically depressed areas of northern England, which became The Road to Wigan Pier (1937).
In the spring of that year Orwell was also asked to contribute something to New Writing, a new journal edited by John Lehmann. Orwell offered to write what he described as “a sketch … describing the shooting of an elephant,” but only if Lehmann was likely to publish something of the sort (“Shooting an Elephant,” p. 483).
Lehmann replied that he would like to see it, and when he did, he liked what he saw. “His editorial acumen or ‘instinct’ … had led him straight to a masterpiece” (Stansky and Abrahams, p. 147): one that was about not simply the shooting of an elephant, but the tragedy, violence, and farce of imperialism.
Events in History at the Time of the Eassy
The British empire in Burma
In the nineteenth century, the British, anxious to secure control of cotton, teak, and other natural resources, and of inland trade routes to western China, came increasingly into conflict with the Burmese kings.
The British saw Burma as simply an extension of India, which they already ruled. So they persistently tried “to bring the Burmese kings down to the level of Indian princes in a subservient relationship,” while “the proud Burmese kings,” for their part, “did everything possible to retain their sovereign status” (SarDesai, p. III).
The two nations went to war in 1824–26, and in 1851 the British occupied and annexed Lower Burma. Pressure from British trading interests for greater commercial opportunities in the region continued, and when in 1882 a new clique at the Burmese court insisted on a tougher line against the British, further conflict seemed inevitable. In 1885, the Burmese took legal action against a British company, the Bombay-Burmah Trading Corporation, for underpayment for timber
This legal action, along with fears that King Theebaw was considering an alliance with the French, precipitated Britain’s declaration of war against Burma. After only 15 days, the British army took over Mandalay, the capital of Burma, and the royal family was sent unceremoniously into exile. On January 1, 1886, the British government announced the annexation of Upper Burma. The whole of Burma was now to be ruled directly by the British, as a province of India.
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