The passage describes the writer’s experience in Burma when he was serving as a police officer at the time when the
British ruled the country. He has been ordered to deal with a possible threat posed by an elephant.
Sample Essay # 1 – Mark: ____
The passage describes an experience of the writer in Burma. Thus the
language used is descriptive. The first paragraph builds up the tension of the situation
the writer was in. The tension is created by the author’s conflicting emotions and
indecision. His reluctance to shoot the elephant is expressed in a sympathetic way; he
sees the elephant with affection, and notices a “preoccupied grandmotherly air” about
it. “[I]t would be murder to shoot [the elephant].” This compassionate view, however,
would have to be put aside by painful necessity: “there was only one alternative.”
The writer’s affection for the elephant is still apparent even as he aims at the
beast. He writes with a cynical tone about the reactions of the crowd when he says,
“They were going to have their bit of fun after all.” The comparison of his aiming to the
raising of a “theater’s curtain” is another example of how the writer shows his dislike for
the bloodthirsty crowd. One can almost imagine a regretful tone of voice in the author’s
words as he explains his misjudgment of where the elephant’s brain would be. The
writer shows how deeply affected he is by having to shoot the elephant by saying,
“…one never does [feel the kick of the rifle] when a shot goes home.” Again, he shows
his disgust for the crowd by describing their reaction to the shot as a “devilish roar of
glee.” The writer describes the pitiful condition of the elephant after the shot as
“suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old,” a “mysterious, terrible change.” The
description “sagged flabbily to his knees” further shows the writer’s compassion for the
creature. The writer is sadly forced to continue firing, trying to end its life; he does not
realize he is missing the brain. He describes the elephant’s fall with a sort of awe, using
similes and describing it as a “huge rock toppling, his trunk…like a tree.” In the final
paragraph the writer makes more clear his sad position. Out of compassion he tries to
end the elephant’s misery and shoots at the heart. The description of the blood flowing
out “like red velvet” shows the writer’s mixed feelings of respect and grief. His inability
to ease the elephant’s suffering is evidently painful for the writer. He describes the
elephant’s condition remorsefully. “[T]he tortured breathing continued…He was dying,
very slowly and in great agony…the tortured grasps continued.” The simile of the
breathing continuing “as steadily as the ticking of a clock” emphasizes his
powerlessness to finish off the elephant, just as we are powerless to stop time.
The writer is clearly grief-stricken by the end of the passage. The wicked
crowd only wants blood, and he feels alone in caring for the elephant. Therefore, his
inability to help the elephant is even more painful to him. His last remorseful statement,
line 61, sums up his attitude. The language the writer uses, his descriptions of the
elephant and the crowd, show his sorrowful tone of voice in describing the experience.
Sample Essay # 3 – Mark: ____
Orwell’s essay is written as if it were a pivotal moment in his life. One that left
him marked. One almost feels changed after reading the essay, and that is what Orwell
wants to do. Though it is not explicitly said, his experience can be taken as an allegory
what was happening in Burma when the British were in control. Orwell, however, chose
to concentrate on the elephant’s great will to live.
Orwell was probably never the same after shooting this elephant. He felt the
pain it was to kill an innocent creature. His diction in the second and beginning of the
third paragraph characterizes his moral conviction. “I shoved the cartridge…” The word
shoved shows unwillingness, he had to do it quickly because if he were to give it a
second thought he would not have done it.
In the third paragraph Orwell calls the rifle a “beautiful German thing.” It is
almost as if he were going to kill something beautiful with something beautiful. The act
of killing would turn the beautiful thing into something retched. With this “beautiful
thing” he would brutally shoot the elephant five times and fail to kill it.
The actual shooting of the elephant was a blur to Orwell. He says, “I did not
hear the bang or feel the click.” One can imagine one of those soundless, slow motion
moments in film. Orwell was not concentrated on the shot, but where the shot was
going—straight into the head of a creature that did not deserve death.
After the shot, he says he heard the crowd’s “devilish roar of glee.” His use of
the word devilish is very telling of not only the people around him, but himself. Orwell
was surrounded by ignorant lay people that saw the killing of the elephant as a sport,
while he was isolated. The word devilish is not calling the people “evil” but emphasizing
the different sphere in which they exist.
The fourth and last paragraph are concentrated on the animal’s unwillingness
to die. Orwell comments before that how killing a large animal is worse, well here the
animal is humanized. He describes the elephant’s death in a way a human’s would be.
The elephant fell to its knees, slobbered, aged a thousand years. Witnessing this from
the side was Orwell. He chooses not to disrespect the animal, something that further
humanizes the elephant, by calling it “he” and “him.” This personification causes the
reader to feel endearment to the animal.
When the elephant finally falls, the “devilish” crowd races past him after the
elephant’s final trumpet. Though the elephant would not rise again he was still alive.
Orwell stood watching the elephant’s agony. He desperately shot the elephant’s heart.
He described the blood as “red velvet.” It sounds regal. Something beautiful spilling out
of the creature. There lay the great beast with no choice to live or die, and it was
Orwell’s fault. He was powerless. The both were, him and the elephant. It marked him
for life, and he makes sure the reader not only knows but feels the pain, humiliation,
agony, and impotence Orwell felt.
The passage describes the writer’s experience in Burma when he was serving as a police officer at the time when the
British ruled the country. He has been ordered to deal with a possible threat posed by an elephant.
Sample Essay # 3 – Mark: ____
Vivid, meticulous story-telling illustrates the police officer’s guilt after reluctantly
fulfilling an order to neutralize a potential hazard, the elephant. Although he struggles with
whether or not to shoot the elephant, the officer’s remorse becomes tangible as the narrative
progresses.
The first sentence undoubtedly expresses the officer’s sentiments: “[he] did not
want to shoot the elephant.” Similarly, the beginning of the tale highlights the officer’s
indecision; like a list of pros and cons, the narrator itemizes the possible benefits and
drawbacks of opening fire. The scale noticeably tilts toward sparing the elephant’s life, for “it
would be murder” to kill an animal with a “grandmotherly air,” and the animal’s monetary
worth would be at least twenty times more alive than dead. While the cons of killing the
elephant far outweigh the pros, the officer’s decision to shoot represents his overwhelming
loyalty to his position as a “keeper of the peace” rather than his principles. He is more
concerned with the “watchful yellow faces,” and the mere possibility of being disgraced, than
his own sense of right and wrong.
Almost instantly, the speaker regrets pulling the trigger. He hears the onlookers’
“devilish roars of glee.” Through precise word choice, the author demonizes the crowd as he
victimizes the elephant, detailing a “mysterious, terrible change.” Once depicted as a “large
animal,” a “beast” capable of squashing the officer like “a toad under a steam-roller,” the
elephant becomes “paralyzed.” The writer portrays the elephant as though he has aged—
“shrunken, immensely old,” with “enormous senility.” In essence, the officer has killed an
innocent grandmother! Drawing this parallel intensifies the officer’s shame, transforming him
into the murderer he feared he would become.
Interestingly, the elephant is a formidable opponent. Through the employment of
paradox, the author affirms that the elephant will NOT go down without a fight! “[I]n falling he
seemed…to rise.” The coupling of opposing concepts strengthens the elephant’s
unrelenting willpower. The elephant “collapsed [yet] seemed to tower upward,” almost
defying gravity, making the impossible possible. Likewise, the speaker lauds the former
“beast” by calling him a “great beast,” again merging contradictory elements. The officer
sympathizes with his prey as he lies “powerless to move and yet powerless to die.”
Comparably, he feels powerless.
By repeatedly referring to the elephant using the personal pronoun “he” as
opposed to “it,” the author solidifies the idea that the elephant is human-like and a victim.
The reader almost forgets that the officer is recounting shooting an animal, for “HE sagged
flabbily,” “HIS mouth slobbered,” “HIS hind legs collapsed,” and “down HE came.” There is
no mistaking the author’s aim to arouse pity in the reader who empathizes with the officer
while he suffers with the lamentable decision to kill the embodied elephant.
The officer ultimately becomes a defenseless victim of his own regret. After all,
“[i]n the end [he] could not stand [the guilt] any longer and went away.”