Shooting an Elephant

This story is pretty short but surprisingly it offers a lot of descriptive detail and has a well developed plot. "Shooting an Elephant", is about a man named Geroge who lives in an imperialistic country where he's aware he doesn't fit in. In many instances, people have made fun of him, such as when a player on the opposite team tripped him on the football field, as the referee looked away right after. He was being treated unfairly and when this happens, it tends to lead people to do something they know they shouldn't do, just to fit in, and that's what happened at the end.

He serves as a sub divisional police officer in India, and usually you think of an officer as someone of higher power who has the right to tell you what to do, at least legally. Int his case, he was the laughing stock of the town. "As a police officer i was a obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so." Even though he was always bothered, i don't really think he would have ever had the guts to stand up for himself and put a stop to it. Until he found an opportunity to end it all and be looked at, in a completely different way.

The title of this story seems very uncommon, but it actually serves the biggest purpose of all. In the town, George was called in to a scene of an elephant that was on the loose. The whole town was going crazy running back and forth. When he got the call, he didn't know what he could do about it but yet he just went because he wanted to laugh as little and see what was going on. When he got there, the elephant had killed a person and that's when he knew that somehow, someway, he had to stop this all until it went farther. He called for backup, and everyone then began looking at him as a hero. He could tell how everyone had changed with him because they wanted him to kill it, and he was the only one with the weapon.

"But i did not want to shoot the elephant." But he did. And it was just so he could be excepted. And to me, i think that was wrong. It would have been a different story if he wanted to kill the elephant for the sake of everyone's safety, and yes, that was part of it, but a hero, never asks for the title. I think this is why our society in some way is dysfunctional today. Because everyone does what they think people want to see. Everyone wants to fit in, whether its with a bad crowd or not, just to feel wanted. No one thinks for themselves these days. Sometimes it's better to be alone, then to be surrounded by fake people. And then at the very end, he proves exactly what i just stated, "I often wonder whether any of the others grasped that i had done it solely to avoid looking a fool."