The British Empire gradually annexed Burma over a period of 62 years (1823–1886) during which three Anglo-Burmese Wars took place, and Britain incorporated it into British India. White elephants have been venerated in Buddhist Burma for centuries, such as this one at an entrance to a temple After his death in 1950, the essay was republished several times, including in Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays (1950), Inside the Whale and Other Essays (1957), and Selected Writings (1958). Orwell spent some of his life in Burma in a position akin to that of the narrator, but the degree to which his account is autobiographical is disputed, with no conclusive evidence to prove it to be fact or fiction. The story is regarded as a metaphor for colonialism as a whole, and for Orwell's view that 'when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.' Because the locals expect him to do the job, he does so against his better judgment, his anguish increased by the elephant's slow and painful death. The essay describes the experience of the English narrator, possibly Orwell himself, called upon to shoot an aggressive elephant while working as a police officer in Burma. ' Shooting an Elephant' is an essay by British writer George Orwell, first published in the literary magazine New Writing in late 1936 and broadcast by the BBC Home Service on 12 October 1948.

Orwell essays