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The elephant is the central symbol of the story. Orwell uses it to represent the effect of colonialism on both the colonizer and the colonized. The elephant, like a colonized populace, has its liberty restricted, and it becomes violently rebellious only as a response to being shackled. Orwell, a colonizer, feels a similar ambivalence towards the elephant as he does towards the Burmese locals. While he recognizes that both are harmless and peaceful and have suffered wrongs at the hands of others, he still perpetuates barbarous treatment of both, simply in order to uphold an irrational standard of imperial behavior. He kills the elephant simply because he fears that he would be humiliated if he failed to do so. In much the same way, colonial savagery perpetuates itself simply because colonists fear that they would look weak or ridiculous if they acted less inhumanely. Orwell further humanizes the elephant by referring to it throughout the story with the pronoun “he,” rather than “it.”
The Elephant Quotes in Shooting an Elephant
The Shooting an Elephant quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Elephant. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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“Shooting an Elephant”
Quotes
And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd – seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "natives," and so in every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant.
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A white man mustn't be frightened in front of "natives"; and so, in general, he isn't frightened. The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do.
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But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skyward like a tree.
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It seemed dreadful to see the great beast lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die, and not even to be able to finish him.
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Get the entire Shooting an Elephant LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Elephant Symbol Timeline in Shooting an Elephant
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Elephant appears in Shooting an Elephant. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
“Shooting an Elephant”
...reasons behind it. He receives a call from another policeman, informing him that a rogue elephant has been causing damage in the town. Orwell heads toward the affected area. On the...
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Orwell goes to the neighborhood where the elephant was last spotted, which is one of the town’s poorer districts. He tries to figure...
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Orwell’s subordinate returns with the gun, and locals reveal that the elephant is in a nearby rice paddy. Orwell walks to the field, and a large group...
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The crowd reaches the rice paddies, and Orwell spots the elephant standing next to the road. The animal is calmly eating grass. Killing an elephant is...
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...swelled to over two thousand people, all of whom are excitedly expecting to see the elephant’s demise. Orwell feels as though he is a magician tasked with entertaining them, and realizes...
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...is his own freedom that he destroys.” Orwell realizes that he committed to killing the elephant the moment he ordered that he be brought a rifle. He entertains the possibility of...
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...appears “grandmotherly” to him; killing it would be a form of murder. Moreover, killing an elephant is a waste of an expensive commodity. The locals tell Orwell that the elephant has...
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...can do. He loads the gun, lies on the road, and takes aim at the elephant. The crowd sighs in anticipation. Orwell aims at the elephant’s head—too far forward to hit...
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The elephant lies on the ground, breathing laboriously. Orwell waits for it to die, but it continues...
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Orwell’s choice to kill the elephant was controversial. The elephant’s owner was angry, but, as an Indian, had no legal recourse....
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