"Shooting an Elephant" Questions

Comprehension

1. Orwell is hated by the Burmese people because he was a European police officer of the town and the Burmese were not the biggest fans of Europeans. Orwell hated the English empire even more than he hated the Burmese, making it so that he almost sympathized with them.
2. The elephant was a danger to the town and its citizens, whether the elephant decided to be harmful or not. To the Burmese, and also an English crowd, the shooting of the elephant would be fun to them; plus they wanted the meat.
3. The elephant was shot because the crowd of two thousand Burmans wanted Orwell to do it and he could not disobey them; they would laugh at him. Orwell saw that they elephant was not incredibly dangerous unless it was aproached too closely. He also contemplated the effect it would have on the elephant's owner.
4. It almost gave him a reason for shooting the elephant. It is a better reason than to say he shot the elephant because the people wanted him to.

Purpose and Audience

1. Orwell sees the real nature of imperialism as the truth behind an empire. Everyone hears of the nobility and amzing feats accomplished by major empires, but never all of the horrible things that went along with the great conquests. The shooting of the elephant showed the "behind the scenes" of a great empire.
2. I think Orwell wrote this essay to inform the reader of an incident that he lived through. Maybe there was some kind of message in the reading that the reader was supposed to come across. The emotion Orwell presents in the essay shows that he is trying to get some kind of point across, not necessarily persuade.
3. The thesis is: "In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people-the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me." (I'm not really sure about this one. :/)

Style and Structure

1. Orwell's first paragraph sets the setting, mood, and tone of the essay. The introduction is over after the first two paragraphs. The third paragraph begins the narrative.
2. Maybe Orwell wanted a very personal view of the experience to come across to the reader. Maybe Orwell saw the other people involved as having little significance in the actual telling of the story, when it came to speaking anyway. I think the absence of dialogue is a strength in this essay, because the reader is never distracted by what someone is saying and is more focused on the actions occuring. Without dialogue, Orwell has total control of the reader's focus, rather than a certain character involved.
3. The detail of the elephant's misery shows that Orwell felt extremely awful about what he had just done. More detail means more focus. Orwell wsas focused on the elephant at this time because he did not want the elephant to suffer, but rather it to die a quick, painless death.
4. I would characterize these comments as Orwell's even more personal thoughts and expressions given to the reader. They are set off from the text because Orwell could have possibly added them in as he was editing the original essay and felt they deserved to be set apart from the rest of the essay.
5. In relation to the theme in paragraph two, these statements reinforce the battle Orwell has with "choosing sides".