Linda Felbinger
25 April 2018
English 112
George Orwell Final Paper
Inner Workings of George Orwell
George Orwell was a socialist writer, with very strong views on three very different government movements prevalent during his lifetime. Shooting an Elephant” was one of the events causing Orwell to know he wanted to side with the Republicans or Socialists. Ever since he was a young boy, he had suffered in many ways, from being brought up with little money, to being almost killed by Stalinists.
Eric Blair, better known by his pen name, George Orwell, was born on June 25, 1903, in Motihari, India. He was a famous writer, with strong opinions to government movements, such as imperialism, fascism, and communism. He stayed in India for a year and a half after being born, before moving to England with his mother and sister, Marjorie. Eric’s younger sister, Avril, was born in 1908. His father stayed behind in India, where he was a part of the opium trade for the British government until 1912 when he retired. Even after his father’s retirement, Eric and his father never had a very close relationship. Eric’s writing started at a very young age, writing his first poem at the age of four. In 1911, Orwell went to St. Cyprian’s, a boarding school, just as many other young boys were sent to boarding schools in England. He observed that the richer students were treated better than the poorer students, which Blair was not fond of, for he was there on a scholarship himself. He was not popular with the other students, so he would spend time reading and writing. He once wrote, later in life, that his ambition for writing was mixed with feelings of being undervalued.
Blair ended up getting scholarships to Wellington and Eaton College, choosing the latter. After graduating from boarding school, he found himself stuck. His family did not have enough money to put him through university, so he was left with very little choices. He decided to join the India Imperial Police Force. During Blair’s time as a police officer he wrote “Shooting an Elephant”. He stayed with this job for five years, and eventually returned to England to achieve to be a known writer. He struggled for a while until 1933, when he wrote “Down and Out in Paris and London”. This is where he decided to use George Orwell as his pen name, as to not embarrass his family.
In 1936, Orwell joined a group fighting against General Franco, and was shot twice during his efforts. One of the shots hit him in the neck and left him unable to speak for weeks. At the same time, he was indicted for treason, but the charges were dropped after him and his wife Eileen left Spain. During the Spanish Civil War, Orwell finally settled on being a socialist. Another aspect that drew him to socialism was the fact that the Soviet Union was not socialist, they were a communist society. Orwell was diagnosed with Tuberculosis in 1938 and would battle this disease for the rest of his life. In 1941, he got a job with BBC as a producer, developing news commentary for the eastern part of the British Empire. He worked there for two years, before retiring. He said he found himself being a propagandist to work towards the national interest, and that his work there was useless. Eric Blair passed away on January 1st, 1950 at the age of 46.
“Shooting an Elephant” is an essay written by George Orwell in 1936. The beginning of the story describes Orwell’s job as a police officer, as well as setting the physical setting of the essay. He says how his job was attracting hatred from numerous people, and that it was due to the fact of him being a European police officer in Burma. Orwell says that he hates his job because he got to see how the empire truly worked. He saw how the prisoners were treated, what happened to them over time, and the consequences they faced if they acted up. Orwell then states his opinion on imperialism, that being what he believed is evil. He believed in the Burman people, and against their oppressors, the British. One day Orwell got called on an unusual case, an escaped elephant on a “rampage”. When he found the elephant, he did not want to shoot it, however all the Burman people were watching, and expecting him to take control of the situation. Orwell describes being pressured by the yellow faced people, in the sense that they’re all staring, waiting for the elephant to be shot. He devised plans, alternatives, and he came up with the conclusion that the people would not be satisfied until the animal lay dead at their feet. When Orwell finally shot the elephant, it did not kill him with the first shot. He shot the elephant over and over again, 5 times with his 44 rifle. He could not deal with the agony that he had put the elephant through, so he left, finding out the elephant died 30 minutes later. In the conclusion of the essay, Orwell talks about being legally in the right. He states that since the elephant killed a man, it was the law that it needed to be put down, like a dog. However, the townspeople were torn as to whether killing the elephant was just. The last thing he says in his essay, is that he did it for the sole purpose to not look like a fool and that "the oppressor wears a mask, and his faces grows to fit it." This is as to say that he does what he is told even though he does not believe in it but conforms to the figure that is wanted anyway.
In the beginning of Orwell’s famous “Shooting an Elephant” story, Orwell describes his job in the police force, and talked about how much he disliked it. This is due to his feelings about imperialism, the British Empire, and how he is working for the people he hates. For example, he says how he is fighting for the Burman people, and against their oppressors, the British Empire, secretly, of course. Therefore, he says he can’t wait to quit, so he would not have to work for the Empire. When Orwell talks about what he saw in the prisons, he’s describing what it’s like to see things for how they really are. Orwell talked about holding a rifle in front of a crowd of Burman people, and how it may seem like he is the leader. However, he was really being pressured into doing something he did not want to do. This is sort of like oppression, in the way that Orwell was almost being controlled to shoot the elephant, so that he would not be the laughing stock of the town. At the end of the story, he talks about how he was glad the elephant killed a man, so he was legally correct in what he did. However, when he said this, I think he was going through an internal conflict on the difference between morally and legally correct.
In 1945, Orwell wrote one of his most famous novels, “Animal Farm”. This novel was a story about animals on a farm rebelled against the farmer, hoping to get a better life out of it. They started out with seven commandments, which eventually led to just one, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”. This line from “Animal Farm” is to say what Orwell thought happened after the communist revolution in Russia.
George Orwell wrote a novel called “1984” in 1949, about another dystopian society in a place called Oceania. Oceania is a police state, with an elite party known as Big Brother. Big Brother watches the people through screens, monitoring what they do. To Orwell, this was sort of like a totalitarian government, such as the Nazi party that was involved in WWII. He said the book was about his fear that democratic socialism would be overtaken by an authoritarian government. Orwell was always fighting for the oppressed, and against the oppressor. Sometimes he had to hide that fact, like in the essay “Shooting an Elephant”, he says that he is secretly fighting for the Burman people, and against the British Empire.
The story “Shooting An Elephant” seemed to be a turning point in Orwell’s life. After Burma, he returned to England to pursue his passion in writing. His first published work was when he was 11, in the local newspaper. He saw from a very young age that the rich get treated better than the poor, which came up countless times in his life. Orwell was a socialist, and many of his favorite works were those with strong opinions on totalitarian, fascist, and communist governments.
Works Cited:
“George Orwell.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 15 Feb. 2018, www.biography.com/people/george-orwell-9429833. Accessed 25 Apr 2018.
Woodcock, George. “George Orwell.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 3 Jan. 2018, www.britannica.com/biography/George-Orwell. Accessed 25 Apr 2018.