Narrative Essay

Narrative Essay

How Orwell & I Deal With Pressure
George Orwell’s essay “Shooting An Elephant” presents an inner conflict between the author’s personal ethics and his duty to his country. I have had a similar experience in which I had to question my personal morals and responsibility to my school when I decided to stand up for myself on a bus while serving as bus patrol. I had to choose whether I should listen to my instincts or go along with the group, similarly to what Orwell must decide. Orwell conveyed his conflicting views through his examples of oppression by his country, and by the Burmese.
George Orwell was a police officer in Lower Burma, a town where people had bitter feelings toward Europeans. Although his sympathies lie with the Burmese, he is obligated to act as a representative of the oppressive imperial power. While acting in such a role, he is subjected to constant baiting by the Burmese, especially by the young Buddhist priests. This constant baiting made Orwell hate his job as policeman and he describes it by saying:
As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear. In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos—all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt. But I could get nothing into perspective. I was young and ill-educated and I had to think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East (852).
When I was in the eighth grade, I accepted the job of bus patrol. Like Orwell, I also began to regret taking the responsibility of this role. I was seen as a joke by the lower grade children, especially the first and second graders. This was similar to how the Burmese viewed Orwell. Although I was an ordinary student like everyone else on the bus, I was forced...