Shyla AriAnna

June 12, 2009

Ap period: 1

Shooting an elephant

Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant gives us a very strong example of just this topic.

Orwell says, “I had no intention of shooting the elephant – I had merely sent for the rifle to defend myself if necessary – and it is always unnerving to have a crowd following you.” As you can plainly see he had no intention of shooting the elephant, he was simply going to do his job, which was to make sure that the elephant wasn’t causing any harm to anyone anymore. The elephant had caused a bit of a disruption but that was over. Orwell was just doing the right thing, double checking to see if anything else was going to happen. This is where he was right, just doing his duty, making sure that little village was safe for the yellow-faced people who lived there.

“I had halted on the road. As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him.” This is where human nature kicks in we all see something & can tell whether or not this choice is the right choice or that is the right choice. But in most cases the right choice doesn’t matter, it is what your audience wants that is most important because in this world we are always on a stage, wearing the right costumes, the right make-up, the right mask. “He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.” This is us as a whole. It is us that has to fight this battle against the evil… we have to be the super heroes fighting against the villain, the one who seems stronger & smarter & all around better than us but we have to fight against the grain against what other people want us to be if we do that we will cease to be different we will cease to be us we will be lost pieces of ourselves overstuffed with the little bits & pieces they wanted to shape us into. Now tell me is that who you want to be? Just a mindless soul wandering around the world aimlessly? This is what you would become if you lost yourself inside the mask that so many of us wear by trying to please everybody else even if that means doing the wrong thing. Most of the time we don’t even think about it, we just do what we know will please them, our puppeteers. “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.”

We can’t just sit back and become the thing we fear the most, the ones we fear are the ones who push us to do the things we really don’t want to do, just like Orwell’s yellow sneering faces. I don’t want to become one of the many mindless people we fear of becoming. “He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy the conventionalized figure of a sahib.” If we stand our ground unlike Orwell did when he was faced with shooting the elephant. We will be able to be true to who we are inside. We have to be able to stand our ground and walk away without “shooting the elephant.” because after all, “A sahib; has got to appear resolute.” If we choose to act like a puppet we have to actually become one at one point.

Orwell had it right when he said, “he wears a mask and his face grows to fit it.” We are all wearing masks some of ours fit better than others & refuse to take them off, some of us wear multiple masks & are trying real hard to peel them off one by on piece by piece, and there are others of us who are just trying on the mask to see how it fits and we are realizing it doesn’t fit no matter which way we try to wear it. Well you wanna know what I say? Well I don’t care I’m gonna tell you anyways, take it off chuck in the trash throw it in the ocean shove it down your garbage disposal, I don’t care what you do with it as long as you are bold enough to take it off walk around naked (meaning without the mask) & just be yourself.