Shooting an Elephant E-Book

George Orwell

• Herausgeber: Renard Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 20

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

George Orwell set out 'to make political writing into an art', and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and AnimalFarm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell's essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. Shooting an Elephant, the fifth in the Orwell's Essays series, tells the story of a police officer in Burma who is called upon to shoot an aggressive elephant. Thought to be loosely based on Orwell's own experiences in Burma, the tightly written essay weaves together fact and fiction indistinguishably, and leaves the reader contemplating the heavy topic of colonialism, with the words 'when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys' echoing from the page.

Leseprobe

shooting an elephant

the orwell’s essays series

i. Why I Write

ii. Politics and the English Language

iii. The Prevention of Literature

iv. Politics vs. Literature

v. Shooting an Elephant

vi. England Your England

vii. Orwell on Reading

viii. Inside the Whale

ix. A Hanging

x. Decline of the English Murder

Shooting an Elephant

george orwell

renard press

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Shooting an Elephant first published in 1936

This edition first published by Renard Press Ltd in 2022

Edited text © Renard Press Ltd, 2022

Extra Material © Renard Press Ltd, 2022

Cover design by Will DadyExtra Material edited by Tom Conaghan

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contents

Shooting an Elephant

Notes

Extra Material

shootingan elephant

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 was Sub-Divisional Police Officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way, anti-European feeling was very bitter. No one had the guts to raise a riot, but if a European woman went through the bazaars alone, somebody would probably spit betel juice over her dress. As a police officer I was an obvious target, and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so. When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter. This happened more than once. In the end, the sneering yellow faces of young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe distance, got badly on my nerves. The young Buddhist priests were the worst of all. There were several thousands of them in the town, and none of them seemed to have anything