L2L Shooting an Elephant

“Shooting an Elephant”

George Orwell

Before he was George Orwell, noted author, he was Eric Blair, Imperial police recruit in Myanmar (then called Burma). Unlike many of his peers, he understood the deficiencies in the imperial attitude. The short story “Shooting an Elephant” confronts the uneasy relationship between the government and the governed, at an everyday level. This week, P. T. Bridgeport and Dr. C discuss the tale, both as an incident and as an allegory for colonialism.