Shooting Elephant. In the first sentence of the story the narrator is explicit about the Burmese attitudes toward him as a representative of the imperial power: “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.” He goes on to say how people spit on him, jeer at him, and generally insult him. On calling him to shoot the elephant, they are in a way testing him, which is why he carries out the deed: to try to save face in a hopeless situation that he finds morally wrong and constantly embarrassing.
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