Shooting an Elephant

Also known as Crown Rule or Direct Rule and founded in 1858, the British Raj refers to the ruling power of the British in India and Pakistan until their independence in 1947.

In “Shooting an Elephant,” the term “Coringhee coolie” refers to the unskilled or low-wage workers—primarily Telugu, also known as Andhras, one of the four major Dravidian ethnolinguistic groups native to Southern India—who emigrated to Burma under the British Empire. At the end of the essay, the narrator makes known his relief that the elephant killed such a man as it gave him the right to kill the elephant, saving him from explaining his real reasoning for carrying out the act. Orwell’s gratitude for the man’s death further diminishes the value of the lives of the natives. It brings readers back to who the narrator is: a British officer carrying out the will of an imperial power. No matter how much he professes his rage and disgust, he is one of them in the end.

A type of Burmese knife or sword. Also spelled dha, Orwell writes that the “Burmans were bringing dahs and baskets” (155) as an offering at the foot of