Comparative Essay Example: Orwell's Shooting an Elephant and A Hanging

My first reaction to both essays is that the police officer in “Shooting an Elephant” and the guards in “A Hanging” both don’t enjoy their job. The police officer doesn’t like his job he even says, “I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British” (Orwell 1). The guards in “A Hanging” feel bad because they realize that the prisoner is an actual human just like them. After the job was done and the guards have hung the prisoner it says, “One had the impulse to sing” (Orwell 4). What stood out to me was that both the guards and the police officer in the essays at the begging both disliked what they were having to do but then at the end they changed their nature. In “Shooting an Elephant” the police officer has no intention of killing the elephant but then when there are two thousand people behind him watching and waiting for him to shoot the elephant, he felt like he had to do kill the elephant to avoid looking like a fool and to impress the natives. Also, in “A Hanging” when the guards are taking the prisoner to get hung and the prisoner moves out of the way to avoid a puddle, he thinks to himself that the prisoner is just like him and is an actual human being, but once the prisoner is hung it says, they went out and had drinks and started laughing again with the dead man hundreds of yards away (Orwell 5). These essays are both also going through the police officer and the guard’s perspectives and feelings. With this view, we get to see how they were feeling at each moment creating the mood for each essay. This view makes the mood tragic because it is showing his thoughts right before he is about to kill the elephant or take the man to get hung. 

Orwell uses the incident of shooting the elephant to illustrate his point that just because the police officer is a white man and has power over the Burmese people does not mean he necessarily likes what he must do. So, leading up to him shooting the elephant he has no intention of killing the elephant, but he just grabs the elephant rifle for protection of himself. Then later when there are two thousand people behind him waiting for him to shoot the elephant, he feels like he must shoot the elephant to avoid looking like a fool. In “A Hanging” is very similar because it is taking this guard’s perspective in a prison. The guard must take the prisoner to be hung and while he is doing that, he realizes that the prisoner is an actual human just like him. Once he gets the prisoner to the stage to be hung his face changes color to a greyish because he doesn’t want to see this man die. After the hanging, the guards and the head jailer go drink and act like everything is normal and go back to their everyday conversations and laughs. So, his argument in both essays is that while the main characters in the story have power over the Burmese people, that doesn’t mean they necessarily like it. While they do the things they don’t want to do, like shoot the elephant or take this man to be hung, they must do it because it is their duty. I am persuaded by his arguments because he gives the perspective of the police officer and the guard in the essays to show that even men with power over others don’t always feel like they are doing the right thing. Having power doesn’t always mean that you will feel in place, like the police officer he felt like he didn’t belong on either side. 

The police officer kills the elephant because he doesn’t want to look like a fool in front of the unarmed natives. The guard relates to the prisoner because both have working organs and are humans, but he must do his job because that is what is expected of the guards at the jail. If these essays were from someone else’s perspective, we wouldn’t get the feelings and thoughts of the guard and police officer are going through. It would just look like they are doing their jobs.