Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell

Part 1:
1. Do you think that Orwell looked lie a fool for killing the elephant?
2. Do ones views towards us affect our decisions?
3. Why do older men have different view for killing the elephant than younger men?
Part 2:
2. Does ones actions affect a person's reputation?

In George Orwell's case, i believe so. In his the essay “Shooting an Elephant,” he talks about his experience of killing an elephant. He talks about an experience he encountered when he was a young police officer stationed in Moulmein, Burma. He expresses how he was treated unfairly while playing in the football field and insulted by a distance because Burmese had resentment towards the British. One day an elephant had escaped from where he was chained and went on a rampage. The elephant had destroyed a hut, a cow, a fruit stand and ate all the fruit, a van, and killed a man. People were frightened and called for him; he grabbed his gun and went to find the elephant. When he spotted the elephant, the elephant was calm and eating by the paddy fields. When the people saw Orwell with his gun, they began to change their attitudes to excitement. He says that “they had not shown much interest in the elephant when he was merely ravaging their homes,” describes that they were excited because they thought he was going to kill it, so they can eat it. He explains that he merely brought the gun to protect himself just in case the elephant decided to get mad again, but in reality he did not want to shoot the elephant. He says that if he did not shoot the elephant it would make him look bad and weak. I think that he fell into peer pressure by the villagers to kill the elephant; he knew that they wanted him to kill the elephant. I feel that by not killing the elephant either that they people would treat him more unfairly or insult him even more. In the other hand if he did kill the elephant he would gain respect and people would be a little nicer.