Monday, February 1, 2010

In "Shooting An Elephant," how did the Burmese people express their feelings towards British people?

That the Burmese hate the British is made very clear in "Shooting an Elephant" and, in this essay, Orwell provides a number of examples to support this claim.


In the bazaar (the market), for instance, the Burmese would "spit betel juice" on the dress of a European woman and the priests would "jeer" when out on a street corner. In another example, Orwell talks about a football game in which he was tripped up by a Burmese man while the referee ("another Burman") did nothing. 


It is, perhaps, interesting to note that the Burmese demonstrate their hate towards the British through a number of small, localised incidents. They do not, as Orwell states, have "the guts to raise a riot." Instead, they act when they encounter a British person alone and when they have the safety of other Burmese people to rely on. This is very telling of the nature of imperialism: the Burmese know that outright rebellion would only lead to suffering and harsh punishment and they are not prepared to take that sort of risk. 

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