Shooting An Elephant

       Shooting An Elephant 

       

     Shooting An Elephant is a short fiction story written by George Oswell. The story was published in 1936. The story describes a man shooting an elephant. In the beginning of the story, Oswell, describes a man examining the elephant´s behavior. The man seemed to not get a good aim at the elephant, so he laid down on the road in order to get a better aim.” After analyzing the elephant's behavior for a while, the man decided to take his first shot at the elephant. The first shot altered the elephant's body, but the elephant did not fall. The man shot the elephant three times. The first two appeared to not have taken the elephant down, but the last one did. After the elephant was shot for the third time, it was just laying on the ground agonizing. The man seemed to not be strong enough to watch the elephant die slowly, so he left. After analyzing the short fictional story, I noticed that the story made a great use of Form, Structure and Language.


       To start off, the form of the text is a short fictional story. A short fictional story is a piece of writing that can be easily read in one sitting. A traditional short fictional story is shorter than a novel. The short fictional story Shooting An Elephant has the form of an essay. While analyzing the form of the story, I focused mainly on the plot, setting and tone. I did this because I consider these three elements to be essential when it comes to the form of a piece of writing. The plot of the story is a man shooting an elephant three times. The setting of the story is in a town in Southern Burma during the colonial period. The tone of the story is conflicted, irritated and resigned.


       After analyzing the structure of the short fictional story Shooting An Elephant, I came to the conclusion that structure is chronological along with linear structure. The chronological structure of a piece of writing contains events happening in order from first to last.. For example, the story starts off as, ¨It was perfectly clear what I ought to do.¨ and then in the end it ended with the quote, ¨In the end I could not stand it any longer and went away. The first quote shows the man getting ready to shoot the elephant and the last one shows how he left after shooting the elephant. This is just a brief example of how chronological order works. The linear structure is just another name for chronicle structure. Both styles follow the order in which the events happen.


      After analyzing the text I noticed that the choices of words reflect the ideas Oswell wanted to express. The short fictional story made use of great literary and figurative language all throughout. Oswell used numerous literary devices to convey the irony when the man was shooting the elephant. The choice of words and phrases, for example, ¨I felt like a little fool while I matched down the hill.” demonstrate that the man felt uneasy about the situation. George Oswell used a metaphor ¨carvens of pale pink throat¨ to describe the elephant's throat.


      The use of words like 'mysterious' and ´red vivid’ give the short fictional story a mysterious tone. The use of these words keeps the reader engaged in what's happening in the story. These words also give the text a dark tone because it is using imagery words to describe the color and the plot of the story. The use of the word ´agony’ adds to the tone because it describes how the elephant was dying painfully and slowly.