Shooting an Elephant and other essays
1950
- essays
- nonfiction
- autobiography
- british and irish fiction (fictional works by one author)
- english essays
The story
'Shooting an Elephant' is Orwell's searing and painfully honest account of his experience as a police officer in imperial Burma; killing an escaped elephant in front of a crowd 'solely to avoid looking a fool'. The other masterly essays in this collection include classics such as 'My Country Right or Left', 'How the Poor Die' and 'Such, Such were the Joys', his memoir of the horrors of public school, as well as discussions of Shakespeare, sleeping rough, boys' weeklies and a spirited defence of English cooking. Opinionated, uncompromising, provocative and hugely entertaining, all show Orwell's unique ability to get to the heart of any subject.
What it’s like
Clear, plain English sentences with a dry, combative bite, the prose of a sharp mind thinking aloud at a writing desk. The essays move between wintry London rooms, a Burmese town under blazing sun, a hospital ward, and the rain-streaked pages of boys' weeklies, so the sensory world is concrete and often damp, smoky, or stale with tea and tobacco. The mood is bracing and irritable, unsentimental with flashes of unexpected tenderness. The title essay holds the collection's most disturbing scene, a brief moment of violence as a tethered elephant is shot before a jeering crowd. "How the Poor Die" describes a hospital death in unflinching clinical detail, though no gore is lingered over. Elsewhere the register is argumentative rather than frightening, with no sexual content and little overt cruelty beyond a harsh boarding-school memoir. Pacing is brisk, each essay short enough for one sitting, which suits a rainy afternoon, a train journey, or late reading over a cup of tea. It rewards readers who enjoy contrarian, opinionated writing and the pleasure of watching a restless intelligence argue its way to a conclusion, including a surprisingly warm defence of English cooking.
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