Sunday, May 20, 2012

Between his position as an official and his disenchantment with the bureaucracy, how does George Orwell become disillusioned with the aims and...

As an Anglo-Indian official, George Orwell writes in his
essay "On Shooting an Elephant" that he has learned about the real motives for which
despotic governments act from being sent to destroy an elephant which has broken its
chain and was destroying the bazaar.  For, he realizes that the oppressor is almost as
much the oppressed as those who are under his rule.


readability="8">

When the white man turns tyrant it is his own
freedom that he destroys....For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his
life in trying to impress the "natives," and so in every crisis he has got to do what
the "natives expect of
him.



The main motive for much
of the action of the bureaucracy is to maintain appearances in the presence of the
Burmese; it "would never do" for them to see him frightened or for them to see him act
in any way but the expected manner.  In short, Orwell realizes that he kills because he
does not want to appear as weak or foolish.  This motivation is similar to that of the
colonial bureaucracy that imposes laws and restrictions simply so as to give the
appearance of strength regardless of the effects of the laws and restrictive actions. 
Thus, both the colonial power and those ruled feel the same
degradation. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

What is the meaning of the 4th stanza of Eliot's Preludes, especially the lines "I am moved by fancies...Infinitely suffering thing".

A century old this year, T.S. Eliot's Preludes raises the curtain on his great modernist masterpieces, The Love...