Please explain the following quote from "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell."And it was at that moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my...

It is always important to try not to look at quotes from
texts in isolation, but to look at them in the context of the paragraph from which they
are taken and the context of the work as a whole. This quote is drawn from probably one
of the most important paragraphs of the essay as a whole, as it details the sudden
epiphany that Orwell experiences as he realises that he is going to have to shoot the
elephant after all. The narrator has just described the crowd that throngs around him as
looking at him as if he were "a conjurer about to perform a trick." This helps us
understand the nature of Orwell's epiphany. He feels the pressure of the expectations of
the crowd, who want to see some kind of powerful and magical action from him. He
realises that he has embodied the myth of the all-powerful Empire and now cannot shake
this role off. Because of this, he realises that "when a white man turns tyrant it is
his own freedom that he destroys."

Whilst white man has
gained power over this territory, this is a perfect example that demonstrates the true
"hollowness" and "futility" of that power and rule, because they have gained that power
but only by exchanging their freedom in return. Taking on the role of white colonialists
results in the power that they gain only being at best a sham or a pretense, as Orwell
discovers.