Orwell’s Decision: Right Or Wrong
In the short story, Shooting An Elephant, a man of authority is out into a situation that pressures him into a decision that he didn’t want to make. Orwell, the main charactor, was on watch to protect the people at his command post somewhere in Africa when an elephant came rampaging through the village. Orwell was informed of this immediately and sent for an elephant gun in means of defence. He did not plan on doing this, but in case something went wrong he would have it ready. The elephant came through one of the streets, stomping and killing one of the men, once down it walked a short distance out of the village where Orwell followed it. On his way he realized that almost the whole village had followed him to the elephant and they were pressuring him to shoot the elephant, even though the elephant had calmed down. After a while of thinking, Owell could not dissapoint the people so he took aim and fired several times killing the elephant.
Many people are put into decisions which the right decision is difficult. People give into pressure even if it forces then to do the wrong thing. Orwell could not let the people leave without a show so he did what he knew was wrong and gave in, and then convinced himself that it was alright. Overall through my life I have not given into peer pressure easily, I am fairly good at telling my friends no when the decision they want me to make is wrong or not something I would do. I can say that if I were every put in a similar situation I would be able to say no and even walk walk away with hundreds of people standing in the way. I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to do something that I believe is so wrong, killing an elephant is, in my opinion, a terrible thing to do.
Video At… http://youtube.com/watch?v=zwSqUqOn9Ok Orwell under went peer pressure, as many teens do each year.
http://www.kidshealth.com/kid/feeling/emotion/peer_pressure.html If you learn how to avoid it, it won’t happen to you.
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I agree with your thought on peer pressure. it was wrong that he killed the elephant because it was not doing any harm. I would have left it alone unless it started to hurt people again. I can also say that i do not give into peer pressure very easy either. I think it is horrible when people listen to ther friends over there gut. I think that Orwell made the wrong decision but it is hard to say what you would actually do in his situation.