Response to "Shooting an Elephant"

         George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" is an anecdote detailing an impressionable event from his time as an imperial police officer in British India. As most high schoolers who have read Orwell's works before, we all know his obsession to exploit the pure unfairness and cruelty of imperial and communist governments. Having grown up within the workings of Imperial Britain, he knew what it was all really like. I always questioned why he had such an obvious hate and animosity toward such governments, and this short story clearly spells the reasons out. Now my foggy view of Eric Blair's own political views has cleared substantially. 

          I've always enjoyed Orwell's style of writing. The way that he paints a crystal clear, dreary picture of a tyrannical world in an enjoyable, fictional language. His usage of description in this story is different from that of his other works however. With each deep, vivid description, there is an explanation of how that particular scene affected him either in that moment, in the future, or both. I didn't come across any obvious figurative language, when he usually uses metaphors and similes in his writing. 

          1) Orwell gives two adjoining reasons for shooting the elephant. The first he mentions in the middle of page 288, "The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East." He felt the literal need to commit this naturally immoral act because of his people's role in this region. The Burmans saw the English as an irritating authority, but an authority nonetheless. And in this case, they abused that authority to almost test this single English man. Aside from the fact that Orwell already hated his country and what it stood for, he first realized here how pointless the presence of the British authority was. How unnecessary it was. His second reasoning stems from the first, but gets more personal, "I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool." He didn't want to look like a fool representing his country and authority. But he also didn't want to look like a coward by himself. The eyes of a eager, excited two thousand townspeople has quite the strong effect. Especially on a man in his position. 

           2) The dictionary definition of Imperialism is, "a policy of extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force." In this area of Burma, the British Empire at the time had taken over authority. They had extended their power by literal military force, and held that power by keeping the military present, which is where Orwell came in. He learned to hate what the empire had made it's soldiers become, so basically he disliked everything that it did and stood for. With the authority officers like him had to carry out, they became hollow, soulless machines that conformed to wherever they were assigned. "He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. 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. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it." 

The Train Platform

Arianna Pincay 

The Train Platform

          “Alright, we have to meet up with Lex in the lobby,” said Deborah in a whispered tone. I looked from behind her out into the hallway to check if the coast was clear. When I saw that no one was around, I urged Deborah out of our hotel room door and we ran to the sixth floor elevator which we took down to the first floor lobby. When the elevator doors opened we once again looked left and right repeatedly to see if any of our other companions or teachers were around. Once we saw our friend Lex from across the lobby, we sprinted to her, and the three of us ran out the back door of the Holiday Inn hotel. Once we hit the cool, crisp air of Heidelberg, Germany, we knew we were free. 

          The afternoon of July 7th, 2012, was the day I took off on an adventure that I would never forget. For ten days I would travel around Austria, Germany, and Switzerland with my high school principal, vice-principal, my two best friends, five other classmates, and my mother, our main chaperone. But before I go into depth about this trip, let me tell you about the road to get there. Around the time I was turning fifteen, my parents gave the choice of having a Quinceanera, or a Sweet 16 the next year. Because I never liked to be the center of attention, especially at a party of such magnitude, I chose neither. Instead, I asked my parents to give me the one thing I had always wanted for when I turned 16, a trip to Europe. So when my school announced that it was planning a trip to three countries in Central Europe, I knew that I had to do everything I could to go. And I did. I somehow managed to convince my parents to let me go, just with the condition that my mother accompany me. And since the cost was around $3,000, I felt the need to help pay my parents back. So me and my two best friends at the time, Deborah, and Lex, got together and decided to form a little fundraising committee which we named the Traveling Trio. For a whole year before the trip we sold baked goods, candy, drinks, bracelets - anything that we knew kids at our school would buy. And at the end of the endless sales, we split our earnings in three, and happily presented the money to our parents who had paid the way for our dream to be come true. 

          On the last day of our dream, we were all stuck packing in our hotel. But because we didn’t want to leave without doing something rebellious and truly adventurous, Deborah, Lex, and I snuck out of our hotel at around 8 pm. Let me tell you now, this hotel had the oddest surroundings anyone could imagine. Across the street was an empty parking lot. To the right, a long road. And to the left, a practically abandoned train station. Once we exited the vicinity of the hotel property, we were at a loss at would we should do next. We were so excited about the fact that us three goody-two-shoes were doing something considered “bad” and “rebellious”, that we didn’t make a plan for after the sneaking out. Then we saw a small ice cream/pizza shop attached to the train station. So the three of us linked arms, and headed there. Once we entered the door, the smell of stank cigarettes hit us like a freight train. What could we say, you could smoke anywhere in Germany. So after recovering our breath, we bought little mini Ben & Jerry’s containers, cause you know, that’s what the rebels do. Because we couldn’t take the smell of the multiple chemicals, we headed to the literally empty train station looking for somewhere to sit down. We walked out onto the eerie platform and sat on a bench. For about fifteen minutes, without any of us really noticing, we all sat in silence, eating our ice cream, staring out onto the train platform.

   

          To a stranger walking by, we would've looked liked three zoned out, crazy American girls. But to the three of us, this fifteen minute period was different. For me, it felt like hours. Hours reflecting on the fact that I didn't have to dream anymore, I could just relive my memories of these ten days. But what I thought of most, was the fact that I could get on any train that passed, and get lost somewhere. Not get lost in a bad sense, but in the sense that I could go on a crazy, spontaneous adventure, anywhere. That I could end up in a city where I knew no one and not know the language but still relish in the culture and the fact that I was there. I could make memories that I could tell my grandchildren and they can tell theirs. And that I had my entire life to do all these things in every country around the world if I could. 

          When I got back to school the fall after the trip, a friend had asked me what was my favorite memory of the ten days. I will never forget her face when I told her that my favorite memory was sitting in an empty train station, eating Strawberry Cheescake Ben & Jerry's, staring onto a train platform. And I will never regret telling anyone the same answer who asks me the same questions. 

Chapter 4 Response

Arianna Pincay

Chapter Four Response

        Having gone to a Journalism school for the past six years, I've done a 

lot of different types of writing. And over the course of those years, I had 

found that narratives were my favorite read and write. This chapter is 

particularly interesting to me because it pinpoints the things that you don't 

think of when writing a narrative. When I write narratives, I just let the 

words come and flow out onto the paper. I hardly even give the finished 

paper a second glance because I feel that it is good enough, and usually it 

comes out to be. But this chapter literally maps out how to write a good, 

compelling narrative, in a way that anyone can write it. My favorite part of 

the chapter is the quote by John Steinbeck on page 67, "Then try to 

remember it so clearly that you can see things: what colors and how warm or 

cold and how you got there. . ." I like this part the most because that's what I

do whenever I write anything; I visualize. Whether it is bringing back a 

memory or imagining myself doing something in the near future. The one thing

that I've always had trouble with in writing is including the right transitions. 

Especially with long papers, there are only so many transitions in the English 

language that one could use. 

        I really enjoyed the narrative by Lynda Barry. From the beginning it was 

captivating and entertaining, which is what a narrative should be. It had the 

right amount of mixed emotions to make the reader connect to the story. It 

had sadness, anger, neglect, drama, but most of all, relief and happiness. 

That's what I feel a narrative should be able to do, to connect with many 

different types of people. To teach lessons, to encourage readers to do 

things, to ward them away from trouble. To me, narratives are the most 

powerful form of creative writing, because they can seem so simple, yet do so 

much.