In this powerful essay, George Orwell recounts a moment of moral conflict during his time as a colonial officer in Burma. Ordered to kill a rampaging elephant, he finds himself caught between his own conscience and the expectations of the empire he serves. Shooting an Elephant offers a stark, unsettling look at the contradictions of colonial rule and the ways in which power entraps both the oppressor and the oppressed.

GEORGE ORWELL was born in India in 1903 and passed away in London in 1950. As a journalist, critic, and author, he was a sharp commentator on his era and its political conditions and consequences.