Question

I the essay the narrator knows that he shouldn't kill the elephant, but does so anyway why does he do this? Describe a time when you knew something was wrong but you did it anyway what was the motivation behind your actions ?

Answer 1

The poet described about the kill of the Element is given below.

Explanation:

In the 1920s a young would-be poet, an ex-Etonian named Eric Blair, arrived as a Burma Police recruit and was posted to several places, culminating in Moulmein. Here he was accused of killing a timber company elephant, the chief of police saying he was a disgrace to Eton. Blair resigned while back in England on leave, and published several books under his assumed name, George Orwell.

In 1936 these were followed by what he called a “sketch” describing how, and more importantly why, he had killed a runaway elephant during his time in Moulmein, today known as Mawlamyine. By this time Orwell was highly regarded, and many were reluctant to accept that he had indeed killed an elephant. Six years later, however, a cashiered Burma Police captain named Herbert Robinson published a memoir in which he reported young Eric Blair (whom he called “the poet”) as saying back in the 1920s that he wanted to kill an elephant.

All the same, doubt has persisted among Orwell’s biographers. Neither Bernard Crick nor DJ Taylor believe he killed an elephant, Crick suggesting that he was merely influenced by a fashionable genre that blurred the line between fiction and autobiography.

To me, Orwell’s description of the great creature’s heartbreakingly slow death suggests an acute awareness of wrongdoing, as do his repeated protests: “I had no intention of shooting the elephant… I did not in the least want to shoot him … I did not want to shoot the elephant.” Though Orwell shifts the blame on to the imperialist system, I think the poet did shoot the elephant. But read the sketch and decide for yourself.