Sagar Manilal
30-Aug-2002
Compare and Contrast “Shooting an Elephant”
And “A Hanging”
This essay will compare and contrast two short stories written by George Orwell, “Shooting and Elephant” and “A Hanging”.
The setting of both the places was in Burma, a country in Asia. In “A Hanging” the setting was mainly in a jail whereas in “Shooting an Elephant was in a Moulmein, in lower Burma where an Elephant went ‘mute’.
The Characters in “A Hanging” were mainly a Hindu who was very small whit no hair and vague liquid eyes, also he had a thick, moustache which was humongous for his body. Also George Orwell played a character in the story but he was the narrator and also there were six wardens as well as the superintendent. The supervisor of the jail was “an army doctor with grey toothbrush moustache and a gruff voice”. In “Shooting and Elephant” George Orwell was also a character in the story but he was more important than in “A Hanging”. George Orwell played a sub-divisional police officer whereas in “A Hanging” he was a man in the jail. Also in “Shooting an Elephant” there were two other characters; an Indian who was killed by the elephant as well as the owner of the elephant, who also was an Indian. George Orwell in “A Hanging” played a man who had little emotional concern for the man as he did nothing and even watched the hanging being done. In “Shooting and Elephant” George had little emotional concern to why he killed the Elephant as he did not see it bleed to death, but at the end Orwell had no social relationship with the people as he treated the Indian owner like an animal. Orwell, in both stories had no different social standard as others would not mix with him in “Shooting and Elephant” and in “A Hanging”; he had no one to mix with.
