Shooting an Elephant

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What is your reaction to Orwell's final comment: " I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant. I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool" ?

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Last updated by Aslan
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Orwell needed a way to justify killing the elephant, especially to himself. The killing of the coolie gave him that justification. Running after an elephant simply because the natives wanted him to would have made him look silly.

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