Monday, April 16, 2007

Point of View: Shooting an Elephant

Shooting an elephant by George Orwell is based on his experience as a police officer in Burma, India. He uses in his narrative essay a deal of techniques in order to transmit his main point. He uses persuasive techniques such as symbolism. As a colonial police officer he was a symbol to Burmese. He was able to maintain control because his power. The second technique that he utilizes is several metaphors. For instance:
“seemingly the lead actor”
“an absurd puppet”
“he wears a mask”
“a conjurer about to perform a trick”
“posing dummy”
He uses these metaphors in order to describe a people, represent the scene as a theater where cultural characteristics play a fundamental role. Finally, he handle with irony when he explain that he was forced to shot the elephant, but if anything went wrong and then he describes what was in his mind in an irony manner. In summary, I liked because the event happened is represented with persuasives arguments using convincing techniques.

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