40 Fun Facts About Shooting an Elephant

By the final line of 'Shooting an Elephant', why does the narrator admit he really pulled the trigger?

To save face: he acted only so the watching crowd would not laugh at him, and he wonders whether any other European ever guessed.

What job does the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' hold in the Burma town where crowds jeer him?

Police officer was George Orwell's own job in Burma from 1922 to 1927, which is why readers still argue over how much of the essay really happened.

Facing the expectant crowd in 'Shooting an Elephant', the armed narrator decides he is really what kind of figure?

A puppet, he says, moved back and forth by the will of the people behind him: the ruler holding the gun turns out to be the one being controlled.

Besides the entertainment, what does the crowd in 'Shooting an Elephant' want from the animal's death?

Its meat: people turn up with baskets and blades before the narrator has even left, and by afternoon the carcass is stripped almost to the bone.

During which sport is the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' tripped while the referee looks the other way?

Football gave the town a safe way to get back at a European: the foul goes unpunished and the spectators roar with laughter.

Under what birth name did George Orwell serve in Burma, years before he wrote 'Shooting an Elephant'?

Eric Blair became George Orwell only in 1933, taking the pen name for his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London.

The opening sentence of 'Shooting an Elephant' says many townspeople felt which emotion toward the narrator?

Hatred, he remarks drily, was the one sign in his whole life that he had ever mattered enough to provoke it.

How does the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' first travel to the poor quarter where the animal was seen?

On a pony, which he soon sends back in case the smell of the elephant frightens it into throwing him.

In 'Shooting an Elephant', whom has the rampaging animal trampled to death in the muddy hillside quarter?

A labourer, described as a Dravidian, is ground into the soft mud by the animal's foot; the death later gives the narrator legal cover for the shooting.

George Orwell sets 'Shooting an Elephant' in which river-mouth town, the first capital of British Burma?

Moulmein, now Mawlamyine, served as the British capital from 1826 to 1852, and Orwell himself was posted there in 1926.

In 'Shooting an Elephant', the tame bull breaks its chain during which periodic condition of male elephants?

Musth can raise a bull's testosterone to some 60 times its usual level, which is why working elephants were chained when an attack was due.

What Hindi-derived word does 'Shooting an Elephant' use for the keeper who alone can manage the animal?

Mahout is the keeper's title; in the essay he sets off after the runaway in the wrong direction and ends up twelve hours' journey away.

The narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' first rides out with which American make of rifle, far too small?

Winchester .44 in hand, he hopes only that the noise might scare the animal off; a heavier gun has to be borrowed from a friend nearby.

Where does the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' finally find the runaway animal, calm again and ignoring everyone?

In a paddy field below the huts, where the ground was so soft that he knew he could never outrun a charge.

What is the escaped elephant doing when the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' first catches sight of it?

Eating grass, each bunch beaten clean against its knees; the sight convinces him at once that he ought not to shoot.

Roughly how many townspeople follow the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' down the hill to watch?

About 2,000 people block the way behind him, all certain of a show, and he feels their combined will pressing him forward.

After the killing in 'Shooting an Elephant', which group of Europeans tells the narrator he did right?

The older men back him, while the younger ones think it a pity to kill a valuable working animal over one dead man.

Rifle in hand in 'Shooting an Elephant', the narrator feels the crowd watches him like which stage performer?

A magician about to do a trick is the comparison; Orwell's own word is conjurer, and the borrowed gun is what makes him worth watching.

Which group of young locals does the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' single out as the worst jeerers?

Buddhist priests filled the town in their thousands, and the young ones, he complains, spent their time mocking Europeans in the street.

In 'Shooting an Elephant', what might be spat over the dress of a European woman crossing the bazaar alone?

Betel juice comes from chewing betel leaf wrapped around areca nut, a habit thought to go back several millennia.

In what position does the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' fire the borrowed rifle at the animal's head?

Lying on the road steadied his aim, yet he still aimed several inches too far forward, not knowing where an elephant's brain sits.

After the narrator leaves the scene in 'Shooting an Elephant', how long does the wounded animal take to die?

Half an hour of gasping followed, even after he emptied a second, smaller gun into its heart and throat; he left because he could not bear it.

Which vehicle does the rampaging animal in 'Shooting an Elephant' overturn after its driver jumps out and runs?

A rubbish van owned by the municipality is flipped over; the elephant had already wrecked a bamboo hut, killed a cow and emptied some fruit stalls.

How does the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' first learn that an elephant is loose in the bazaar?

A telephone call from a sub-inspector at the far end of town comes early in the morning, asking him to come and do something about it.

What is an old woman doing when the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' comes upon the trampled body?

Chasing children away with a switch, she is his first proof the reports are true; until then he had all but decided they were lies.

Before the incident in 'Shooting an Elephant', how does the narrator privately regard the British Empire he serves?

As a tyranny, he says, and yet he also rages at the townspeople who bait him; he calls that split typical of anyone doing the Empire's work.

According to the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant', what does a colonial ruler lose by governing through force?

His own freedom goes, the narrator argues, because a ruler must spend his life doing whatever the ruled expect of him.

Which George Orwell essay, printed in The Adelphi in 1931, did his son rank beside 'Shooting an Elephant'?

A Hanging describes the execution of a prisoner in Burma; asked about it later, Orwell brushed the subject off as only a tale.

Which anti-fascist literary periodical first printed George Orwell's 'Shooting an Elephant' in autumn 1936?

New Writing ran the essay in only its second number, and the BBC Home Service broadcast it twelve years later.

Which editor, later managing director of Hogarth Press, asked George Orwell for what became 'Shooting an Elephant'?

John Lehmann wanted a contribution for a periodical he had just founded, and Orwell offered a sketch he had been turning over for some time.

To which quiet Upper Burma town was George Orwell reportedly transferred as punishment for shooting an elephant?

Katha was the posting a Burma contemporary, George Stuart, linked to a reprimand over the elephant; the town later became Kyauktada in Orwell's fiction.

Which biographer, author of George Orwell: A Life, doubted that Orwell himself ever shot an elephant?

Bernard Crick's doubt has some support: no official record of the incident survives, which is odd when property that valuable was destroyed.

Alec Sokolow, who adapted 'Shooting an Elephant' for film, was Oscar-nominated as a co-writer of which Pixar feature?

Toy Story brought Sokolow his nomination; his Orwell short, shot entirely on location in Nepal, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2016.

When George Orwell served in Burma, the colony was governed as a province of which other British possession?

India absorbed Burma in stages after three wars of conquest, and Burma became a separate colony only in 1937.

Burma, the British colony where 'Shooting an Elephant' takes place, is officially known today by which name?

Myanmar, as Burma, won independence from Britain in January 1948, twelve years after the essay first appeared.

Which relative of George Orwell had grown up in the Burma town where 'Shooting an Elephant' takes place?

His mother, Ida Limouzin, was raised there by her French father, and his grandmother still lived in the town when he chose a Burma posting.

Which elite English school did George Orwell leave for Burma, his family unable to afford a university place?

Eton gave him a King's Scholarship and, for a time, Aldous Huxley as his French teacher.

What heavy work made tame elephants valuable in colonial Burma, like the one in 'Shooting an Elephant'?

Hauling timber made an elephant worth far more alive than dead, which is why the narrator likens shooting one to wrecking costly machinery.

Which colonial term of address for a European does the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' feel bound to act out?

Sahib comes from Arabic and worked much like Mister; the narrator finds the title obliges him to look resolute in front of the crowd.

Within months of 'Shooting an Elephant' appearing in print, George Orwell left England to fight in which war?

Spanish Civil War service ended when a sniper shot him through the throat in 1937; he wrote it all up in Homage to Catalonia.