In a short story called ‘‘Shooting an Elephant’’ (1936) about his days as a British colonial administrator in Burma, George Orwell meditates on a dilemma that represented the mutual hostility felt between ruler and ruled. In order to save face in front of an indigenous crowd, the narrator – presumably Orwell himself – feels compelled to shoot a “rogue elephant, which had ceased to belong to its herd”, and was "ravaging the bazaar”.
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