Shifting the Gaze from the Colonizer to the Colonized in Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” and Adichie’s “The Headstrong Historian” Anonymous College

Both George Orwell and Chimamanda Adichie have lived in and experienced colonization or a post-colonial environment first hand. Orwell served with the Imperialist police in Burma in the 1920s, before leaving this post due to an immense sense of guilt about British colonialism. Adichie was born in postcolonial Nigeria, almost two decades after the country gained independence from the British. Like most postcolonial nations, the repercussions of colonization was felt directly by Adichie and has made up much of what she does as a creative individual. These two writers both have a unique perspective on a colonized nation and this point of view is reflected in their respective short stories. In “The Headstrong Historian”, the narrative point of view is third-person omniscient, whereas in “Shooting an Elephant”, the narrative perspective is first-person passive tense (Tyner 263). Though both stories use two different styles of narration, the effect it creates in the art of storytelling is that it places the subjective experience of the self in an objective and colonized environment. The active voice of the main characters in “The Headstrong Historian” develop a strong sense of female empowerment and resistance to the forces of...