Description of killing this elephant.

Orwell puts the cartridges into the rifle, gets himself onto the ground and takes aim. The rifle has cross-hair sights. He aims for the head.

He pulls the trigger and the crowd erupts with glee as he hits his mark. The elephant stays standing, but it seems to age immensely. Orwell describes this chance that comes over it as a kind of “senility” (34). Slowly the elephant begins to sink down to the earth, onto its knees. He fires again and then the animal slowly rises. He describes every movement and shift of the elephant’s expression. He fires again and though the elephant seems to weaken, he also rises, up onto his hind legs, his trunk flinging up into the sky, before he goes down, trumpeting noisily, and thundering onto the earth.

Orwell goes toward the elephant and so do the Burmans, who are pleased by the spectacle and ready to get the meat. When Orwell reaches the elephant he realizes that it’s still breathing, totally alive. Orwell fires two shots into the area of its heart, but the elephant remains as it is, calmly breathing, though thick blood pours from the wounds. Orwell fires again and again, multiple shots into the heart and down the throat but the elephant doesn’t flinch and it continues breathing.

In the end Orwell cant’ take it anymore and he walks away. He hears later that it took the elephant half an hour to die. The Burmans, he hears, stripped the bones of all the meat.