Shooting an Elephant

Shooting an Elephant Literary Elements

Genre

Non-fiction

Setting and Context

Colonial Burma

Narrator and Point of View

George Orwell. First person.

Tone and Mood

Contemplative, analytic memoir.

Protagonist and Antagonist

George Orwell

Major Conflict

Inner conflict

Climax

The shooting of the elephant

Foreshadowing

Fetching a rifle

Understatement

Description of his interior emotions

Allusions

N/A

Imagery

The crowded shanty town; noise of the crowd; the muggy day; the elephant's blood.

Paradox

N/A

Parallelism

N/A

Metonymy and Synecdoche

N/A

Personification

The wise, grandmotherly elephant.

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