# Shooting an Elephant

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/george-orwell/shooting-an-elephant/9780241515013

![Shooting an Elephant](https://quivercdn.com/covers/penguin/george-orwell/shooting-an-elephant_978-02-4151-501-3.jpg?v=2026-04-24%2022%3A34%3A14)

- Book: [Shooting an Elephant](https://www.bookquiver.com/george-orwell/shooting-an-elephant) ([Shooting an Elephant.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/george-orwell/shooting-an-elephant.md))
- Authors: [George Orwell](https://www.bookquiver.com/george-orwell)
- Publisher: Penguin
- Medium: ebook
- ISBN: 978-02-4151-501-3
- Published: 2021-01-07
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: E-book

## Description

Shooting an Elephant is Orwell's searing and painfully honest account of his experience as a police officer in imperial Burma; wearing the mask of Empire, committing an act of cruelty, 'solely to avoid looking a fool'. One of Orwell's greatest essays, the claustrophobic sense rendered between conquered, conqueror, and conscience would later be drawn out in his two great works of literature, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm .