George Orwell and Politics

            George Orwell is an experienced essayist and he is best known for his political satires. In his essay "Why I Write", Orwell finds that what he has most wanted to do is "to make political writing into an art.", and explains that his intention to do so is always "a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice.". Orwell's writings often deal with the political condition he has gone through. He claims "In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are political issues" and describes politics as "a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia." Orwell tends to write about some hidden lies behind politics that he wants to expose and facts that he wants to tell (Orwell). Orwell's essay "Shooting An Elephant" is written in 1931 which he based on his experience as a British police officer in colonial Burma. he writes when Burma was being colonized by the British government and the barriers between Britons and the natives. Orwell tells the story of himself who faces a situation where he must either follow his morals or pretend to do something else in order to please the Burmese. Serving as a steward of the law in a place oppressed by the country you are from, certainly will make a job difficult. But, this is what Orwell's character must do; therefore, it brings him a strong hatred for imperialism and it makes him discover the evils of imperialism that he wants to expose.
             During the time when Orwell joined the British imperial police, there was constant tension between the occupiers and the occupied, the British placed their own man in a position of authority and the natives in an inferior position, so the British generally did not get along with the natives (Ilieva). However, despite Orwell's "bitter" feelings toward imperialism and the natives, he still takes a position in Burma (109).