'Shooting an Elephant', George Orwell

    In the story ‘Shooting an Elephant’, George Orwell, the writer uses structure, form, and language to portray this specific moment of when he shot an elephant. Throughout the writing the writer describes the actions and emotions of not only him but as well as the elephant. The reader acknowledges these emotions and actions through the words and structure of the sentences. 
    The writer uses language style the most throughout the story to express the actions and emotions of the elephant. Metaphors and word choice are the main language styles used. When the writer took his shot at the elephant he used metaphors like, ‘thick blood welled ou him like red velvet’ and ‘the tortured gasps continued as steadily as the ticking of a clock’. Comparing the ‘thick blood’ to ‘red velvet’ creates a sense of understanding and pictures for the reader of how red the blood is. While the elephant is trying to survive it is letting out ‘tortured gasps’ it is compared to be ‘as steadily as the ticking of a clock’ to show the pain that the elephant is in. Also, to give the reader a sense of rhythm in the writing. The writer uses many types of word choice throughout the writing. When the elephant was first shot the writer uses adjectives to describe the elephant. For example, the writer uses, ‘mysterious, terrible’, ‘stricken, shrunken, immensely old’, ‘frightful’, ‘desperate slowness’, and ‘weakly’. These adjectives show the reader that the elephant was caught by surprise on the first shot. The elephant was weak and slow but was still standing up trying to survive. One language style that stood out was the oxymoron, ‘devilish roar of glee’. This is an oxymoron as the word ‘devilish’ and ‘glee’ contradict each other because ‘devilish’ is negative and ‘glee’ is positive. This shows the contradiction of how the crowd and how they felt about the elephant. The crowd lets out a big ‘roar’ of terror as they are scared the elephant might harm them. However, the crowd shows ‘glee’ as they are seeing a fascinating animal in front of them. 
    To continue on with the language style, in the beginning of the story the writer used modal verbs. The writer was second guessing himself in the first two paragraphs as he was unsure if he was actually going to shoot this elephant. The main modal verb that was used is, ‘I ought to’. This shows the reader the writer is explaining what he wants to do but it is possible that it might not happen. It gives the reader a prediction on what will happen next in the story.
    The structure throughout the writing is in paragraph form as well as mostly simple sentences. The paragraphs do get longer as the story progresses as there is more detail to be added so the reader gets to understand the emotions, actions and what is going on in the story. The writer uses mostly simple sentences as most sentences consist of a subject and a verb. The subject being either the elephant or the writer himself. The verbs described the actions of the elephant and the writer. For example, ‘collapsed’, ‘tortured’, ‘slobbered’, and ‘waited’. There are some short sentences in the writing that add emphasis on the action being executed. For example, the writer says, ‘I got up’ and ‘That was the shot that did for him.’ Towards the end of the story there were more short and simple sentences as the writer was being straight to the point when describing the thoughts and actions of the story. For example, “I felt that I had got to put an end to that dreadful noise.” The writer tells the story in first person to express his thoughts and feelings throughout the story, hence the ‘I felt’. 
    The form of the writing is written in a story format. It was explained in chronological order of the first thing that happened in the story to the last. It was written in four paragraphs with one sentence to wrap it up. The sentence was, “In the end I could not stand it any longer and went away”. This last sentence shows the reader how the writer felt guilty about his actions and couldn’t care to hear the pain of the elephant ‘any longer’. The form of a story is to use emotion and language to portray a detailed description for the reader.