Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell

Orwell says that even though he hated British imperialism and sympathized with the Burmese people, he found himself a puppet of the system. A lot of what happened to me in about the past two weeks relates to a lot of what happened to Orwell in Shooting the Elephant. In the last two weeks my ex girlfriend met some new guy. The problem was he was twenty years old while she was only fifteen. So as much as it hurt that my ex girlfriend met a new guy, because we were still in love with each other. We were just dysfunctional.

I felt like I was in a rock and a hard place. As much as I hated that fact that she was with another guy, I couldn’t tell anyone because, one that would be pretty disrespectful of their personal business and two they would both get in a lot of trouble. Especially the guy who was 4 or so years older than Diane.

It all started about a month ago, two weeks after Diane and I broke up, she brought the guy she met to paintball, and that’s where I met him for the first time. I was extremely heartbroken and also extremely angry. But to be the nice guy I am I met him and got to know the guy. As much as I hated it I put a smile on my face and kept myself talking to the guy. All I wanted to do what just hit in square in the face and walk away. But with everyone around, and the kind of person I am, that was not an option. Especially since the paintball field was ran by my church ministry.

Throughout the week I find out that they’re talking more and more, and Diane and I are talking less and less. All I want to do is call her up and apologize to her about what happened to us and just see if there was any way we could get back together. I still feel that we. It’s tremendously hard to not just kiss her or call her honey while I’m with her. Just like today, Diane and I were talking about where we were; out of habit I subconsciously started to hold her hand while we were sitting together.
I guess I feel bad for the new guy a little bit, because he was caught in the middle of our breakup. As Diane and I are trying to get over each other, this guy starts to have feelings for her. Diane warns him that she can’t date anyone for a long time because she’s still not over me. But he doesn’t care, he likes her and it seems like the gets what he wants.

All of this can relate to what happened to Orwell in “Shooting the Elephant”. As he’s the mediator between the British Imperialism he had Burmese I was, in a way, the mediatory between Diane and the new guy. I had to succumb to what Diane wanted, which was me to stay out of her business and I had to pretend that I liked it, and then I also had to keep the new guy happy or, I’m fairly sure he would of hurt her to get back at me.