After Reading An Essay 'Shooting An Elephant' By George Orwell

(심화영어독해1 - Padlet Activity)

 

1. Recall a time or incident when you had to "save face." Try to remember why you reacted to the situation as you did. Write a short description of what happened, how you "saved face" and what you might do differently today in a similar situation. (Source: Modern and Contemporary Literature)

 

  I have always thought that all of us are wearing masks in front of others, and even in front of ourselves, especially in modern times where the competitive socialism and capitalism are pervasive. And that's why it seems hard for me to answer this question, as I'm afraid of being taken off the masks I've worn for a long time in order to deceive myself. But to answer, one of the representative --and safe to mention-- saving-face actions of me is to pretend as if I love idol groups. All the students around me loved boy groups, whom I didn't like that much. Rather, I loved actors and actresses. Though, for several years, I'd pretended that I also love those people so as to get along well with other friends. And when those friends told me about those celebrities, I said "Wow, they're so cute." And that was the end. I just said that they're cute, because I knew nothing about them. One day, one of those friends asked me if I had heard the new song of the celebrity, so I told "For sure I did." though the only thing I knew about the song was who the singer was and what the name of the song was. If I go back to that time when I was wearing those masks, I would tell them what I truly love, though they cannot understand me or find any interesting point about me to get along with. Me in the past tried so hard to be similar to other friends that I erased the precious personalities of myself, whether it is about celebrities or not.

2. Can you find any social incidents or issues which represent "the real nature of imperialism" mentioned in the essay? Write a short explanation of the incidents/issues and how they represent the nature of imperialism.

 

  I could come up with COVID-19 outbreak of nowadays. In the essay, imperialists tried to fit in the figures that the conquered expected them to be. It is applied in coronavirus outbreak, too. At first, when the coronavirus spreaded through the whole Asia and the outbreak was fair to be defined as pandemic outbreak, WHO didn't proclaim pandemic until the European countries and America started to suffer from it. It seemed that those countries and international organizations revolving around developed countries ignored Asian countries as if the virus spreaded broadly because those countries are underdeveloped, and they pretended as if they have better sanitation system compared to Asian countries. But it turned out that the public health system was even worse in those developed countries. I think this shows messages similar to ones from the essay telling about the real nature of imperialism.