Comparing Narrative in Fiction and Non-Fiction

Comparing Narrative in Fiction and Non-Fiction

Fictional stories and many of nonfiction essays use narrative techniques. However, these genres use narrative very differently. This paper shall address the difference between the essay, "Shooting an Elephant," and the fiction, "Just Lather, That's All," regarding its purpose, the audience, and use of narrative devices. This paper shall argue both essay and fiction story develop a unified theme.

Essay and fiction story

Shooting an Elephant. The author of this essay is George Orwell. The author speaks of his work and personal experience that emphasizes the impact of imperialism at the sociological and psychological stage. The author joined the Indian Imperial Police as a colonial policeman in Moulmein, lower Burma, located in the part of the British Empire. This story took place in the late 1920s or early 1930s (Orwell, 1996, p.150). The story explains a culture conflict between the British (subjugator) and the Burmese (subjugated). Few British are present nevertheless, the British rule, and the narrator, as sub-divisional police officer, is an agent of that rule. This contradiction is part of the setting, as is the local resentment against the British presence. Burmese hates the narrator and manifest this hatred by deception rather than directly. The Burmese would not raise a riot, but would let the British know how they felt. The author understood how the Burmese felt and was against the British’s subjugation ways (Orwell, 1996). His form of writing allowed his voice to come right out of the page to the reader. Mr. Orwell’s mind visualize British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny and another part in his mind where the greatest joy in the world would be Mr. Orwell driving a bayonet into a Buddhist priests’ guts (Orwell, 1996). The author’s thoughts pull the reader into his mindset and dilemma of his world. Mr. Orwell receives a telephone call from a Burmese sub-inspector that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. He took a .44 Winchester, which too small to kill an elephant, and a pony. The author’s intention is to use to gun to make noise to deter the animal. Mr. Orwell explained the description of the quarter and the weather to the reader, “cloudy, stuffy morning at the beginning of the rains” (Orwell, 1996, pp. 144). He asked the whereabouts of the elephant but received vague answers. He noticed an old woman shooing away a group of naked children. The author mentioned to the reader the children were naked. This imagery help the reader sees that the poverty was so poor that children wandered the area naked. The woman was trying to prevent the children from seeing a corpse. A Burmese man was crushed by the elephant. The author gave a horrific imagery how the man was mangled by the elephant (Orwell, 1996). This situation became inevitable that Mr. Orwell have to the kill the animal due to a confirm death of a native Burmese. Mr. Orwell desires not to shoot the elephant, nevertheless, he sends the orderly to get an elephant rifle and five cartridges. The crowd followed Mr. Orwell shouting excitedly that he was going to shoot the elephant. Mr. Orwell stated he saw the elephant, which was calm and has ceased to be an immediate danger. He knew with perfect certainty not to shoot the creature; but somehow he was compelled to kill the elephant. Mr. Orwell believed if he resists executing the elephant, he knew he would be ridiculed by the crowd. He found it to be imperative that he should impress the crowd in order to be considered imperturbable, firm, and capable of rising to the occasion in a crisis. Mr. Orwell is caught between the tyranny of the ruler and the tyranny of the ruled that is pushing him back and forth like an absurd puppet (Orwell, 1996, p. 146). He loads the cartridges into the gun and pulls the trigger. The compressed paragraph describes the elephant’s death. The narrator mentioned he fired three bullets into the elephant but the animal continues to gasp in pain and remain alive. The narrator takes his small-caliber hunting rifle and fires into the elephant’s heart. Still it does not die. Mr. Orwell presents his present situation with the intent of generating sympathy. This created emotional response to the readers regarding Mr. Orwell's circumstances on shooting the elephant. Mr. Orwell departs because he could not take it anymore. He heard later that it took the elephant half an hour to die (Orwell, 1996, p. 149). Afterwards he was glad that the Dravidian Indian coolie was killed by the elephant, which put Mr. Orwell legally in the right to eradicate the animal. The last line of Mr. Orwell’s essay was sociology. Mr. Orwell often wondered if any member grasped the knowledge that he killed the elephant solely to avoid looking like a fool (Orwell, 1996, p. 149).

Just Lather, That's