| English
1A - Seminar #3
George
Orwell, Shooting an Elephant (20 points)
Note: Your seminar grade will
be determined by the quantity of your responses (how many questions you
answer and how many other students you respond to) and the quality (how
well you demonstrate an understanding of the ideas you're responding to,
how detailed your responses are, how coherent and in-depth they are, etc.)
Directions:
1. Read the narrative
essay above.
2. Answer the following questions with at least
one paragraph each. Include quotes and specific references to the text
in your answers. Submit your response to the Assignment Chamber
(you can either type the responses out beforehand and copy and paste them
into the chamber, or just type them directly into the chamber) .
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1. Given what you know about
Orwell's role in Burma, and how he felt about that role (both while
performing it, and years later, when he wrote this piece) why do
you think Orwell wrote this essay? What was he trying to say
about his experience? |
| 2. What does Orwell mean when he claims that the incident
showed him "the true nature of imperialism - the true motives
for which despotic governments act"? What is the "true
nature of imperialism" according to Orwell? |
| 3. What does it mean when an elephant goes "must"?
(You can find this word in the dictionary, or its variant, "musth".)
What might the elephant symbolize in this story? |
3. Post
your response to at least one of these questions to the Forums chamber
of the website (you choose which one/s you want to post).
4. Read all the other students'
posts.
5. Respond to at least one other student's post
(more is better) . You will have until midnight, Sunday, February
26 to read and respond to the other students' ideas.
back
to Assignment Schedule |