Kayla

Kayla Morgan
AP English
September 10th, 2012
After reading both Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell and In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, it is easy to pinpoint a few major similarities in theplot of the story. These similarities manifest themselves in a metaphorical sense; several actions and feelings shared during Orwell shooting the elephant can be paralleled to the feelings shared byDewey during the execution of Perry and Dick.
The first main comparison that can be made between these two works is the feeling of the general population towards the murders occurring. In In ColdBlood, society felt it deserved that Perry and Dick be hanged for their crimes. Many attended the execution of the two killers, waiting in anticipation for the men responsible for four deaths to be killed.They felt it would deter future incidences. This mentality transfers easily to the crowd who watched Orwell kill the elephant. All of the villagers saw the elephant trample a man in town and waitedpatiently for Orwell to pull the trigger. Each member of both of these crowds wanted to see the accused get killed. Not only can this, but the feelings of both Orwell and Dewey about the killings canbe compared as well. Orwell knew that there was no way around killing the elephant. He knew that with all of these people waiting and watching, his only option was to kill the elephant. Dewey felt thesame way; he knew that the right thing was being done and that the actions were justifiable, but he still had his reservations about it.
Moreover, Dewey and Orwell’s frame of mind after the elephantand Perry Smith had been killed were the same. Orwell wanted to see the elephant put out of his misery, wanted a sense of relief about the elephant’s suffering by seeing it stop breathing. He watchedthe elephant’s legs give out and topple over but live on with its labored breathing. Orwell could not watch it any longer and had to leave. Similarly, Dewey held good memories of Perry and the way...