Supporting and Opposing the Empire. Analysis of A Pipe of Mystery by G. A. Henty and Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature grade: 20 LMU Munich (Englische Philologie) course: Postcolonial Theory and Fiction language: English abstract: This work is written in American English reflecting in grammar vocabulary orthography and style. It will deal with one short story A Pipe of Mystery by George Alfred Henty and the essay Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell. Its aims are the following: finding the texts' elements in support of colonial rule and those that oppose it; drawing up an analysis of these elements; and evaluating each author's position on imperialism.The text below will be divided into three parts the first two being the analysis of each short story and the third containing a summary of both analyses and a comparison. Each analysis will begin with a brief synopsis of the plot some information about the author and a short historical abstract. The actual analysis will follow.Henty's text was published as part of the five-story collection Tales of Daring and Danger published around 1890. Orwell's essay was published in a collection with the title Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays. While actually fitting the genre the essay is not a short story because it does contain strong autobiographic references. One could best describe Shooting an Elephant as a hybridization between a political essay a short story and an autobiography.