Essay on Human: Burma and Emotions

Submitted By kiana15k
Words: 1063
Pages: 5

Kiana Pierson Pierson 1
English 101
Professor Yohannes
June 3, 2013
Emotion Control's a Human
Does emotion control a human's life? Does emotion control the experiences a person encounters? The human experience is solely based on emotion. Throughout a human's life, a majority of things they go through involves emotion. Many decisions and reactions are based on someone's feelings. Although the human experience acquires many meanings, it could be defined as being able to feel and have emotions.
Emotions are a state in which one experiences joy, sorrow, fear, hate, love, etc. Everyone experiences at least one emotion or another sometime in their lives. Not many other species experience the complex emotions that humans encounter. Emotions are one of the main characteristics that separate humans from any other living thing. Emotions are sometimes uncontrollable, and causes people to do things that they would never think they would do. In the essay “Shooting an Elephant,” Orwell gives a significant personal experience that demonstrates how emotions drive him to do something that he would never want to do.

In “Shooting an Elephant,” Orwell is a British officer who has entered Moulmein, in lower Burma with other British men. Their jobs were to take over this area and to take control over the civilians. From this situation alone, Orwell struggles with the emotion of guilt. He did not agree with the imperialistic actions that were being done. Orwell knew that what was being done was wrong. Due to these actions of imperialism, Pierson 2 the civilians hated him and constantly disrespected him. They would laugh at Orwell and would refuse to listen to him. Orwell often felt sadness, because his feelings and ego were hurt due to how the Burmese were treating him. Orwell was obligated to have control over Burmese; he was supposed to demand respect and to have them follow his orders. Orwell was unable to do this. He began to feel insecure because he believed he was not doing what the job entailed.
Fortunately, for Orwell, there was an opportunity for him to redeem his respect. An elephant was free and was running ramped across town. The civilians were frightened and the elephant trampled a man and killed him. Orwell immediately felt compassion for the civilians and the man that died in vein. He began to look for the elephant and noticed the whole town was following him. All Orwell wanted to do was make sure the elephant's owner tamed him and returned the elephant to where he belonged. It was too late, the town was screaming for him to kill the elephant. Orwell started to feel pressured to kill the elephant. He knew that if he killed the elephant he would gain respect. Orwell decided to do it; he shot the elephant many times in attempt to kill it. The civilians cheered and were extremely ecstatic. Orwell now felt happy because he finally earned the respect that he wanted.
Similarly to Orwell's personal experience that demonstrates emotion, I have a personal example as well. When I was twelve years old , middle school was very segregated. Certain people only hung out with certain people. In my case, I was friends with two girls named Jasmine and Alex. It seems as though everyone wanted to be friends with us and respected us. As I grew older I knew that the respect was fear. Alex and Pierson 3
Jasmine were mean girls; it was better to be friends them, because not being friends with them would be a horrible experience. I chose the easy road and decided to be friends with them. When Jasmine and Alex did not like someone I was obligated to not like someone as well. One day Alex and Jasmine came up to me and said, “Kiana, we no longer want to be friends with Ciara.” Ciara was someone that I had been friends with since first grade. I asked why and they did not have an explanation. They just said, “Because we do not like her