Let's GO, George Orwell!

Shooting an Elephant is an essay by George Orwell published on 1936. It is a story that is seen as a metaphor for British imperialism.

Every day I learn more and more about rhetoric, Heinrichs has taught me well. There are fallacies when you talk, in TV commercials, in speeches, and now I can say that there are fallacies in essays too. They weren’t easy too find, but that’s what is so interesting!

We never really find out who the protagonist of the story is, but it is said that it probably is George Orwell himself. Orwell is looking for us to sympathize with his story, what he did (woops, or the protagonist, the police officer).

I found two. 

Hasty generalization

“No one had the guts to raise a riot”

or

“As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so.”

Here he generalizes and uses “no one” he is not sure that in fact no one will, he generalizes assuming he knows no one will, then he says that since he was a police officer he was an obvious target, but not all police officers were targets, that’s for sure.

 “I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind.”

Above, another example of a generalization because here they explain how they were making him shoot, he had an audience, and that there were a lot of eyes on him. He says everyone wants him to shoot, but not everyone does.

Tautology

“It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him.”

He repeats the premise. Of course if he shoots him, he will murder him. It is obvious that it doesn’t just seem to him it’s common sense.