Being known for discussing topics associated with society, culture, and politics in contemporary England, George Orwell let narratology, psychology, and history find their application in two short pieces of literature. This thesis examines the (anti)colonial and (anti)imperial identity of the narrator observed through the socio-psychological conflicts in George Orwell’s essays “Shooting an Elephant” and “A Hanging”. The research paper consists of five chapters. The correspondence of Orwell’s perspective of the narratives with real-life experiences is introduced in the first chapter. The second chapter encompasses the background information of the author and the stories in colonial and imperial context. The fictional and non-fictional elements of the essays are analyzed in the third chapter, treating them as either short stories or autobiographical essays. The main concern of the research paper – the conflicts, with a special emphasis on the narrator’s inner conflict, is examined in the fourth chapter. Based on the imperio-colonial context discussed in Chapter 2 and the fiction-non-fiction dichotomy from Chapter 3, the thorough analysis of the conflicts is conducted from both the narratological and psychological points of view. The last chapter provides the conclusion of the scrutinized features of these two texts.
|
