Blog- 4.4

 The author of the text writes about his own personal experience as a police officer. It is stated above the text that the setting takes place in India, when the British ruled. This brings some historical significance. Additionally the text is written in the form of a personal account. This is easily gathered by the use of “I”. The text is both a personal account and a novel. Because the text is telling a story it uses first person, but it also uses second person. Every time the author uses the word “it” a second person is used. With all of this, the writer’s purpose is to tell his story and his perspective of being a police officer. Writing in first person gives the reader a first hand account of what occurred, and it makes the reader feel closer to the author. Writing in second person indicates that the writer is telling a story. This is also indicated by the writer's use of the past tense. The writer states phrases like “I shoved” and “I aimed” to show that these actions have already occurred, and now he is just telling a story. 

The obvious structure of this piece of text is the chronological order. The writer writes in both a chronological and linear style to make the order of events clearer to the reader. Even in the last paragraph the writer uses the transition word “in the end” to obviously indicate that the story is coming to an end. While both the chronological order and linear style increase the readability, the three lengthy paragraphs decreases the readability. It would have been much more effective to the reader if the writer wrote in short and concise paragraphs. This would pair nicely with the chronological order of each event. 

The writer wrote very personally, as he was telling a story. Because the writer wrote on a personal level the text would be considered informa;, which contributes to the language of this piece. The reader is easily able to gather how person this story is to the writer because of his use of emotive language. Killing the elephant was painful for the author and the author shows this by using words like “dreadful” and tortured”. These two words were also repeated multiple times in the third paragraph. This really brings the reader's attention to how upset the author was on a personal level. 

A major piece of language used throughout the text are modal verbs. These verbs show the possibility of something, but in this context I believe that the words represent a sense of regret. The author used modal verbs very heavily in the first paragraph, using words like “ought”, “if” and “should”. The author shows the reader that he is very emotive towards killing the elephant, and it was like “torture” to him. The modal verbs further this theme by showing that the author is thinking about what he could have done instead, or what he shouldn’t have done. 

The author continues on with his sense of regret through the various contradicting statements used. In the second paragraph it states, “deep, low, happy sigh”. Usually you wouldn’t associate the words deep and low with happy, they seem to be opposites. The author uses this to give a glimpse of the writer's thoughts. The chaos that this statement brings shows how stressed the writer felt in killing the elephant. 

Imagery was also one of the most constant pieces of language throughout. It really allowed the reader to feel like they were in the same situation as the author, and it also made the writer's emotive language have more of an impact on the reader. The rifle was even described as “a beautiful German thing with cross-hair sights.” The writer could have easily just stated “a rifle”, but the descriptive language shows the impact of the gun. There were also many adjectives used to describe the elephant like “stricken shrunken, (and)  immensely old”. The elephant is what caused the author so much emotion, and the description of it also pulled on the audience's emotions because it gave the audience a sense of familiarity with the elephant. 

The similes used throughout the text were additionally used to build off of the imagery. The simile that I found the biggest impact out of was the statement “thick blood like red velvet”. Although this is gruesome to pictures, it shows the reader what the author is seeing. This contributes to the vivid imagery, and it betters the reader's understanding. 

Finally the reader received much impact from the use of onomatopoeia. When describing the gun the words “bang” and “kick” were used to show how hard it actually was for the author to pull the trigger. “Devilish roar of glee” was used to describe the audience. This allows the reader to better picture the author's surroundings.