Shooting an Elephant
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40 free Shooting an Elephant trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
George Orwell's 'Shooting an Elephant' runs to only a few pages, yet it is one of the most taught essays in English. A young colonial officer in Burma is called out to deal with a runaway working elephant, and what happens next becomes Orwell's sharpest account of how empire traps the people who run it as well as the people it rules. This quiz follows the essay from its opening complaint to its last, uncomfortable sentence: the rampage through the bazaar, the borrowed rifle, the gathering crowd, the shots and their aftermath. It also covers the background a class discussion usually reaches, such as Orwell's own years in Burma, where the essay first appeared, and the long argument over whether the incident really happened. It suits students revising the text, teachers who want a quick comprehension check, and readers who simply want to see how much of the detail has stayed with them.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01By the final line of 'Shooting an Elephant', why does the narrator admit he really pulled the trigger?
To save face
To save face: he acted only so the watching crowd would not laugh at him, and he wonders whether any other European ever guessed.
Q 02What job does the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' hold in the Burma town where crowds jeer him?
Police officer
Police officer was George Orwell's own job in Burma from 1922 to 1927, which is why readers still argue over how much of the essay really happened.
Q 03Facing the expectant crowd in 'Shooting an Elephant', the armed narrator decides he is really what kind of figure?
A puppet
A puppet, he says, moved back and forth by the will of the people behind him: the ruler holding the gun turns out to be the one being controlled.
Q 04Besides the entertainment, what does the crowd in 'Shooting an Elephant' want from the animal's death?
Its meat
Its meat: people turn up with baskets and blades before the narrator has even left, and by afternoon the carcass is stripped almost to the bone.
Q 05During which sport is the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' tripped while the referee looks the other way?
Football
Football gave the town a safe way to get back at a European: the foul goes unpunished and the spectators roar with laughter.
Q 06Under what birth name did George Orwell serve in Burma, years before he wrote 'Shooting an Elephant'?
Eric Blair
Eric Blair became George Orwell only in 1933, taking the pen name for his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London.
Q 07The opening sentence of 'Shooting an Elephant' says many townspeople felt which emotion toward the narrator?
Hatred
Hatred, he remarks drily, was the one sign in his whole life that he had ever mattered enough to provoke it.
Q 08How does the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' first travel to the poor quarter where the animal was seen?
On a pony
On a pony, which he soon sends back in case the smell of the elephant frightens it into throwing him.
Q 09In 'Shooting an Elephant', whom has the rampaging animal trampled to death in the muddy hillside quarter?
A labourer
A labourer, described as a Dravidian, is ground into the soft mud by the animal's foot; the death later gives the narrator legal cover for the shooting.
Q 10George Orwell sets 'Shooting an Elephant' in which river-mouth town, the first capital of British Burma?
Moulmein
Moulmein, now Mawlamyine, served as the British capital from 1826 to 1852, and Orwell himself was posted there in 1926.
Q 11In 'Shooting an Elephant', the tame bull breaks its chain during which periodic condition of male elephants?
Musth
Musth can raise a bull's testosterone to some 60 times its usual level, which is why working elephants were chained when an attack was due.
Q 12What Hindi-derived word does 'Shooting an Elephant' use for the keeper who alone can manage the animal?
Mahout
Mahout is the keeper's title; in the essay he sets off after the runaway in the wrong direction and ends up twelve hours' journey away.
Q 13The narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' first rides out with which American make of rifle, far too small?
Winchester
Winchester .44 in hand, he hopes only that the noise might scare the animal off; a heavier gun has to be borrowed from a friend nearby.
Q 21In what position does the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' fire the borrowed rifle at the animal's head?
Lying on the road
Lying on the road steadied his aim, yet he still aimed several inches too far forward, not knowing where an elephant's brain sits.
Q 22After the narrator leaves the scene in 'Shooting an Elephant', how long does the wounded animal take to die?
Half an hour
Half an hour of gasping followed, even after he emptied a second, smaller gun into its heart and throat; he left because he could not bear it.
Q 23Which vehicle does the rampaging animal in 'Shooting an Elephant' overturn after its driver jumps out and runs?
A rubbish van
Q 14Where does the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' finally find the runaway animal, calm again and ignoring everyone?
In a paddy field
In a paddy field below the huts, where the ground was so soft that he knew he could never outrun a charge.
Q 15What is the escaped elephant doing when the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' first catches sight of it?
Eating grass
Eating grass, each bunch beaten clean against its knees; the sight convinces him at once that he ought not to shoot.
Q 16Roughly how many townspeople follow the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' down the hill to watch?
About 2,000
About 2,000 people block the way behind him, all certain of a show, and he feels their combined will pressing him forward.
Q 17After the killing in 'Shooting an Elephant', which group of Europeans tells the narrator he did right?
The older men
The older men back him, while the younger ones think it a pity to kill a valuable working animal over one dead man.
Q 18Rifle in hand in 'Shooting an Elephant', the narrator feels the crowd watches him like which stage performer?
A magician
A magician about to do a trick is the comparison; Orwell's own word is conjurer, and the borrowed gun is what makes him worth watching.
Q 19Which group of young locals does the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' single out as the worst jeerers?
Buddhist priests
Buddhist priests filled the town in their thousands, and the young ones, he complains, spent their time mocking Europeans in the street.
Q 20In 'Shooting an Elephant', what might be spat over the dress of a European woman crossing the bazaar alone?
Betel juice
Betel juice comes from chewing betel leaf wrapped around areca nut, a habit thought to go back several millennia.
A rubbish van owned by the municipality is flipped over; the elephant had already wrecked a bamboo hut, killed a cow and emptied some fruit stalls.
Q 24How does the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' first learn that an elephant is loose in the bazaar?
A telephone call
A telephone call from a sub-inspector at the far end of town comes early in the morning, asking him to come and do something about it.
Q 25What is an old woman doing when the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant' comes upon the trampled body?
Chasing children away
Chasing children away with a switch, she is his first proof the reports are true; until then he had all but decided they were lies.
Q 26Before the incident in 'Shooting an Elephant', how does the narrator privately regard the British Empire he serves?
As a tyranny
As a tyranny, he says, and yet he also rages at the townspeople who bait him; he calls that split typical of anyone doing the Empire's work.
Q 27According to the narrator of 'Shooting an Elephant', what does a colonial ruler lose by governing through force?
His own freedom
His own freedom goes, the narrator argues, because a ruler must spend his life doing whatever the ruled expect of him.
Q 28Which George Orwell essay, printed in The Adelphi in 1931, did his son rank beside 'Shooting an Elephant'?
A Hanging
A Hanging describes the execution of a prisoner in Burma; asked about it later, Orwell brushed the subject off as only a tale.
Q 29Which anti-fascist literary periodical first printed George Orwell's 'Shooting an Elephant' in autumn 1936?
New Writing
New Writing ran the essay in only its second number, and the BBC Home Service broadcast it twelve years later.
Q 30Which editor, later managing director of Hogarth Press, asked George Orwell for what became 'Shooting an Elephant'?
John Lehmann
John Lehmann wanted a contribution for a periodical he had just founded, and Orwell offered a sketch he had been turning over for some time.