Blog - 4.4

 The text is in the form of a short story. This is seen by the amount of imagery and descriptions in the text which are usually seen in short stories. A short story also contains a main character and a conflict that is focused on and could get resolved. 

The writer structures the story in chronological or linear order which basically means that he goes from Point A to Point B to C…Point Z. The writer also uses first person point of view to structure the short story which is seen through the repeated usage of the letter ‘I’. 

At the end of the excerpt there is a single sentence given in order to end it. The sentence I am referring to is ‘in the end I could not stand it any longer and went away.’ This last sentence in the excerpt is purposefully put there in order to give the sentence more influence/power. This is important because it shows the reader how vulnerable the main character is because he does not have the ability to stay in the same place as a dying elephant he himself killed and he couldn't stand to listen to its pained cries either.

The writer uses a subjunctive (the writer’s mood is expressing what is imagined or possible) mood at the beginning through the usage of the word ‘ought’. The writer does this in order to set up what the main character’s state of mind is like at the beginning. So we can tell that the main character is thinking about the different possible scenarios that could happen between him and the elephant and this is where his mind is at. 

The writer also uses ‘devilish’ to describe the crowd. This is because the writer thinks that the crowd was getting happy for something that he did that was not morally good at all. So the writer does . The writer also uses the word ‘frightful’ to describe the impact of the bullet. This shows that the writer views the impact of the bullet as something frightening for himself. Which goes hand in hand with the previous word of devilish since the writer is implying through specific word choice (adjectives) that they regret their decision to murder the elephant whether that be through describing the impact of the bullet as being frightful or describing the roars of happiness as being devilish or containing malice/evil. 

The writer also uses the word ‘dreadful’ to describe the noise made from the elephant as it slowly died and to describe how awful it was to see it lying there without being finished off. This additionally shows that the main character was greatly saddened by the slow death of the elephant. 

Even a simile is used in the text by the writer. Which is seen by the phrase ‘as much chance as a toad under a steam-roller’ this is used in order to subtly tell the reader that the main character is afraid of the elephant because he feels powerless against it if it starts charging at him and he misses with his gun. Although, this is normal because anyone would be scared of a giantic elephant charging at them when they are vulnerable. 

Another thing that I noticed in the text that grabbed my attention was where it says “But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise…And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay.” This was very interesting to me because it seems like a paradox because the writer describes the elephant as rising which is supposed to convey a sense of superiority and grandness. But this sense of grandness disappears once the elephant comes down and the ground shakes from its fall which is a metaphor for the elephants abrupt end (in terms of its superiority). This is very interesting because the main character is implied to be afraid of the elephant so when it rose before it fell it seemed like the world was mocking the main character.