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GATE 2025 XH2 (English) – Question 59

History of English Literature and Literary Studies · Global Perspectives on Literary Studies: Anglophone literatures (British, American, Canadian and other postcolonial literatures) · 2 marks · Multiple select

“Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd–seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalised figure of a sahib.”
What condition(s) is/are illustrated in the above lines from George Orwell’s essay “Shooting an Elephant”?

  1. Cynicism and existential exhaustion
  2. Violence and vendetta
  3. Self-reflexive shame
  4. Subversive performance

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Correct answer: (C) Self-reflexive shame; (D) Subversive performance

Explanation

Orwell reflects on his own shame and sees that the ruler is forced into a role (the sahib) that the watching crowd controls, which turns the performance of power against him.