Symbolism in Shooting an Elephant

I feel as if this picture shows a good representation of Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell. Essentially what's shown is an image of the elephant's eye as George is about to shoot it but I think this drawing is very interesting for many reasons. The first being that you can see in the elephant's eye it has a very humanistic response to a gun being pointed at it. The pupils are extremely small and the eyes are very wide as if the elephant had just been shocked or frightened. This kind of symbolizes how the elephant is no different than an innocent human. In reality, an elephant would never have any reaction to a gun being pointed towards it because they do not understand what guns are or do. However, this shows that the elephant has some sort of innocence. There is a lot of symbolization in Shooting an Elephant and the elephant symbolizes many things. The main symbolization for it, in my opinion, is how the elephant represents the imperialistic British Empire. The reason for the elephant being so shocked and frightened in this image is because one of the British Empire's own men are what kills it. One thing that I will say that this picture could have had to represent the story a little better was to somehow make the shooter more concerned in some sort of way. In this picture George (the one shooting the elephant) looks as if he is very determined to kill the elephant. There seem to be no signs of concern for shooting the elephant and no signs of remorse for the elephant, while in the novel that's not the case. George had no intentions of killing the elephant, but because of peer pressure, he gives in and does it. George saw the elephant as an innocent being, maybe even as himself in some perspectives. I feel as if the picture could somehow show George being more hesitant or maybe a crowd of people looking as if they are pushing George to do this. But in all, I feel as if it's a good representation of the novel. Showing how George is shooting at his reflection is another good example of the symbolism. Since the elephant symbolizes the British Empire, he's essentially shooting himself. I feel as if this picture shows the idea of symbolism in the novel, and the genius George Orwell put into the story. 

Ian Ransonet