Shooting an elephant

In "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell, the author recalls an incident from his days as an English imperial officer in Burma, where he finds himself at the mercy of a hooting crowd of Burmese villagers eager to see him shoot an elephant gone "must". If it deals with, as Orwell himself states, "a tiny incident in itself"(118) why should we care about the day Orwell shot an elephant? What is Orwell really shooting? That …

…measured against a moment of personal embarrassment. But such is the power of evil imperialism, the evil of one group of men asserting superiority over another. Notice what the various Europeans say about the event (in the final paragraph): "The older men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie"(Orwell,123).