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Essay / dual societies - 774
By the end of the 19th century, free-trade European imperialism included much of Asia and Africa in a rapidly growing global mercantilist economy. Europeans entered these unexplored areas with the intention of dominating indigenous society, which quickly alienated the two societies and formed new dual and segregated societies. “White Man's Burden” by Rudyard Kipling and “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell depict this social order and class rivalry between the British Empire and the indigenous people. Gandhi's letter to Lord Irwin also supports this view, examining dual societies in the context of the British isolating indigenous society from the economic hegemony enjoyed by the British. Together, Kipling, Orwell and Gandhi provided a detailed account of British prejudice within the dual colonial society through the social and economic hegemony they held. Orwell's essay demonstrated British supremacy against the colonized by revealing how insignificant their deaths were. As police commissioner in Burma, Orwell was called in when an otherwise tame elephant ran amok. In his search for the animal, he came across a dead Burmese, who had been trampled by the elephant, and referred to him as a "black Dravidian coolie". The Oxford Dictionary defines coolie as “an offensive term for an unskilled native laborer in an Asian country.” At the end of the essay, Orwell found the elephant and killed it. When discussion arose about the shooting, a young British man said he was wrong in justifying that even "an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie." Yet Orwell remained true to his actions, as he said: "I was very glad that the coolie was killed...that gave me enough...... middle of paper... ...basically, Kipling believed that if imperialist nations like the British Empire did not take over, total chaos would begin without civilized conquerors. White overloads continued to reign supreme as they expected colonial subjects to eagerly adhere to violent and demeaning imperialist desires. However, the quixotic English who ventured into these unknown lands to civilize the natives were torn internally. George Orwell dehumanized a man as an alibi for his murder, but he always considered the attitude of the natives reasonable. Yet this mutually shared disgust both fueled and necessitated a barrier between the two cultures. This dual society painted a picture of high tension and developed repercussions of calls for injustice and uprisings that ultimately expelled the British Empire from India and Africa and gave the nations autonomy..