When he finally finds the elephant, Orwell says, "I knew with absolute certainty that I shouldn't have shot him." But when he lays his eyes on the crowd he changes his stance to “but I didn't want to shoot the elephant” (Orwell 199). He felt guilty for shooting the elephant when he described that the elephant is worth more alive than dead, but despite many reasons not to shoot the elephant, he shot. Orwell describes “when I pulled the trigger I neither heard the bang nor felt the kick… I fired again at the same point… I fired a third time. This was the shot for him."(199) the killing of the elephant represents the Burmese people trying to stay alive and overwhelmed by power