,
The power dynamic of the colonizer-colonized is reversed in this instance as Orwell feels himself, not a puppet of the Empire, so much as a puppet of the crowd. It’s them for whom he must perform. In that way, they are the ones with power. This is what he means when he speaks of the “hollowness” and “futility” of his presence in the east. It takes many bullets to bring the elephant down. Here is the result of the first. It as though the bullet has literally aged the creature. There is sadness in this quote, despite the frankness of Orwell’s tone. The slow and complex death of the elephant proceeds from here, as Orwell shoots it again and again, eventually leaving it to bleed out, and leaving the crowd to pillage the body for its meat. Is this what the British colonizer does to their clonies?
