Shooting an Elephant

At the beginning of the story, the author paints a grim picture of the darkside of the law in the early 1900"s in Burma. His perspective is from one of a police officer during this time. He even said that he was stuck between hatred of the empire but his spirit seems to have been damaged by the society he lived in. It is important to understand that he lived in an Imperialistic society and the government functioned as such. The day he had to kill the elephant, made me think of the way peer pressure makes kids today feel compelled to follow along with everyone in their group and to do things they normally wouldnt do. Even though at the end I understand why he had to kill the elephant.The end of the story bothers me because, the author was glad to justify killing the elephant because the elephant killed a Coringhee coolie. That just seemed a little creepy to me.