Orwell wrote Shooting an Elephant to inform people about British Imperialism over Burma. He expects the audience to sympathize with his feelings of hatred, cowardice, and humiliation towards colonialism and imperialism. He shows his feelings of disagreement but at the same time, he tries not to show that he's not on the British side. He shows how he finds himself stuck between his own humanity and the rest of humanity's expectations. He expects the audience to get a close idea of what was going on with Burmese and the British colonialism at that time. Also, how it felt to be the oppressor and be oppressed at the same time.