"Self respect can not be hunted. It can not be purchased. It is not for sale. It can never be fabricated out of public relations. It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that, knowing the good, we have done it; knowing the beautiful, we have served it; knowing the truth, we have spoken it." (Anand and Kulbir)

If a person does not have any self-respect they can not make any decisions for themselves. They will people pushed into situations they either do or don't want to do. People will also take advantage of them and eventually that person will end up being cheated. In life a person needs to develop a sense of self-respect for themselves in order to make decisions for themselves and be able to survive in this world.

To start lets define what exactly self-respect is. According to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary the meaning of self-respect is "regard for on

Here it is clearly stated in the end that the police officer is more concerned with what the Burman people would think of him than, rather than following through with his original plans.

He says "For at that moment, with the crowd watching me, I was not afraid in the ordinary sense, as I would have been if I had been alone. A white man mustn't be frightened in front of "natives"; and so, in general, he isn't frightened. The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do." (Orwell 66)

If we look back to Orwell's decision making we realize that he went with the Machiavelli approach and did what the people wanted. Although he did use Plato's approach and think about some other outcomes to the situation if he did not shoot the elephant. He worries that if he does not shoot the elephant the Burmese people will have even less respect for him though. In the end the man really thinks of his self-respect and suggest that if anything went wrong the Burmese People would again laugh at him and this did not sit well with him.

People with low or no self respect for themselves often tend to do what others tell them to do. As in George Orwell's, "Shooting the Elephant" the police officer did not want to kill the elephant he was persuaded by the Burmese people to shoot it. "I had halted on the road. As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him." (Orwell 65) Orwell continues to say "And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly." (65)

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1444
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)