Orwell says that the incident with the elephant

proved enlightening "in a roundabout way." What did he learn about himself

and about imperialism through this incident?

When Orwell relates his experience with the elephant in "Shooting an Elephant" it gives some insight into his own psyche as well as the structure of imperialism. In this moment, he criticizes imperialism, showing that the leaders are controlled by the masses just as much as, if not more so than, the other way around.

He describes himself as being despised by the Burmese people. He is a colonial policeman, and in this role, he is associated with imperial British rule, propped up by the threat of force. (Orwell himself served in the Indian imperial police for a time, so the narrator's voice is likely his own.) When the elephant tears through the bazaar, killing a coolie, the Burmese crowd demands that he shoot and kill it. He does not want to do this, because by the time he arrives on the scene, the elephant has calmed, and no longer poses a threat to anybody. Orwell reflects that, in order to appease the angry crowd, he has to fill the role that they expect of him, which is that of a hated "tyrant." This is the paradoxical nature of empire - he must compromise his morality, become what the Burmese people already think he is, or risk their laughter and scorn. For someone that has already determined that he hates British imperialism, the incident is profoundly unsettling, but in a "roundabout way enlightening." It underscores the duality of empire, a world in which a man like Orwell can, as he says in the account, hold remarkably contradictory feelings:

The incident illustrates that, whatever objections they may have to British rule, imperial officials have to be hated to be respected.