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In "Shooting an Elephant," why does the narrator hesitate to kill the elephant?

In short, the narrator hesitates to kill the elephant because he does not, in fact, want to go through with it. For one thing, killing an elephant is in and of itself a serious matter, since elephants are so valuable. Shooting an elephant is akin to "destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery." More importantly, by the time the narrator encounters the elephant, it is no longer rampaging, but is peacefully and calmly eating grass near the edge of town. But the problem for the narrator is that a crowd of Burmese people has followed him, and they expect him to shoot the beast. He realizes that, although he does not want to kill the animal, he has to in order to, in his words, avoid "looking a fool." He is a representative of the British Empire to the Burmese people, and they expect him to act violently. Shooting the elephant against his better judgment is one example of how imperialism has corrupted the narrator.

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