Why do you think George Orwell felt compelled to shoot the elephant?

The narrator in George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” is compelled to shoot the elephant by the energy of the Burmese people and his own fear of retribution. As he struggles with whether or not he wants to or needs to shoot the animal, the narrator illustrates the driving force of the crowd behind him.
Even though he took the rifle with no intention of shooting it, he claims “I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly.” From this moment he describes the realization that the Western white man’s attempt to rule over the East is futile. He realizes that in trying to maintain power and control, he must do what is expected by the native Burmese people. “. . . in fact I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind,” he says of the crowd’s compelling influence.

Just before the narrator takes aim to shoot the elephant, he recognizes his fear of the fallout if he does not shoot it. Because a man is already dead and now the crowd is energized for the kill, the narrator cannot let them down by failing to shoot. He knows that if he fails now, “those […] Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse . . .” To avoid the wrath of an angry mob, he decides to go through with shooting the elephant.