The story has to do with a colonial policeman working in Burma which is governed by the British Empire. The runaway elephant provides an opportunity for the reader to recognize the culture clash between colonizer and colonized.
"British completed their colonization of the country in 1886, Burma was immediately annexed as a province of British India, and the British began to permeate the ancient Burmese culture with foreign elements. Burmese customs were often weakened by the imposition of British traditions."
The people expect the colonial policeman to kill the elephant, to be brutal, when in fact he wants to save the elephant.
'The narrator must do his duty as a colonial policeman. He despises the native Burmese for loathing and tormenting him as their foreign oppressor; yet he also perfectly well understands their loathing and tormenting; he even takes their side privately."
The rampaging elephant is symbolic of what the British have done to other countries like Burma.
"Indeed, one of the chief consequences of Western imperial expansion in Asia (as in Africa) was that it brought industrialized and non-industrialized societies forcibly together in a world made ever smaller by technological progress and so provoked resentment between the ‘‘haves’’ and ‘‘have-nots.’’ The resentment persisted, moreover, even where the colonized society benefited materially from the imperial presence."
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