Can you find the passages in which Orwell tries to develop an answer to his central question? How does he use repetition to signpost these meditations?

If the central question Orwell poses is what to do about imperialism, it is in the paragraph in which it suddenly dawns on him that he will have to shoot the elephant regardless of whether it makes sense or not that he develops an answer: the system has to go. If he had earlier thought the British Raj was an "unbreakable tyranny," he now realizes it is hollow. Imperialism is "futile," as he puts it, because the system itself becomes the tyrant of the so-called masters, as well of the subjugated natives.
In this passage, Orwell us the word "hollow" twice, first to describe the emptiness of the British rule in Asia, and then to describe what happens to the individual who participates in the system: he becomes dehumanized, a sort of "dummy" playing a preset role. The narrator also repeats the words "two thousand," which emphasizes the force of the faceless mass that is the "natives," supposedly powerless but exercising great force in their numbers, bending the so-called masters to their will. Another repetition is the word "watch" or "watching," which emphasizes the pressure of the natives' gaze. "Shoot the elephant" is also repeated, a sign that this act has become a performance, as is almost everything the sahibs or rulers do. All the repetitions suggest this is simply one in a repeated set of shows the British put on in an attempt to assert a futile control.