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A Hanging By George Orwell

1275 Words6 Pages

George Orwell, an experienced Assistant Superintendent in the British Imperial Police, composed “A Hanging” after his resignation. The narrative is a personal testimony, set in the 1920’s in Burma, depicting the death of an unknown prisoner. While never directly stated, Orwell takes a position against capital punishment. George Orwell’s Abolitionist message in “A Hanging” is conveyed through the prisoner, dog, functionaries, and their actions, words, and body language.
Orwell implies that capital punishment dehumanizes by illustrating the prisoner’s living conditions and treatment. George Orwell describes the prisoner’s cell as an “animal cage” (99). By giving the prisoner’s environment animalistic qualities, Orwell implies the condemned …show more content…

After the execution is carried out, the superintendent invites all the people involved to drink whisky (103). By doing this, Orwell suggests that capital punishment has an effect on everyone. Melia explains the servants’ alcohol and laughter could be their “means of dealing with their unease” (19). She insinuates that they are using alcohol to cope with the guilt of the execution. Capital punishment leads the executioners to ease their consciences with whiskey due to the unnatural nature of partaking in the …show more content…

He implies the moral and ethical argument as he writes, “When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide” (101). He insinuates there is no justification for killing another human being. This is the strongest quote in Orwell’s essay because it is the moment that led to the realization of his actions. This particular moment caused Orwell to become an Abolitionist. On the other hand, Orwell also uses the sociopolitical argument, by stating, “[…] the prisoner began crying out to his god. Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!” (101). Orwell signals the prisoners goodness; therefore, indicating capital punishment risk killing an innocent person. This is his most powerful message throughout the narrative, because capital punishment is generally reserved for the most heinous crimes; however, if there is even a chance the accused is innocent the death sentence can no longer be defended. Orwell includes argumentative points based on the prisoner’s innocence and

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The prisoners had seen and experienced so much brutality, endured repeated beatings, and humiliated beyond imagination, so one more death did not affect them. Their emotions hardened to the point of being non-existent… or so they thought. Although the prisoners seemed hardened and unaffected by death, a different hanging did deeply affect them.

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937 Words | 4 Pages

Even the superintendent grinned in a tolerant way”. Orwell’s essay shifts from a dreary and depressing scene, to everyone shrugging off what had happened before them and ignorantly going about their day. The emphasis on the ignorance of the people effectively convinces the reader that capital punishment isn’t taken as serious as it should be; a message Capote tried to add to his story, but was often overlooked by the emotional persuasive used to

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Orwell illustrates the overall strength that manipulation has over the human mind and how easily convinced a human can be with the right methods even if what they believe is wrong. Even after a heart held promise Winston is broken, “Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia!

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612 Words | 3 Pages

Orwell's sureness and strength in his article acts as evidence of weapons and their effects, because it helps confirm his claim as something that will for sure happen. This allows the audience to trust Orwell's claim, and his good development creates a very substantial article. Orwell also uses ethos by connecting himself with society by using informal language stating, "We were once told". Orwell is affirming that he and his audience were manipulated by the state. He is putting himself on the audience’s level, which makes the audience feel like they can relate to him.

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439 Words | 2 Pages

Towards the end of the argument, he begins to use lengthy syntax when describing the complexity of human nature and morals. Orwell states that this is not a black-or-white issue. It has no right or wrong. Moreover, the use of this lengthy sentence allows the reader to mirror the intricacy in which individual morals ought to be in order for the world to function. Making mistakes and committing sins to seem atrocious, however, they are essential to life and natural behaviors.

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1141 Words | 5 Pages

George Orwell's Swiftian satire 1984 (1949) exposes the dangerous potential of totalitarian regimes which exploit vulnerable individuals to maintain ubiquitous power over society. Orwell enhances audiences' understanding of human vulnerability through his representation of a totalitarian regime that disempowers its citizens and eradicates their agency. Also, he demonstrates how constant political indoctrination and intimidation create a brutalised society devoid of compassion, leaving human relationships susceptible to destruction. Furthermore, Orwell depicts the futility of rebellion against totalitarian regimes, demonstrating the vulnerability of humanity to tyrannical oppressors.

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344 Words | 2 Pages

Using strong and forceful words like ‘sin’, ‘forbidden’, and ‘inhuman’, the author takes a firm stance in the passage. This word choice ensures that there is no question of which side Orwell supports. Therefore, it enhances his point by augmenting his blunt tone. This type of word choice is most effective when explaining facts since

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1109 Words | 5 Pages

In the novel “1984” by George Orwell, the Inner Party uses cruelty in a politically and socially effective way by using methods such as torture, starvation, imprisonment, and room 101 as crucial motivation for those being tortured to not only confess but repent of their sins against the party. Furthermore, the use of cruelty by the Inner Party unveils both the victim and perpetrator’s inner conscience. The use of cruelty throughout “1984” by the Inner Party and O’Brien reveals how cruelty functions in the work as a means of oppression and a catalyst of subservience.

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Two centuries later, this “Panopticon” concept was made to apply not just in the walls of prison but was already applied to the society. It was Michel Foucault in 1977 who argued that the mechanism and principles used to control prisoners in Bentham’s Panopticon could be similarly applied to citizens throughout society. Orwell also explained that idea in detail by stating that: “Every citizen, or at least every citizen important enough to be worth watching, could be kept for twenty-four hours a day under the eyes of the police.” When the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was published in 1949, Orwell’s tale seemed far-fetched and futuristic films from recent years such as “Minority Report” and “Gattaca” still appeared fanciful. However, the concepts

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1124 Words | 5 Pages

The fact that they are executing a man is inescapably woven into every aspect of the piece and left me wishing for a different outcome. At no point in the essay, do we forget Orwell is there to watch someone

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824 Words | 4 Pages

Secondly, Orwell uses colours to describe the prisoners and guards to show whose lives matter inside the prison. Colours are significant when described as they hold meaning to different people and in a hanging, the author uses colour to describe and show the difference in whose lives matter inside the prison. The prisoners are only known as the “brown silent men.. who live in cells in a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages” (Orwell 1). This event shows a side of racism, but also shows how no one cared about the prisoners, as they are not given names or any identity description, and they made them live in inhumane conditions, therefore showing how the prisoners have no power and do not matter inside the prison. The prisoners were being pushed around all the time and denied basic human rights.

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716 Words | 3 Pages

This narrative piece is an effective expository technique that describes the narrator’s thoughts and tone. Orwell uses oxymoron such as “grinning corpse” and paradox phrases such as “the story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes”. Another paradox statement is shown in “I perceived this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys”. Orwell’s decisions were briskly altered as he was deciding on whether to kill the elephant or not. His mind altered from “I ought not to shoot him” to “I had got to do it” and also to “But I did not want to shoot the elephant”.

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1113 Words | 5 Pages

George Orwell says, “but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide.” It is obvious that the tone he is trying to set here is anger because he is beginning to get upset about taking a perfectly healthy man’s life away. Furthermore, Orwell continues to express his tone when the prisoner begins to cry for his god just as he is about to get hanged. The superintendent takes a long time to give the order to hang the prisoner.

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525 Words | 3 Pages

At the beginning of the story he brings up the scene with the random appearance of the dog, and then he briefly explains about the prisoner walking around the puddle on his way to be hanged, and lastly, the scene after the execution. As the warders who have the hangman gripped tightly around

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1771 Words | 8 Pages

Orwell, through his characters and their behaviors shows how capital punishment will eventually lead to the degradation of the humanity and violation of the sanctity of human life. In the story, the prisoner and his behavior plays a vital role to convey the message. He was treated as if he were an animal. “We were waiting outside the condemned cells, a row of the sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cage” (Orwell 100). Thorough this episode Orwell reveals how the prisoner was treated before he was executed.

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