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George Orwell A Hanging Essay

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Tick,Tock the prison cell is filled with an eerie feeling. The prisoner waits and waits knowing that his end is to come but when he ponders,when will they come? Steps he hears coming his way he wonders is it them,is it time? Frightened with the thought that a rope will be the death of him and how his life will be taken from him. He thinks about a time where he was in his best phase believing that will relieve his current state of mind. Sweat slips down from his forehead to what seems like his whole body. He waits as he hears the footsteps getting closer until he sees the wardens right in front of the animal-like cage of the cell. He closes his eyes trying to control himself and opens them ready to lose his life. In George Orwell's essay “A Hanging” he goes back to a time in his life where his was a serving as a British colonial police officer …show more content…

He does this because the guilt of seeing people hanged got to him. Through his depiction of a hanging, George Orwell not only reveals his inner guilt but also demonstrates how as humans we tend to be influenced by the pressure of society. George Orwell's first paragraph in his essay “ A hanging” depicts how he was one of the people committing this crime thus showcasing how he knew he was wrong but didn't stop the prisoner from being hung. He shows he was a part of this gruesome plot in hopes that others will not follow his way. He does this because he knows as humans we are easily influenced by the people around us. Right in the beginning of the first paragraph Orwell states “we were waiting outside the condemned cells,a row of sheds fronted with double bars like small animal cages”. By saying “we” he is showing that he was a part of this and by saying animal cages.He is comparing it to something gruesome or something most of us would not want to part take in. He uses a visual imagery in this quote so the audience can visualize how these prisoners lived and in

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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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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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This is a question that each author went about experiencing it differently. Orwell had to perform things against his will to get approval from the people in the village that he decided to reside. He was a stranger there and needed acceptance but his actions weren’t the best choices and he felt horrible by it. “To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing- no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me.

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Use no fewer than 250 words. “The Hanging” by George Orwell is an essay that describe a hanging that took place in a prison. The narrator of the story does not partake in the hanging, but describes the event as well as the role his colleges took. The tone in the piece that Orwell uses focuses on the inhumane nature of the killing prisoners.

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Old Man Warner was saying, "Come on, come on, everyone." This response suggests that her protests have been ignored and were overpowered by the collective assurance of the ritual’s acceptance. On the other hand, injustice is shown in "A Hanging" by George Orwell, whilst witnessing a hanging in Burma when he was a colonial Officer. Orwell describes the unspeakable horrors he felt when the prisoners were being led to the gallows. "I had never realised what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man.....

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His language, suited both for his audience, and still relevant today, creates a tense, somber atmosphere. His powerful descriptions highlight both the humanity of the prisoner as well as the brutality of those belonging to the establishment. His story is well paced and easy to follow, and I felt all the elements came together very convincingly. As it does not rely on statistic or figures, the atmosphere Orwell creates in “A Hanging” is crucial to its effectiveness. It is unrelentingly sad from start to finish, even as the officers laugh over drinks.

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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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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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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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George Orwell, who was born in India and was raised in Britain (99), wrote a powerful tale, “A Hanging,” which condemns capital punishment and its barbaric and heartless implementation. The story is based on the real life incident that he encountered while he was serving the British Imperial Police in Colonial Burma (Orwell 99). He witnessed a heartless action where an unnamed prisoner paid with his life for an unmentioned crime. The theme of the story is the wrongfulness of all the execution, and Orwell tries in “A Hanging” to highlight a specific case that exemplifies the reasons for eradication of the death penalty. Orwell works mainly through implication, and Orwell’s abolitionist message in “A Hanging” is conveyed through the prisoner, the dog, the functionaries, and their actions, words, and body language.

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