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George Orwell's A Hanging

In George OrwellÆs essay ôA Hanging,ö an Indian condemned to the gallows is hanged before a crowd of prisoners, warders, magistrates and other onlookers. The narrator is a European magistrate in Burma during British rule. While most Europeans imposed their manners and values on Hindus, the narrator goes through a transformation during the hanging. Initially he appears sympathetic and empathetic with the condemned manÆs plight, ôwith a sudden snap, one of us would be goneùone mind less, one world lessö (Orwell 2). After the prisoner is dead, the narrator appears to ôdo as the natives doö in using humor to distance himself from the awful reality of what he has just viewed, ôI found that I was laughing quite loudly. Everyone was laughingö (Orwell 3). Orwell uses this transformation in the narrator to expose the absurdity of capital punishment being used by an allegedly ôcivilizedö society.

Initially, the narrator in ôA Hangingö seems to have great empathy for the condemned prisoners. Setting is used to show this. The morning carries ôa sickly light,ö the men are in quarters ôlike small animal cagesö with only a ôplank bedö and drinking water (Orwell 1). We see the narrator is also sympathetic with the man about to be hanged. He sees the condemned man step to miss a puddle and it forcefully reminds him of what is about to occur. He thinks ôI had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious manàThis man was not dying, he was alive just as we were aliveö (Orwell 2). The narrator seems to have compassion for the prisoner and also recognizes the interconnected nature of all human beings. He shows this when he thinks ôHe and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same worldö (Orwell 2). This not only demonstrates the narratorÆs view of human relations but also might imply OrwellÆs criticism of British rule in Ind

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George Orwell's A Hanging. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 06:35, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1710900.html