In Orwell’s thinking, it wasn’t the dog that was the bloody brute perhaps it was the warders. Orwell carefully chose his language when the superintendent says, “Who let that bloody brute in here?”. During the most solemn moments when the prisoner was being slowly walked to his death, a large unchained and unguarded dog bounds into the prison yard and runs around happily, not knowing what was occurring only minutes away. Soon this man’s life would end at the hand of the rope snapping and there would be “one mind less, one world less”.Īnother way that Orwell revealed his thoughts on capital punishment is by introducing a dog within the plot. He realized how wrong it was for this prisoner’s life to be ended at the mercy of the warders.
It wasn’t that he just avoided the puddle it was showing Orwell that the soon to be hanged prisoner was still full of life and thoughtfully and carefully takes time to avoid a puddle, even though he was only steps away from his death. At this moment, Orwell realized that the condemned man was just alive as anyone at the scene. For Orwell, who was watching the entire process, the moment he was enlightened was when he watched the soon to be hung prisoner step to the side of a puddle while walking to the gallows where his life would end at the pulling of a single rope. These two individuals did not even seem bothered by what was going to happen, but just wanted to hurry it up. Orwell made light of the situation when he portrayed the superintendent and jailer conversation about the need to get the hanging over, so the other prisoners can receive breakfast the conversation seems so inhumane. Orwell’s description of how the “puny wisp of a man” offered no resistance when taken out of the cell, still was handled by the six guards with bayonets and rifles sheds some insight into Orwell seeing the unnecessary force that man was exerting on the prisoner, who was cooperating to the fullest. Early on the reader can see hints of Orwell’s thoughts on the conditions in which the prisoners lived, and died. He likened the conditions to enclosures for animals. Next, he carefully describes how the prisoner only had around a 100 square feet cell and a little bowl of water to consume, quite inhumane conditions for the gentleman. He begins with the weather being a rainy, drenched morning, which one might consider the perfect weather for the hanging to occur. Orwell’s perspective on capital punishment can be supported with the overall tone and mood he sets for the essay, the presence of the dog within the prison camp, and the men’s actions near the end of the essay.įirst, the author sets the mood and tone from the beginning of the essay leading up to his realization that he feels the hanging of the prisoner is wrong. He does not support the idea of capital punishment. By witnessing the hanging, the author comes to a realization about capital punishment. As a result of what he witnessed, Orwell is overcome by the hanging. The author attempts to help the reader understand and experience what occurred on the morning of the hanging. Orwell, who himself was part of the warders, had to witness the dreadful hanging and later wrote this descriptive essay on what he had to endure on that particular day. In the essay entitled, “A Hanging,” the author, George Orwell, writes of a Hindu man preparing to be hanged in a Burmese prison by the warders.