Melanie Mesa
Professor Smith
English 1A
September 26, 2013

A Hanging

The story of A Hanging by George orwell retells an experience, Orwell had during his service as a police officer. During his service Orwell faced an event in which changed his views on death. He describes in detail the execution of a condemed prisoner who's life was cut short. Orwell's views on the execution is that of an "unspeakable wrongness in cutting a life short when it is in full tide." While awaiting the death of the hindu prisoner a dog barges in and causes a few laughs among the men but eventually the dog is caught and the executuion continues. Orwell reveals his emotions towards the prisoners when he is praying to his god, he realizes that they were all equal men walking together breathing the same air and yet, one of them would be gone in a blink of an eye. Unlike Orwell who has some kind of emotion the superintendent treats execution as just a job that must be done quickly so that the other prisoners can eat. And the warders who hold on to the prisoner as if they caught a squimish fish from the ocean. Once the man is hung there is dead silence and life continues for the rest of the men. While the author writes of his own realization that execution ends a life before its time, I sense another image here as well. Orwell's prisoner is escorted from his cell to his death. Then his companions