Symbolism Of Death In A Hanging By George Orwell

548 Words3 Pages
In “A hanging”, George Orwell constantly contrast death with life to show us how wrong it is to kill another human being. Orwell’s essay argues that capital punishment is immoral, giving a walkthrough containing vivid details of a prisoner’s hanging. In Orwell’s descriptive essay there are many side to side comparison towards life and death. Orwell develops his essay by presenting it through the characters who perform their occupational responsibilities. For instance, from the prisoners to the superintendent. In the story, the superintendent is seen as the most uncaring person, he is unsympathetic to the prisoners or to the friendly playful dog. On the contrary, as the superintendent is the symbol of death, the dog is the symbol of life. The dog provides a bit of a comic relief, as the tension of the prisoner marches to his death. Although, towards the end the superintendent was able to catch the dog and put an end to his interruption. Ultimately, which directed the story back to the…show more content…
The contrast would be the directed at the dog of the story. As the dog, does provide some comic relief, but the dog also symbolizes how inhumane capital punishment is. During the beginning of the story, the prisoner is lead to what soon will be his death, but then comes a dog to put in the human perspective back into the story. The dog’s playful and friendly intervention adds a momentary forgetfulness of the hanging. In paragraph 5, Orwell states “it pranced around us, and then, before anyone could stop it, it had made a dash for the prisoner, and jumping up tried to lick his face”, which shows a point of moral judgment. Even, the dog was able to give an unbiased judgement against the prisoner; the dog showing that a life is a life. The appearance of the dog is to add humanity to the conflict of the story, which the dogs stays and observes the execution of the

    More about Symbolism Of Death In A Hanging By George Orwell

      Open Document