A Hanging By George Orwell

[ORene 0]

A hanging Racism of Hindu people can reach really deep extremes. One of them is the hanging. In the story of ?a hanging?, by George Orwell, is described the execution of a Hindu man in a prison and how is it from the point of view of one of the guards. This story describes his feelings, and it shows that the narrator is not as selfish as he seems and that he deeply has a good hearth. First of all, it can be seen that he actually cares a little bit about the prisoners? lives. In the text he describes how the man looked like saying ?he was a Hindu, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes?? if he didn?t care about the prisoners he would have done like the other ones, just worrying about how long it would take to finish the job. Also, he did not mistreat the man. He did not insult him and he acted with respect in every moment; a normal guard would have not made that. Even though he worked there he didn?t seem to enjoy taking away prisoners? breath. Secondly, he felt remorse about the condemned man. When they were walking he started thinking indirectly that what he was doing was unfair. This can be seen when he thought ?this man was not dying, he was just as alive as we were?? Moreover, he was thinking about the man the whole story. He was always watching his behavior and wondering about what he felt or why he was so calmed. It can be seen that he was not that bad because of his guilt feelings and his worry about what happened. However, he was confused about his own feelings. First he worked in a very cold and mean job, but deeply in his heart he felt bad about what he was doing. It is implicit in the story the feelings that he had along every moment, and it can be easily inferred that those where not feelings or satisfactions on what he did. In the middle of the story, he just realized what he was doing; ?till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man.? At this point he felt even worse about himself. However, at the end he changed his mood drastically with the pressure of his group; ?at that moment Francis?s anecdote seemed extraordinary funny?, and he started having fun with the other guards. This behavior was extremely contradictory to the rest of the story. Although, we cannot say that for this he is a bad man, he was just confused about his own feelings. This case is just an example of the horrible hangings caused from racism. Furthermore, it explains it from a point of view that normally is not taken in count: the one of a guard, and his unpleasant experience of killing an innocent man. With the guard?s description of the scene we can see that he is not as bad as he seems to be, and in the deep of his heart he has good feelings, he only doesn?t know what to do with them and he just follows his job and his partners.

[iGuest 3]

ORene: You said,

"Racism of Hindu people can reach really deep extremes". No idea what you mean by this. You think the Hindu is racist because he is being hanged?

(I have no idea why Orwell uses a word like "Dravidian" for one of the other characters in the story. That usage certainly brings in race, for whatever reason.)

You also wrote, "This case is just an example of the horrible hangings caused from racism..." Actually, the article does not mention anywhere the reason for the hanging. How did you conclude that racism was the cause of this hanging? Your post actually does not make any sense at all in any of your points. I wouldn't have bothered to respond since you wrote it two years ago, but unfortunately it is still floating around on the web, available to anyone who searches for this article, so I thought I should put this on the record too.

[iGuest 3]

Orwell sucks, he is judging the people by the way they look and walk. There is a part on his essay, when he saw the criminal walk away from the puddle; he realized that executing that criminal is wrong and immoral. What if that innocent looking criminal murdered a lot of people and rape a lot of woman, is executing him a bad thing. Nope! Don't judge the person by his looks.