Capital Punishment in the Work of George Orwell, H.L. Mencken, and Norman Mailer

In the passage from his short story A Hanging, George Orwell creates a straightforward, weighty style and a pitying, anticipatory tone through mundane eventive verbs and a strong control of the passage of time. Although the first line of the passage does not include these important features, it does act as a pivotal sentence in the greater paragraph, shifting focus to the life remaining in the prisoner. In addition, this sentence establishes the separation between the “he” of the prisoner and the “we” of the living population. Indeed, first person singular is never used in this passage, replaced instead by numerous applications of plurality, perhaps best exemplified in the later noun phrase, “He and we.” This separation develops a distant pity on the part of the narrator: he recognizes the horror of the prisoner’s situation but does not personally care because the horror is not happening to him.

The following description of Evans's electrocution was sworn to and verified by Russell F. Canan on June 22, 1983:

Throughout the history of man there has always existed a sort of rule pertaining to retribution for just and unjust acts. For the just came rewards, and for the unjust came punishments. This has been a law as old as time. One philosophy about the treatment of the unjust is most controversial in modern time and throughout our history; which is is the ethical decision of a death penalty. This controversial issue of punishment by death has been going on for centuries. It dates back to as early as 399 B.C.E., to when Socrates was forced to drink hemlock for his “corruption of the youth” and “impiety”.

The essay “A Hanging” by George Orwell speaks to the reader about the author’s stance on capital punishment. I believe that Orwell was able to communicate his point, without actually saying I’m against capital punishment, through three steps. The first step is to set the mood and bring you into his perspective. From the dreary description of the morning to the slow procession of the condemned man to the gallows, Orwell puts the reader in a mood that conveys the experience of watching a man die. The second step is to compare himself to the condemned man, showing how we are all equal. A life is a life, whether you are a condemned man or not. The third step is to show how everyone tries to cope with the aftermath of the execution. This

While all people like to believe they are virtuous and honorable, it is often not the case. In fact, many would rather stand by and watch as unjust treatment occur, thinking it would not affect them. These people, known collectively as bystanders, are present at the event, but choose to not take part in it. They often feel remorse for the sufferer, yet would not lend a hand in fear of becoming one. In “The Hangman”, a narrative poem by Maurice Ogden, and Eve Bunting’s “Terrible Things”,figurative language is used to emphasize the significance of bystanders. These literary devices help develop several cruel yet irrefutable themes.

In "A Hanging," George Orwell utilizes the rhetorical appeals of pathos and ethos in historical context to convince the audience that the unjustifiable execution of a person is not only barbaric, but unethical. This is successful because of his sensitive word choice and sympathetic tone.

“A Hanging” by George Orwell is an influential, autobiographical essay, in which the subject of capital punishment is powerfully examined. The essay is based on a prisoner’s execution in a Prisoner of War camp in Burma during the Second World War. In the essay, Orwell is a prison guard for the camp and carefully illustrates his views on capital punishment. The structure of the essay is of three distinct sections. These sections provide the reader with contrast and repetition, and are grounded in reality but with emphasis on the creative,

George Orwell, an experienced Assistant Superintendent in the British Imperial Police, composed “A Hanging” after his resignation in 1927. The narrative is a personal testimony set in the 1920’s in Burma. Orwell uses the classical techniques of formal argument to depict the death of an unknown prisoner, while taking a position against the death penalty. George Orwell’s Abolitionist message in “A Hanging” is conveyed through the prisoner, dog, functionaries, and their actions, words, and body language.

The man’s neck is then clasped by the grotesque hands of the executioner and he is throttled

The roughness of the rope that is enclosing around the neck. Adrenaline starts rushing into the veins, even though it won’t change anything. Finally, the feeling of weightlessness before blacking out after the floor drops out. The pain of that criminal is now over, but the pain for the everyone else involved is just beginning. George Orwell illustrates his short story “A Hanging” with a facade of ordinariness through the innocences of a dog, and a gloomy mood to show the deteriorating effects of capital punishment on a person’s subconscious.

To Orwell’s astonishment, the prisoner tries to take off the hold of guards when he steps on the puddle (Orwell 101). He does not want to get his feet dirty even at his last breath which shows him a dignified man. It tells the reader that he does not want to lose his dignity even when he is dying. This is the point when the author realizes he is pure and what it meant to kill a healthy, conscious man. Also, at the time of hanging, he repeatedly chants “Ram, Ram, Ram!” which shows that there is definitely something good in him.

George Orwell’s “A Hanging”, set in Burma in the late 1920’s, tells his experience as a police officer witnessing a specific execution. Throughout his career in the police force, Orwell was an ardent retentionist, someone who supports capital punishment for certain crimes. However, this execution revealed to him the brutality of capital punishment, causing him to shift to abolitionism, the thought that capital punishment should be abolished. After quitting his job as a police officer, he wrote this story to show the heinous reality of what capital punishment truly is. Through the dialogue and mannerisms of the characters in this story, Orwell conveys his abolitionist message through the prisoner, the superintendent, the guards, and the dog.

In “The Penalty of Death”, Mencken discussed about death penalty. In author’s opinion death penalty is acceptable punishment also described as a “katharsis” (445): the victims want to see the criminal to suffer as the criminal made them suffer. Mencken feels horrible to let the criminals to wait for their execution for months after the final verdict. The narrator is not content with the idea that “must have time to make his peace with God” (447). At the end Mencken concludes that we should not make the criminals to wait for months before the execution.

Hanging is a kind of suspension for some flagitious prisoners; it is also one of the cruelest punishments in the world. The author was born in a lower-upper-middle class in 1903 in India. Afterwards, he served in Burma as a police. George Orwell was different from other peers; he witnessed the contradiction between the colonizer and colonized, and sympathize the weak group. This essay, A Hanging, represent the truth in the deep human being and heart through the character’s actions and appearance’s descriptions in an execution.

"A Hanging" By George Orwell A Reflective Essay on the Short Story ‘A Hanging’ by George Orwell The short story ‘A Hanging’ by George Orwell illustrates the experience and intrigues surrounding the hanging of a Hindu prisoner in Burma. Orwell dwells on the inhuman nature of capital punishment and how the hangmen disregard the dignity of human life to commit a prisoner to the gallows. Unarguably, the purpose of this non-fiction story is to persuade the readers of the horrifying injustice of subjecting a convict to the death penalty. As this reflective paper shall present, throughout the short story, the author intelligently uses irony and sarcasm to manipulate the mood of the audience thereby convincing the readers of his criticism of capital punishment and the barbaric administration of justice in the Burma prisons.