A Hanging

“We were waiting outside the condemned cells, a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages. Each cell measured about ten feet by ten and was quite bare within except for a plank bed and a pot of drinking water. In some of them brown silent men were squatting at the inner bars, with their blankets draped round them. These were the condemned men, due to be hanged within the next week or two.”

At the beginning of the essay, the first-person narrator surveys the scene through the lens of colonial hierarchies. The pronoun “we” refers to the representatives and employees of the British Empire. The Dehumanization of Colonized Subjects is highlighted as the condemned men, in animalistic terms, squat in cages and drink out of bowls. Their otherness is emphasized in their depiction as “brown” and “silent.” The casual approximation that the men will be killed “within the next week or two” seems incongruously flippant.

“‘For God’s sake hurry up, Francis,’ he said irritably. ‘The man ought to have been dead by this time. Aren’t you ready yet? […] Well, quick march, then. The prisoners can’t get their breakfast till this job’s over.’”

Here, Orwell uses direct discourse with limited narrative commentary, inviting readers to reflect on the irony and pathos of the situation for themselves. The superintendent displays no compassion for the prisoner. The execution is simply a “job” that must be performed to schedule. The superintendent’s worry that the execution is delaying breakfast reflects his warped perspective.

“Two warders marched on either side of the prisoner, with their rifles at the slope; two others marched close against him, gripping him by arm and shoulder, as though at once pushing and supporting him.”

As the prisoner walks to the gallows, the mannerisms of his escorting warders underscore the nature of British colonialism. Their rifles are a reminder of the systemic violence British forces used to keep control of the empire. Meanwhile, the way they seem to simultaneously push and support the prisoner represents the use of paternalism to justify oppression,

“It came bounding among us with a loud volley of barks, and leapt round us wagging its whole body, wild with glee at finding so many human beings together. […] For a moment it pranced round us, and then, before anyone could stop it, it had made a dash for the prisoner, and jumping up tried to lick his face. Everyone stood aghast, too taken aback even to grab at the dog.”

Orwell uses satirical humor as the unexpected arrival of a dog disrupts the procession to the gallows. The dog’s friendliness and exuberance strike a farcical note, momentarily causing confusion and chaos. The “aghast” response of the party as the dog licks the prisoner’s face draws attention to the values of everyone else present: While they have normalized killing another human being, they are horrified at this undignified interruption.

“A young Eurasian jailer picked up a handful of gravel and tried to stone the dog away, but it dodged the stones and came after us again. […] The prisoner, in the grasp of the two wardens, looked on incuriously, as though this was another formality of the hanging.”

Here, the jailers’ frenzied attempts to gain control of the dog are juxtaposed with the prisoner’s calm and dignity. The suggestion that the prisoner views the fiasco as an intended element of the execution highlights his resignation to the inexplicable vagaries of colonial oppression.

It was about forty yards to the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel.”

This quotation sets up a contrast between how little life remains to the prisoner (“about forty yards to the gallows”) and how irrefutably alive he continues to be, even as he walks to his death. The prisoner’s calm (“he walked steadily”) contrasts with the increasingly agitated state of the narrator. The narrator responds to the enormity of what is about to happen by concentrating on one part of the condemned man at a time: his back, his hair, and his feet. Despite the narrator’s growing sympathy for the prisoner, he continues to stress his foreignness—his “bare brown back” and “that bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens his knees.” The image of the footprints in the wet gravel suggests that these ephemeral markings are destined to outlast their maker.

“It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive.

For the greater part of Orwell’s essay, the narrator simply reports events without commenting on them. This personal reflection on cutting short a healthy life occurs right in the middle of the story, marking his epiphany concerning The Inhumanity of the Death Penalty.

“And then, when the noose was fixed, the prisoner began crying out on his god. It was a high, reiterated cry of ‘Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!’, not urgent and fearful like a prayer or a cry for help, but steady, rhythmical, almost like the tolling of a bell.”

The prisoner’s rhythmical chanting marks his otherness, inasmuch as the ramanama would be unfamiliar and foreign to both Orwell’s narrator and his readers. It also serves to document and quantify the prisoner’s remaining moments of life, “like the tolling of a bell.” The prisoner’s composure, despite his circumstances, is contrasted with the increasing disquiet of the observers.

“I let go of the dog, and it galloped immediately to the back of the gallows; but when it got there it stopped short, barked, and then retreated into a corner of the yard, where it stood among the weeds, looking timorously out at us.”

After the execution, the dog is delighted to be liberated but suddenly grows subdued and fearful when it sees the prisoner’s dead body. While all the other members of the execution party are relieved at the prisoner’s death, the dog is ironically the only one who seems to feel compassion for the dead man. It also grows fearful of the other men, recognizing the dark side of human nature.

“The superintendent reached out with his stick and poked the bare body; it oscillated, slightly. ‘He’s all right,’ said the superintendent. He backed out from under the gallows, and blew out a deep breath. The moody look had gone out of his face quite suddenly. He glanced at his wrist-watch. ‘Eight minutes past eight. Well, that’s all for this morning, thank God.’”

The prisoner has now been reduced to a “bare body” and is referred to with the pronoun “it” rather than “he.” The superintendent’s choice of the adjective “all right” to signal that the prisoner is completely dead rather than struggling for life creates a grotesque irony. His brisk, business-like tone in checking the time is belied by the rather strong exclamation “thank God.”

“The dog, sobered and conscious of having misbehaved itself, slipped after them.”

The dog is the only member of the party to display any regret or guilt over the prisoner’s demise. It has grown wary of the group of humans despite initially greeting them with uninhibited joy.

“The convicts, under the command of warders armed with lathis, were already receiving their breakfast. They squatted in long rows, each man holding a tin pannikin, while two warders with buckets marched round ladling out rice; it seemed quite a homely, jolly scene, after the hanging. An enormous relief had come upon us now that the job was done. One felt an impulse to sing, to break into a run, to snigger. All at once everyone began chattering gaily.”

This image of the other prisoners eating after their comrade has been executed highlights the continuation of basic human life instincts, even in horrific circumstances. The description of the condemned men eating breakfast under the supervision of armed guards as “a homely, jolly scene” is highly ironic. The relief and exuberance of the company following the execution seem to stem from a desire to celebrate and enjoy their own lives after confronting the reality of death.

“Do you know, sir, our friend (he meant the dead man), when he heard his appeal had been dismissed, he pissed on the floor of his cell. From fright. –Kindly take one of my cigarettes, sir. Do you not admire my new silver case, sir? From the boxwallah, two rupees eight annas. Classy European style.”

The broken, stereotypical, and excessively deferential language of the “Eurasian boy” illustrates how, for all his hatred of empire, Orwell is still susceptible to the prejudices of his time. The anecdote is the only indication we receive of any emotional distress on the prisoner’s part. That the episode is recounted so callously generates a considerable degree of pathos. The lack of any intervention or comment from the narrative voice is noteworthy.