Orwell starts this piece by giving a description of the environment in which the prisoners live, but intentionally stays away from describing any of them directly, instead, he lumps them all together with the phrase, "In some of them (cells) brown, silent men were squatting at the inner bars, their blankets draped around them". I feel that he has done this, in order to focus the tone of the story at the steady, day to day feel that what is about the happ

After the prisoner has been executed, there is a profound sense of relief through the party. The only member not suddenly made cheerful by the prisoner’s execution is the dog, who skulks off into a corner of the compound. The rest of the party begins to deal with the horror of what they had just witnessed by telling jokes, and here we see different people dealing with these emotions in different ways. Francis begins telling humorous anecdotes, which soon has the whole party laughing, even the jaded superintendent, while an Eurasian boy talks about the dead man with no more thought than that of casual conversation; indeed, he makes more out of his cigarette case, than of the dead man’s reaction on hearing the denial of his appeal. The superintendent is the only one who appears to have made peace with the hard emotions, and seems to show pity on the others in the party: "You’d better all come out and have a drink," he said quite genially. The superintendent seems to know what t!

As the story progresses, we are introduced to the character of the playful dog, "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". I feel that Orwell uses the dog to play a counter melody to the feelings of the men. Where the group is faced with the unpleasantness of the task ahead, and the general mood is morbid, the dog is feeling joyful, and playful. I think that Orwell is trying to send a message with the dog, and the actions of the characters at the end of the story. After the man is hung, the humans make an attempt to place the event behind themselves as quickly as possible, by acting boisterous, and attempting to laugh the horrible event off. The dog, on the other hand, aft

Some topics in this essay:
Hanging Orwell, taking life, deal concept, introduced character, hanging event, story continues, orwell trying,