A Hanging

The essay paints an intricate portrait of the complex hierarchies and the linguistic and ethnic diversity of the colonial world, showing the categorical distinctions that exist between the white individuals and the colonial subjects. Only the superintendent and the narrator speak standard British English. The Eurasian functionary and the Dravidian head jailer speak two different variants of English—the former incorporating Hindi terms, the latter with a highly sibilant pronunciation. Both of these characters have a higher status than the regular guards and the prisoners but are very deferential to the white men. The prison is designed to debase the prisoners and diminish their humanity. The condemned man speaks no English—he only repeats the Hindu god’s name, “Ram.”

Throughout the text, Orwell invites his readers to reflect on what it means to be human and the differences between human and animal nature. From the very beginning of empire, colonial rhetoric often sought to justify mistreatment and exploitation of native peoples by comparing them to animals. In the first Spanish texts describing the Americas, for example, Spanish colonizers such as Christopher Columbus emphasized Indigenous American people’s nakedness and presented themselves as so-called civilizing influences. At the beginning of “A Hanging,” the condemned prisoners’ cells are compared to “small animal cages” (Paragraph 1), and the image of them squatting silently in front of their bowls of water furthers the parallel between these men and animals in an abattoir, or slaughterhouse. The prisoner is similarly initially compared to a doomed animal: The guards held him “like men handling a fish when it is still alive and may jump back into the water” (Paragraph 2). Like the fish, the prisoner is prone to acting on instinct for self-preservation.

The prisoners remain silent and voiceless while the dialogue takes place between the head guard and the superintendent. At the beginning of the narrative, then, the narrator invites the reader to adopt a colonialist perspective, seeing the condemned prisoners as animals and their captors as their superiors. This outlook is profoundly disrupted by the arrival of the dog, who sees no difference between the various members of the procession and is simply “wild with glee at finding so many human beings together” (Paragraph 6). The dog’s arrival throws the whole procedure into disarray both literally and metaphorically. The prisoner’s orderly escort is scattered as its various members run around and throw stones, trying to capture or send away the dog. The illusion that the officials are somehow more human than their prisoners is shattered as the dog rushes to lick the prisoner’s face.

The dog’s reaction to seeing the prisoner’s body is again set in unfavorable contrast to the behavior of the human beings. While the other witnesses to the execution seem relieved at the man’s death and engage in vulgar humor, the dog whimpers in distress and then becomes silent and subdued. After seeing the prisoner’s dead body, the dog exhibits the shame and guilt that are apparently lacking in the rest of the party: It is described as “sober and conscious of having misbehaved itself” (Paragraph 17). Thus, the dog reflects a respect for the prisoner’s humanity, which is lacking in those who orchestrated his death.