George Orwell, most renowned for his novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), uses his characteristic transparent writing style to record a personal anecdote of 'A Hanging' conducted in a Burmese prison camp where he worked during the British colonial era. Although not explicitly stated, the narrative demonstrates the process of cyclical desensitization towards acts of injustice due to deliberate self-deception combined with the subconscious effect of embedded societal norms. Orwell shows that his recognition of these processes evolves over the course of the story through the use of characters and metonyms. Despite the narrative presenting non-fictional events as they happened from beginning to end, Orwell's work presents the literary techniques used to "move" its readers, making it a work of power over awareness. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay From the first paragraph, one immediately notices how removed the employees of the correctional facility were from the detained prisoners. “We waited in front of the condemned cells, a row of double-barred sheds, like cages for small animals. These were the condemned men, who were to be hanged within a week or two. This extract suggests that the captives were identified to the author simply as animals bred for slaughter (p.1.). Orwell also shows that the poor treatment of the prisoners was indifferent to him through the fact that he shows their poor living conditions but never comments on them, a point further reinforced by the introduction of the main protagonist. Although the condemned man is destined for death, Orwell only reports the physical appearance of his central character: "He was a Hindu, a puny little man, with a shaved head and vague liquid eyes... a thick, growing mustache , absurdly too big for her body. » The writer clearly shows his lack of concern towards 'who' he was guiding to death by never mentioning his thoughts on the criminal's thoughts or what he was found guilty of (p.1.). If Orwell was raised with a morality opposed to murder and was unaware of the prisoner's crime, then we can infer that the author's contempt for his prisoner may have been shaped by his own numbing mechanisms, thus only by what the law he enforced communicated as "wrong" and "right." Drawing on the Darwinist theory of evolution, the mentality of the imperialist era was that the Anglo-Saxons were the sovereign race. Being upper-class Europeans, this ideology undoubtedly had an impact on the writer and his colleagues, notably the superintendent who said looking back at the times: "For God's sake, hurry up, Francis " he said irritably. "The man should have been dead by then. Aren't you ready yet? At his high rank, he was believed to be the most gifted at witnessing death. It's no shock that this character is virtually insensitive to sensitivity on this subject, as his harsh dialogue shows (p.1.). Thus, this is an example of the extent to which a human can detach from their emotions in the face of murder. The next symbolic character presented however is freed from the imprint of the westernized caste system and therefore gives a bias-free interpretation of the prisoner. The first metonym appears as a "large woolly dog, half Airedale, half pariah" on the face. path to the gallows and creates a contradictionlight with the dark tone given previously (p.2.). “He bounded among us with a loud volley of barks and bounded around us waving his whole body, overjoyed to find so many human beings together.” After the superintendent, the dog shows how societal hierarchy can affect perspective (p.2.). The animal, not being part of a social system, did not understand what was happening. In his innocence he saw no group of men marching alongside an illegitimate but marching group of men. The dog confirms that he considered all men equal when he "rushed towards the prisoner and, jumping, tried to lick his face." Despite the dog's interruption of the formal procession, Orwell continues to illustrate the prisoner's march toward death as a continuous process, unlike that of murder (p. 2). The description of the inmate's systematic walk illustrates that everything took place in a "business as usual fashion." “With each step, his muscles slid perfectly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed on the wet gravel.” It was only when the subject actively avoided stepping in a puddle that the author began to view the impending hanging as a heinous act about to take place instead of work or a standard procedure to follow (p. 2.). missing the puddle is a curious action to perform while walking toward death and serves as a moral high point for Orwell who then realizes "what it means to destroy a healthy and conscious man." When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable mistake, of cutting a life short when the tide is full. This man was not dying, he was alive just like we were alive. Noting that this man, who appeared so disabled, was still capable of performing basic reasoning actions, the author was able to identify the prisoner based on the dog's temperament, stating: "He and we were a group of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, suddenly, one of us would disappear – one mind less, one world less. In the same way that the puddle affected Orwell personally, the lynching itself clearly had an impact on the other participants (p. 2). Even though hangings took place every week, the author showed that the prisoner's “repeated cry “Ram!” Ram! Ram! Aries!" to his god, disturbed the workers (except the superintendent) who shared the opinion of "let's finish it, let's stop this abominable noise! ​​The moment of the fall constitutes the physical climax of the piece and the negative effect that This particular hanging had on the prison guards is visible throughout the text: “Everyone had changed color. The Indians had turned as gray as bad coffee and one or two bayonets were flickering. witness to the atrocities committed by humanity, even the dog "withdrew to a corner of the yard, where he stood among the weeds, looking at us with timidity. Let the workers begin to see the same in the prisoner." traits that Orwell had seen or whether they were simply shocked by the man's unusual cries, all the characters obviously felt disturbed (p. 3.) This point can be further confirmed by the men celebrating among themselves to reaffirm. that what they had done was correct. The celebration marks the end of the story but also serves as the start of a new cycle of desensitization in preparation for the following week. It is clear from several lines of the text that they all wanted to distract themselves not only by drinking, but also by laughing profusely for minor reasons: “Several people.