A Hanging

Direct discourse, or dialogue, is used repeatedly in the text and has several functions. It primarily serves to draw the reader’s attention to the ethnic diversity of the group present at the hanging. The standard British English used by the superintendent and the narrator contrasts with the varieties of Indian English spoken by the Dravidian head guard and the “Eurasian boy.” The latter, in particular, mixes Hindi and English terms in a manner that might make his language difficult to understand for some readers, using words such as “boxwallah.” The only dialogue spoken by the prisoner is the name of the Hindu god Ram/Rama, which would be unfamiliar and unintelligible to many of Orwell’s Western readers. When the superintendent gives the order to proceed with the execution, he again speaks in Hindi (“chalo”—“let’s go / get on with it”). The effect of this linguistic variety is to stress the diversity and otherness of the various speakers. This stands in contrast to the universalizing conclusions drawn by the narrator about the shared humanity of all present.

Direct discourse also serves an ironic purpose. On two occasions, members of the execution party complain about their own suffering. First, during the prisoner’s long chanted prayer, the narrator imagines that all present are silently thinking, “[O]h, kill him quickly, get it over, stop that abominable noise!” (Paragraph 13). Then Francis, the guard, recounts how, in dealing with a struggling prisoner in the past, they had “reasoned with him,” asking that he consider “all the pain and trouble you are causing to us!” (Paragraph 22). The contrast between these complaints and the desperation of the silent prisoner highlights the detachment and callousness of the speakers.

Similes are comparisons using “like” or “as.” In this essay, they serve to create a contrast between the moments before and after the execution. At the beginning of the narrative, the guards treat the prisoner “like men handling a fish that is still alive and may jump back into the water” (Paragraph 2). The fishing simile highlights the idea of a life force in full flow, about to be interrupted. After the execution, the prisoner is described “as dead as a stone” (Paragraph 15), having been reduced to an inanimate object.