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Reflections of a Hanging, an Essay by George Orwell commented on by Roy Tomkinson

I would like to share with you an essay; it’s less than 2000 words long, yet, when I first read it the effect on me was quite startling, and that feeling has stayed with me, despite having read this essay many times over the years.

George Orwell: A man tortured by his upbringing, a rebel in many ways. He fought against Fascism in the Spanish Civil War, and yet, as he sees, listens, understands, he becomes disillusioned with humankind—with war, with society, with the relentless pursuit of self-interest—to the exclusion of others. And often, how poverty is swept under the table by those who should have known better. Similarly, I suppose, to Gwyn Thomas, who also fought in the same war and held similar views.

Orwell’s one constant in all this mayhem is that he was always against the Totalitarian State and for democratic socialism. Still, he recognised the danger inherent in National Socialism and how it leads to secularism, bigotry and subjugation of individual free spirit, which turns every individual into a cog of the state, to be used, abused, discarded; purportedly, in the interests of the wider good.

If you get a chance, read some of his Essays and his writings, particularly when he was Editor and writing for Tribune, a left wing magazine. They are a treasure trove into his mind.

Today, I wish to share only one of his essays with you: A Hanging, by George Orwell
It opens: Orwell, a Police Officer in Burma:

“...sodden morning of the rains. A sickly light, like yellow tinfoil… We were waiting outside the condemned cells…”

You are taken straight into the picture; the scene is set for a hanging. Already, in this first paragraph you can feel death’s icy grip on the condemned.

“Six tall Indian wardens were guarding him…” Two held guns with bayonets fixed. Again, you feel his plight is hopeless, as they “close about him.”

The impatient, podgy Superintendent wishes to get it over with so he can have his breakfast. To him, it is just another day at the office, hang a few, flog a few, and then breakfast, an ordinary, nothing-exceptional day. Quicker the better, no compassion, no remorse, the condemned has ceased to be human in his eyes; indeed, a task that must be complete before breakfast, like going to the toilet and then to wash your hands. Hurry up, hurry up, his total thoughts, or breakfast will be delayed.

A dog, bright and breathy appears in the yards, happy and bouncy, wags his tail – a silly dumb animal - makes no distinction. Jumps and tried to lick the prisoner’s face. And the Superintendent, well, he’s annoyed - this dog – how dare it delay his breakfast, and after a kafuffle is caught and held.

Suddenly, realisation of what they are doing sets in for Orwell.
“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.”

The picture of the gallows floods into your mind, erected in a small yard overgrown with weeds. Orwell paints the picture with words and the image is transported directly into your mind.

The prisoner was “half pushed… clumsily up the ladder.” A rope placed around his neck. The prisoner cries out, “Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram! Not urgent and fearful like a prayer or cry for help… rhythmical, almost like the tolling of a bell.”

The dog replies.

Barks.

Minutes pass.

Blank faces.

A clanging noise.

“Chalo!” Shouts the Superintendent.

Silence.

Prisoner gone.

Rope twisting.

The dog is let loose: “it galloped…to the back of the gallows… stopped… barked, and then retreated into a corner… looking timorously out at us.” The dog is timorous, in deference to the dead man; accordingly, the silly dumb animal understands the wrongness of what had just been done.

The Superintendent pokes the body with a stick.

“He’s all right… Eight minutes past eight. Well, that’s all for this morning…”

An enormous relief sweeps over everyone, death is over for today. “One felt an impulse to sing, to break into a run, to snigger. All at once everyone began chattering gaily.”

Now, at last, it was time to eat!

A comment, one of the guards: “Do you know, sir, [talking to Orwell] 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?”

Fright, cigarettes, a silver case: What is happening here? How the extraordinary is made to appear ordinary.

"Several people laughed… I found that I was laughing quite loudly. Everyone was laughing.”

How forced death can be so trivialised; see it enough in its raw state, and yes, I suppose it does become ordinary. I think the German concentration camps prove that. You become anaesthetised, and it even ceases to seem wrong. Indeed, it even seems to grow into a kind of holistic rightness. Somehow, as if what has happened was inevitable, no one’s fault – work - a wriggle out of reality. And then what did they do? “We all had a drink together, native and European alike, quite amicably. The dead man was a hundred yards away.

Read the Essay.

Powerful stuff!