Orwell uses himself as a character in this piece, in the service of irony. Another character is a dog. We found the dog to be a brilliant, devastating, well-exploited detail.
This is an excellent study in when to "show" and when to "tell." The 10th paragraph, a reflection on life, death and execution, lends the piece weight, humanity, exceptional insight. He exhorts us readers to pay attention: "He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone—one mind less, one world less." Without the paragraph (of which this quote is a part), the piece might lack the moral bearings it so clearly advances.
Read “A Hanging,” by George Orwell
This is an excellent study in when to "show" and when to "tell." The 10th paragraph, a reflection on life, death and execution, lends the piece weight, humanity, exceptional insight. He exhorts us readers to pay attention: "He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone—one mind less, one world less." Without the paragraph (of which this quote is a part), the piece might lack the moral bearings it so clearly advances.
Read “A Hanging,” by George Orwell
