Characters

The most important characters in the short story “A Hanging” by George Orwell are the first-person narrator and the convict. However, you should also note that the prison employees (the superintendent, the head jailer, the warders, and the magistrates) are relevant for the social setting as a collective character. They illustrate the dehumanising effect of the prison system which turns death sentences into a bureaucratic, ordinary act.

The narrator

The narrator of the short story does not reveal his identity, but given that George Orwell served in the British Imperial Police in Burma, we can assume the narrator is a literary persona of the author.

The only thing the text reveals about the narrator’s outer characterisation is that he is working in law enforcement in Burma, as he is one of the witnesses to an execution by hanging.

Inner characterisation

The narrator’s inner characterisation is constructed based on his attitude towards the other characters and towards the hanging of the prisoner. The narrator’s observations about the prisoners and the convicted man suggest that he pities them: “We were waiting outside the condemned cells, a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages.” (ll. 2-4); “But he stood quite unresisting, yielding his arms limply to the ropes, as though he hardly noticed what was happening.” (ll. 19-21)

The narrator describes the actions and attitudes of prison employees with a subtle sarcasm, suggesting that six men guarding a skinny prisoner is an exaggerated measure.

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The convict

The convict is a secondary, flat character in the short story, but he is relevant because it is his hanging that changes the narrator’s perspective on the death penalty.

Outer characterisation

The convict’s outer characterisation presents him as an unnamed, unusual-looking, Hindu man:

He was a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes. He had a thick, sprouting moustache, absurdly too big for his body, rather like the moustache of a comic man on the films. (ll. 9-12)

We do not know why he was given a death sentence. However, it is worth noting that many Burmese people were convicted for rioting against British rule in the 1930s when the story was published.

Inner characterisation

The man’s inner characterisation is only constructed based on the narrator’s observations of his behaviour on the way to the execution site and during the execution.

Initially, the convict comes across as resigned with his upcoming death. He seems powerless and unresponsive: “But he stood quite unresisting, yielding his arms limply to the ropes, as though he hardly noticed what was happening.” (ll. 19-21)

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