Capital Punishment In George Orwell's A Hanging

Capital Punishment can be thought of as a cruel but necessary action, but to be the one to actually execute the punishment provides a different outlook on this seemingly imperative act. George Orwell utilizes his own experience as an accomplice in Burma to fuel his strive for change. Orwell orchestrates his essay, “A Hanging,” with the intent to evoke a feeling of animosity from readers towards capital punishment. His detached point of view, depicting the animal like treatment the prisoners endure yet never revealing the reason for their captivity, allows readers to focus on the justice of the punishment instead of the abomination of the crime.
In this essay, it’s not who the author is, it’s who the author isn’t. By having a detached point of view, Orwell is able to establish his credibility with his readers while being an effective narrator with his descriptions. Because he is not the criminal on trial, Orwell is automatically granted ethos among his readers and by posing
Orwell plays off of this well known thought and exaggerates it to cause a greater impact upon the readers and influence their pathos, which, as a result, manipulates their judgement. The details of the conditions the people endured are of no consequence to Orwell’s opposition to capital punishment, they aren’t facts that add or detract, but they do help to influence the reader’s reactions. By comparing humans to an animal in a derogatory manner, it causes a feeling of indignation to come about. In phrases such as,“like men handling a fish” or “He was very troublesome” or even something as simple as “like small animal cages”, Orwell deliberately manipulates these emotions knowing the disbelief readers will experience and uses it to fuel his argument against capital punishment. Orwell’s play on human indignation strengthens his pathos and enhances his narrative against what he perceives as the ultimate