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In “A Hanging,” George Orwell uses a single event in colonial Burma to critique the death penalty and the corrupt tyranny of empire. Whether “A Hanging” should be considered fiction or autobiography is not entirely clear. As a member of the Imperial Police in Burma, Orwell would likely have witnessed hangings, although he is known to have told a friend that “A Hanging” was “just a story” (Crick, Bernard. George Orwell: A Life. Little Brown, 1980, p. 151). On the other hand, in The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), he writes, “I watched a man hanged once; it seemed to me worse than a thousand murders” (Orwell, George. Complete Works of George Orwell. Vol. 5, Secker & Warburg, p. 136). This statement could easily be read as referring to the narrator’s reaction to the execution in “A Hanging.”
Orwell’s biographer, Bernard Crick, concluded that “A Hanging” is “a compound of fact and fiction, honest in intent, true to experience but not necessarily truthful in detail” (Crick, Bernard. George Orwell: A Life. Little Brown, 1980, p. 318). This theory is supported by the critic James Wood, who suggests that the puddle episode in “A Hanging” may have been inspired by a passage in Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1867) in which a condemned man adjusts his blindfold moments before his execution (Wood, James.
By George Orwell
1984
1984
George Orwell
Animal Farm
Animal Farm
George Orwell
Burmese Days
Burmese Days
George Orwell
Coming Up for Air
Coming Up for Air
George Orwell
Down and Out in Paris and London
Down and Out in Paris and London
George Orwell
Homage To Catalonia
Homage To Catalonia
George Orwell
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
George Orwell
Politics and the English Language
Politics and the English Language
George Orwell
Shooting an Elephant
Shooting an Elephant
George Orwell
Such, Such Were the Joys
Such, Such Were the Joys
George Orwell
The Road to Wigan Pier
The Road to Wigan Pier
George Orwell
Why I Write
Why I Write
George Orwell