George Orwell: Essays

A hanging

What image does the writer use to describe and explain how the guards held the prisoner?

In your opinion, why do you think everyone finds the behavior of the dog so upsetting?

Explain what the writer realized for the first time.

At the end of this narrative, the magistrates are laughing loudly and drinking whiskey. Why do you think they are behaving so inappropriately?

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What image does the writer use to describe and explain how the guards held the prisoner?

From the text:

Six tall Indian warders were guarding him and getting him ready for the gallows. Two of them stood by with rifles and fixed bayonets, while the others handcuffed him, passed a chain through his handcuffs and fixed it to their belts, and lashed his arms tight to his sides. They crowded very close about him, with their hands always on him in a careful, caressing grip, as though all the while feeling him to make sure he was there. It was like men handling a fish which is still alive and may jump back into the water. But he stood quite unresisting, yielding his arms limply to the ropes, as though he hardly noticed what was happening.

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