...‘A Hanging.’ By George Orwell ‘A Hanging’ is a non fiction essay written by George Orwell in 1931 in which he recounts a personal experience in Burma as police officer where he observes a ‘criminal’ being hanged. The essay presents the reader with the subject of capital punishment in a structure to challenge the reader’s views and stipulate a response from the readers as it is a subject that creates a great controversy. Orwell chooses not to use facts such as statistics and figures that simply asks and creates a black and white answer; instead he arouses the readers emotions through imagery, setting and narrative structure as he explores the themes and the message. The essay starts with a pessimistic description of the setting instantly creating a depressing mood as the rain is ‘sodden’ which creates a negative depiction. Orwell’s use of pathetic fallacy is evident as the rain symbolises sadness and tragedy. The reader is made aware of the prisoner’s unhealthy living conditions through Orwell’s wordchoice: “a sickly light, like yellow tinfoil.” The simile suggests that the light appears unnatural. The word ‘sickly’ implies the sense of illness and wrongness as ‘yellow tinfoil’ further the feeling of death, decay and unnaturalness of the prisoners being left to rot. The feelings of unnaturalness is continued throughout the essay as his point is that killing a life, whilst in full flow is unnatural and appears to strengthen Orwell’s feeling of being against capital punishment...
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...and society has different norms and ways of living their lives which can be difficult for others to understand. When you meet a stranger in the street in Minnesota it is almost considered compulsory to say hi when you pass by, at least where the author of the article “Living with strangers’’ is from. Her name is Siri Hustvedt and she wrote the essay in 2002 which was published in The New York Times. She moved from the country in Minnesota to New York City where addressing strangers on the street is considered very odd. Siri Hustvedt’s essay is inspired by this difference between the norms and ways of doing things. The title “Living with strangers” is a bit of a paradox, because living with someone would normally make them everything else than strangers. In Siri Hustvedts life that isn’t the case. She moves to New York City where there live a whole lot of people. In New York City you are surrounded by more and more people, nonetheless you get more and more isolated in your own little world. This isolation and exclusion from the world outside is what Siri Husvedt’s essay is based on. From her apartment she could hear and watch things which should have been kept private such as a couple arguing and men only wearing underwear. They could almost have been roommates or something but they were just fellow New Yorkers who had unintentionally shared private moments. She is living with strangers. “Pretend it isn’t happening”(p.1.l.20) is a law which every citizen of New York City live by...
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...Orwell also incorporates imagery and personification to solidify his theme. "A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love" (William Butler Yeates). Imagery in George Orwell's "A Hanging" plays a huge role in expressing the main character pity toward the prisoner. In the beginning of the essay Orwell's paints a dreary setting of the prison but also shows no pity or remorse for the prisoner when he describes him as "a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes. He had a thick, sprouting mustache, absurdly too big for his body, rather like the mustache of a comic man on the films."(409) This shows how in the beginning its just another day and another person, but then as you read on, around pages 410 and the beginning of 411 the characters attitude towards the prisoner changes as he avoids a puddle on the way to the gallows. The condemned man's automatic action of side-stepping the puddle, important to one's own continuing comfort later in the day, makes Orwell begin to think about the Page 2 difference between being alive and being dead, and the horror of what is being done in killing the man. As the piece concludes Orwell reverts back to the stern, almost sense of no remorse towards the prisoner when he writes "We went through the big double gates of the prison, into the road."Pulling at his legs!" exclaimed a Burmese magistrate suddenly, and burst into a loud chuckling. We all began laughing again. At that moment Francis's anecdote seemed extraordinarily...
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...exciting things to do there.’’ So what relation does it have to urban living? Well, in the essay Living with strangers, written by Siri Hustvedt, we get some insight into the life of a person living in a larger city. In this essay, we get to know how everyone is a stranger and in New York City, there rules a special unwritten law, which is the law of PRETENDING IT ISN’T HAPPENING. An aspect of living with some complete strangers that Hustvedt is completely fascinated by, is the aforementioned ‘’law’’ pretend-it isn’t-happening-law, and that is an interesting way to get some insight into this urban living. It is a peculiar occurrence because you would think that moving to the cities would affect the amount of people you socialize with, but most of the time you actually spent indoors and isolated from the big world around you. When you finally move yourself out in the big world, then you spend half of the time looking into the ground and straying away from eye contact with strangers. Interactions between humans in our modern world is quite a complex subject to debate and it will be almost impossible, to find an exact answer to how one should act. Should everyone say hi to each and not really mean it, as they do in Minnesota or should they just mind their own business, as they do in New York? Hustvedt does not have an answer therefore; she tries to come closer to the answer by writing an essay. The essay is a subjective collection of her thoughts on this particular issue that she has chosen...
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...the thoughts of Friedrich Nietzshe. One of Nietzsche’s important topics includes the idea of a rational and intuitive man. This essay will explore the question of whether Nietzsche was right when he said that it is important to live an extra-moral life. In a society where there are many practical careers, such as accountants and scientists, it is difficult to reach back to the ancient Greek society to understand how the rational and the intuitive once blended together in a flourishing society. However, there could be a way in which the rational can become more intuitive. Nietzsche’s claim that the rational could make an attempt at becoming more intuitive in today’s society holds true. Hanne Darboven was a German artist who is primarily known for her systematic charts, sequences of numbers, and her long strands of looped forms that evoke handwriting. Before becoming an artist, Darboven first trained as a pianist, and in the 1960s she studied graphic design in Hamburg, Germany. In 1966, Darboven left Germany for New York, where she met and exhibited with several artists of the burgeoning Minimalist and Conceptual art...
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...The overall theme - The ending In this essay I am going to analyze the short story “The Kangaroo”. The main themes in this essay is growing up, and becoming a man. It is a short story written by John Michael. This short story written by John Michael is told from a 3rd person subjective perspective, and is limited to the boy, who is the main character. This is caused by the way we see everything from the outside (camera view), but we still know what is going on outside of the boy’s head. The way you can see that it is a 3rd person narrator and not an omniscient narrator is because we only follow one characters development through the story. You can see that in this quote: - Blood poured from its nostrils. The boy was fascinated. It shows that we know how the boy feels about the kangaroo dying. The boy (who is the main character in the story) is developing pretty fast and a lot. He starts out with being a bit scared, and he does not want to kill the kangaroo. But the man who is hunting with him is trying to get him to shoot the kangaroo, and keeps telling him to do this. He is almost scaring him, saying that this is his only chance to do it. Even though the boy is scared, he still proceeds to shoot the kangaroo, but afterwards he feels empty. That is written in this quote: - He was empty as if his hears and his guts had been sucked out of the barrel of his gun. He starts to shoot more kangaroos because he wants to feel like a man, and impress the hunter that is teaching...
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...dread and horror. This atmosphere is incredibly critical to the way in which we view the story, which has been criticized both as a racist text and as the first truly critical account of Imperialism. The journey culminates at the inner station where Marlow meets the legendary Kurtz, a character so complex that critics are still analyzing his purpose in the story. Heart of Darkness, is certainly one of the most polarizing novels of the last few centuries, with critical essays singing its praises and damning its aesthetics being almost equal in sheer volume. The watershed of criticisms towards Conrad’s visionary novella burst with Chinua Achebe’s scathing write up of the story, with its famous defaming of Conrad as a “bloody racist” (Achebe 343), that ends with the suggestion that it be banned from student book lists. Achebe’s essay concerns itself largely with issues of race, noting the ways in which Conrad portrays the natives of the Congo as animals. While many have also criticized Achebe’s incendiary essay, it is an important document due to the fact that it caused literary scholars to view Heart of Darkness from a new perspective. Rather than reading from a white European perspective,...
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...For my Independent Literary Response Project I have chosen to compare the following two texts; George Orwell’s, “1984” and” Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”. These texts were chosen because upon researching them I developed a great deal of interest in the plots, and upon starting to read them I was immediately submerged in the capturing storyline. I very much like science fiction novel and ideals involving the topics of seemingly impossible or unimaginable scenarios, and both of the works that I chose have a certain aspect of science fiction to them. “The Road” is book solely about a young boy and his father living in an apocalyptic word that is run by gangs, rapists, cannibals and families clinging on the edge of life. Almost no life exists anymore, the conditions people face each day are unforgiving: abandoned houses, rotting corpses, raging fires and near to nothing as food goes....
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...Fiction Essay Comparison and Contrast of “The Most Dangerous Game” and “The Child by Tiger” Sara Poet ENG 102- B21-LUO 9/7/13 Thesis: In these two stories we observe some of man’s darker nature. We observe two seemingly normal people with dark sides to each of them and will explain how each one is similar and also very different from one another. I. The protagonist, General Zaroff is the main focus of the essay, because of his darker nature and his motivations. A. At first, General Zaroff comes off as welcoming and kind in nature for taking Rainsford in. He gives Rainsford food, clothing and shelter after being lost at sea. B. The man explains to Rainsford that he has been a hunter his whole life and is good at what he does, but he has grown bored of hunting animals. C. He then comes to conclusion that he hunts man because of their strength, courage, and reason. D. Eventually he then forces Rainsford to participate in the game as Zaroff’s game. E. In the end, Rainsford finds his way back to the house and kills Zaroff, leaving him a s “food for the hounds” II. In the story, “The Child by Tiger”, Dick Prosser is the main character of the story. A. At first the story comes of praising Dick, almost making him seem perfect. He is a “deeply religious man” that...
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...Glass Story by Paul Auster Essay by Vanessa Jagna Hoff Levinsen In this essay, we will be working with Paul Auster’s novel “City of Glass”. In the story, we follow the character Daniel Quinn, whose occupation is writing literature. This novel works with different themes that are related to mental health. The first theme we will be talking about is a question of identity; who am I, and who are you? We will follow this with describing human contact’s connection with the sanity of mankind. Social life and its influence on our mentality will lead us to the question of the masks of mankind; who is the real personality among the many faces of a single human. We will also discuss the theme of deciding. What crucial decisions have lead to the life we now live, and what could have been, if our stories had taken place just a tiny bit differently. Last but not least we will go into depth with Quinn’s mental disorder and how it is related to the other characters in the novel. Can a single, presumably random incident change the entire course of our lives? We all have one or more events that changed the entire direction of our own personal tales of existence. It can be a moment of clarity, where we realised we had lived our lives wrong the entire time. It could be the moment we bumped into that special someone, and fell in love. Or maybe it was that day when you received a rather odd phone call; let us say that perhaps you got a phone call from someone who looked for a detective? In Paul...
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...In the essay “The Deer at Providencia,” Annie Dillard illustrates her confusion and awareness of suffering that occurs around her in the world. Dillard begins the essay with explaining her trip to Ecuador, she and three other North Americans went on this trip. (MS 7) On this trip, Dillard realizes the suffering through a deer; thus, the meat of an animal begins to get tenderer the more you let it suffer. (MS 4) The village people tied up the deer so it gets tenderer, but in doing this they make it suffer. Dillard also experiences suffering through a burnt man. (MS 3) Throughout the essay, Dillard uses imagery, tone, and parallelism to describe her awareness and confusion about suffering. (MS 2) Dillard portrays excellent imagery in the narrative...
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...Living with strangers Living with Strangers is an essay written by Siri Hustvedt, and in it she discusses the difference between life in the big city and life in the countryside. More precisely, she discusses the difference in social rules and her opinion on it. Siri begins by briefly describing to the reader how one was expected to behave where she grew up. Whenever you encountered someone on the road, whether you knew them or not, you should always greet them. If you didn’t, you would be considered both rude and a snob, which was pretty much the worst thing you could be in that part of rural Minnesota. When Siri moved to New York City in 1978 and she was met by a world vastly different from what she knew, and quickly learned that the social code of conduct was quite different as well. Greeting everyone you meet simply isn’t practical in downtown New York, as you are confronted with hordes of people every time you leave the apartment. On the subway, you are forced into such close contact with strangers that you can smell their hair oil, perfume and sweat, a level of intimacy reserved for lovers and family in rural Minnesota. Another phenomenon of big city life, or coping technique as she calls it, is that whenever something odd happens in the public space, you simply pretend it isn’t happening. She presents several examples of strange people doing strange things, and every single spectator simply minding their own business. To give any kind of response is viewed as...
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...preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The results of this would be the formation of a new species. Here, then I had at last got a theory by which to work". Charles Darwin, from his autobiography. (1876) This often quoted passage reflects the significance Darwin affords Malthus in formulating his theory of Natural Selection. What "struck" Darwin in Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) was Malthus's observation that in nature plants and animals produce far more offspring than can survive, and that Man too is capable of overproducing if left unchecked. Malthus concluded that unless family size was regulated, man's misery of famine would become globally epidemic and eventually consume Man. Malthus' view that poverty and famine were natural outcomes of population growth and food supply was not popular among social reformers who believed that with proper social structures, all ills of man could be eradicated. Although Malthus thought famine and poverty natural outcomes, the ultimate reason for those outcomes was divine institution. He believed that such natural outcomes were God's way of preventing man from being lazy. Both Darwin and Wallace independantly arrived at similar theories of Natural Selection after reading Malthus. Unlike Malthus, they framed his principle in purely natural terms both in outcome and in ultimate reason. By so doing, they extended Malthus' logic further than Malthus himself could ever take it. They realized that producing more offspring...
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...Terashima January 27, 2014 Descriptive versus Narrative This essay is to compare-contrast a narrative and descriptive essay The essays I chose were, “Are the Rich Happy?” written by Stephen Leacock (1916) for the narrative essay and “Homeless” written by Anna Quindlen (n.d.) for the descriptive essay. The title of both essays is what caught my eye and the reason why I read them. Although, I enjoyed reading both essays, I felt the descriptive essay “Homeless” had more value and was the better read. Therefore, in this essay, I am going to compare/contrast the author’s purpose, the difference in their use of descriptive language, and the impact on the reader’s that each author intended to accomplish through the essay that they wrote. I also plan to show why, in the case of these two essays, I felt that the descriptive essay “Homeless” was the better read. One comparison of these two essays is the descriptive language they use. A narrative essay is written to tell a story. In the essay “Are the Rich Happy?” the author Leacock tells a story of his encounters with people he thought to be rich. He sarcastically tells the story using some vague descriptive language. His descriptions are not such that you can see or feel but, so that you understand who he is talking about, their expressions, and their lifestyles so that you can see the comparison he is making between the rich and the poor. In his essay he speaks of a man who makes fifty thousand dollars a year and has told him with great...
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...Descriptive versus Narrative This essay is to compare-contrast a narrative and descriptive essay The essays I chose were, “Are the Rich Happy?” written by Stephen Leacock (1916) for the narrative essay and “Homeless” written by Anna Quindlen (n.d.) for the descriptive essay. The title of both essays is what caught my eye and the reason why I read them. Although, I enjoyed reading both essays, I felt the descriptive essay “Homeless” had more value and was the better read. Therefore, in this essay, I am going to compare/contrast the author’s purpose, the difference in their use of descriptive language, and the impact on the reader’s that each author intended to accomplish through the essay that they wrote. I also plan to show why, in the case of these two essays, I felt that the descriptive essay “Homeless” was the better read. One comparison of these two essays is the descriptive language they use. A narrative essay is written to tell a story. In the essay “Are the Rich Happy?” the author Leacock tells a story of his encounters with people he thought to be rich. He sarcastically tells the story using some vague descriptive language. His descriptions are not such that you can see or feel but, so that you understand who he is talking about, their expressions, and their lifestyles so that you can see the comparison he is making between the rich and the poor. In his essay he speaks of a man who makes fifty thousand dollars a year and has told him with great frankness that it is impossible...
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