A Hanging

The motif of the stray dog represents The Inhumanity of the Death Penalty. The dog’s presence causes the solemn procession to the gallows to briefly collapse into farce as various members of the party make failed attempts to capture it. The fact that the dog is equally exuberant and affectionate in greeting the guards and the condemned prisoner undermines and disrupts the discriminatory hierarchies that justify the execution in progress. The dog recognizes all the members of the execution party as human beings and does not differentiate between them on the basis of race or social class.

The dog is described as large and shaggy, “half Airedale, half pariah” (Paragraph 6). The pariah dog is native to the Indian subcontinent, whereas the Airedale terrier originates from Yorkshire. The dog’s hybrid identity reflects the mixture of ethnicities and cultures brought together under British imperial command in George Orwell’s narrative. The dog’s troubled and fearful response to the prisoner’s death serves as an indictment of the execution and those who facilitated it. Its reaction suggests that even an animal instinctively understands that killing another being is wrong.