In the story by George Orwell, entitled “A Hanging,” the meaning that is most prevalent is “life”. It’s in everything the narrator sees, whether it’s a playful dog or a man marching towards his death. The attitude towards the hanging that’s looming on the horizon is nonchalant at first, both the warden and the guards treating it as just another thing to do on their schedule. It isn’t until the man steps around a puddle that the narrator realizes he is alive—a simple gesture that reinforces the convict’s will despite being held by two officers. When he begins chanting the name of his god, everyone else around the prisoner takes notice of his liveliness as well. When the deed is done and the man is hanged, the guards must laugh away the heaviness on their shoulders. It is the end of the convict’s life that truly reminds the men of their own. Therefore, life is defined as the collection of an individual’s experiences and emotions. Defining life has been a struggle for philosophy for ages. Some define it in purely scientific ways; others define it as a fundamental and irreducible property of nature. The existential philosopher Soren Kierkegaard proposed that each individual—not society or religion—is solely responsible for giving meaning to life and living it passionately and sincerely (Watts). Following existentialism, it could be said that Orwell’s life was shaped by the observation of this hanging. Orwell himself realizes the importance of life when he gives the convict consideration. The convict may have been heading towards death, but he still chooses to step around the puddle; it’s the fact that he could choose something that makes his life stand out. He was shaken to the core by this simple gesture, if only because he’d forgotten that the skeleton of a convict was alive. Despite this, he noticed the canine’s playful game and watched it keenly, observing that it was unaware of its surroundings and the generally heavy mood surrounding the hanging that was to take place. This is at the heart of Jean-Paul Sartre’s definition of life. In his 1943 book, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology, he states that “People need to experience ‘death consciousness’ so as to wake up ourselves as to what is really important; the authentic in our lives which is life experience, not knowledge “(Sartre). By being conscious of death, and the dying, one can truly learn what living is. It’s not until death becomes a reality that life really begins to gain importance. Once the man is silent and the deed done, all of the observers of his death turn to each other for comfort. They laugh, but all they could do was laugh; they were shaking off the heaviness of the hanging and using each other for support. Life cannot be defined by an outside source. Every life is different, so every person defines life differently. Someone born into wealth would certainly define life in a much different way than someone born into poverty; the wealthy define life as leisurely to some degree, where the poor define life as a constant struggle. Orwell defines life as one’s ability to choose and think, as is evident in “A Hanging” and some of his other works, including, “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” The existentialists believe that each individual is solely responsible for giving life meaning, to the point of defining Absurdism as the point in which man realizes there is no inherit meaning and finds despair—but if one finds meaning in their past, present, and future, then there doesn’t need to be an inherit meaning and there is nothing to despair about.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Jul 2013 02:35:40 +0000
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