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Moral Issue Essay - Capital Punishment (Destruction of a Healthy Life…
Moral Issue Essay - Capital Punishment
Destruction of a Healthy Life
Statement
As the prisoner walks to the gallows, Orwell describes his body highlighting the fact that the prisoner is alive and should have a lot of life ahead of him.
Quotations
"each step his muscles slid neatly into place"
"destroy a healthy, conscious man"
"All the organs of his body were working"
"his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned"
Analysis
All working well - well oiled machine - beauty of movement - beauty of life.
"destroy" - total annihilation/obliteration of the man
Emphasises that the prisoner is alive
Tricolon - emphasises brain's functionality, his complexity of thought and his humanity.
Wrongness of killing something so alive.
Conditions of the Prison
Statement
From the beginning of the story we are immediately shown the wrongness of capital punishment through the living conditions that the prisoner's have to endure prior to their hanging.
Quotations
"small animal cages"
"quite bare within except for a plank bed and a pot of drinking water"
"sickly light"
Analysis
Dehumanises prisoners.
Prisoners are treated like animals.
No luxuries, no fripperies - nothing but the bare essentials for life.
Death; disease; uncomfortable; no redemption; unpleasant; unhealthy place.
Emphasises the wrongness of capital punishment.
Orwell's Epiphany - Puddle Dodge
Statement
Whilst the prisoner walks to his death he steps aside to avoid a puddle. This incident leads to Orwell's epiphany about the humanity of the prisoner.
Quotations
"his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned"
"he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path"
"He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world"
"one mind less, one world less"
Analysis
Tricolon - emphasises brain's functionality, his complexity of thought and his humanity.
Avoiding the puddle shows his humanity.
The precision of language echoes the clarity of his realisation.
"he" and "we" - proximity of words - not separate - shared humanity
The prisoner is valuable due to his unique perspective of the world.