Virginia Woolf's A Hanging

“A Hanging” by George Orwell tells the story of a momentous execution of an unidentified Indian inmate. The author does not disclose his background or his name nor does he reveal the crime of which he is condemned. He can be Everyman, depicted just as “a brown, sullen, puny wisp of a man with liquid eyes and a shaven head.” Essentially, the point is it could be anyone: he could be you or I. On the other hand, the “Death of the Moth” describes the short life of a moth corresponding with the true nature of death and life. The story details the moth’s brief life and its consequent death; a mundane evolution under most situations, but one which apparently aroused the interest of the author.

The objective theme that runs in both the essays

Particularly, the first person narration enables the authors to limit the reader’s sympathies by craftily diverting the reader with details that effectively distracts from the facts of the work’s punch. For instance, Virginia Woolf draws the moth as a creature that is noble with great perseverance and dignity. Through the use of the first person narration; the author herself becomes psychologically and emotionally involved in the moth’s battle for survival, with symbolic reference and existential overtones to the moth as a work of art. In the essay of “A Hanging,” the first person narrator to a great extent is unidentified, and this enables Orwell to drive his message home

When applied in tangent with each other, the underlying tones are fortified enough so that the reader of both essays develops and maintains a sense of pity for the “to-be hanged inmate” and the “moth.” Due to the tone, the reader emotionally feels connected to the inmate and moth so that, during the momentary shift in tone; the reader possess a hopeful disposition that both the moth in “The Death of the Moth” and the inmate in the “A Hanging” may yet live. However, in both essays; this notion is crushed when the main characters eventually