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The Dog
The puddle represents the prisoner’s humanity and his desire for self-preservation in the face of imminent death. When the prisoner steps around the puddle on his way to be hung, Orwell reflects on the decision-making that small action took, and much of the rest of the essay explores the full capacity of the human life that is about to be cut short. Whether the prisoner has wet feet doesn’t matter, given his impending death, but his desire to keep himself dry demonstrates his fully intact human instincts despite the fact that he will be dead within minutes. The act makes Orwell immensely uncomfortable with both the execution and the system in which he, as an officer, operates, as that system has so dehumanized the prisoner that it became easy to forget his humanity. By stepping around the puddle, the prisoner reminds his colonizers that he is rational, thinking, and feeling, the same as they are. The puddle, in this way, forces Orwell, and readers, to reckon with the weight of the execution that is about to occur.
The Puddle Quotes in A Hanging
The A Hanging quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Puddle. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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A Hanging
Quotes
At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path.
It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man.
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The Puddle Symbol Timeline in A Hanging
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Puddle appears in A Hanging. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
A Hanging
...details about the man who is going to hang. Then, the prisoner steps around a puddle, and Orwell is overwhelmed with the true gravity of killing a living human being. He...
(full context)
