Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [207]

‘It was a good hanging,’ said Syme reminiscently. ‘I think it spoils it when they tie their feet together. I like to see them kicking. And above all, at the end, the tongue sticking right out, and blue — a quite bright blue. That’s the detail that appeals to me.’ — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 207

Note

Syme speaks of a hanging in the terms one would use to critique an execution scene in a film — ‘spoils it,’ ‘that’s the detail that appeals to me.’ The aesthetic distance converts human suffering into connoisseurship, a chilling index of moral inversion.