Since America's founding, the question of the morality of the death penalty has tormented American society. George Orwell and Truman Capote attempted to solve this problem through fictional and non-fictional tales of the gallows. Capote and Orwell wrote to express their goal of asserting that a life on death row is worth as much as any other life while establishing a negative view of the death penalty through juxtaposition caused by a description darkness of the setting and normal diction in the dialogue. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get an original essay In their respective passages, both Capote and Orwell write with the aim of establishing that a life on death row is worth as much as any other. life. Orwell echoes this statement through the realization that the narrator came to when he "saw the mystery, the unspeakable error, of cutting short a life when it is in full tide" (Orwell) . Furthermore, Capote emphasizes this statement by highlighting the ironic statements made by the spectators during the execution. For example, as Dick and Perry experience the last minutes of their lives, a witness exclaims, “Damn! Is it rain? All the windows down! My new Chevrolet. Christ!" (Capote). The irony of the witnesses worrying about the arrival of their cars while Dick and Perry are not even worried about their necks being broken further demonstrates how the witnesses view the victims of the death penalty as objects rather than real people Capote continues to emphasize the irony of the situation by calling the witnesses to the execution "impatient" (Capote), as if someone were theirs. Both Capote and Orwell use dark imagery and an ironic tone to establish an overall negative view of the death penalty. Orwell immediately expresses a negative view through his personification of the "condemned cells" (Orwell. ); asserting that even the inanimate objects in the gallows were confined to a life of despair. Moreover, in describing how the condemned prisoners "did not resist, limply abandoning their arms to the ropes" (Orwell), Orwell asserts that the punishment of death takes away hope from living men; no doubt robbing them of their lives before they even reached the gallows. Capote builds on his negative view of the death penalty by generating public sympathy for Perry. After steadily building up sympathy for Perry throughout the book, Capote hits the reader with one final emotional blow by describing Perry's (Capote) "childish, slanting, dangling feet." This gives the reader a disturbing image of an innocent child hanging from a noose, rather than a convicted murderer; placing greater emphasis on Orwell and Capote's negative view of the death penalty. Using the juxtaposition brought about by a bleak description of the setting and the normal diction of the dialogue, Capote and Orwell demonstrate the atrocity of society's acceptance of the death penalty as routine. At the beginning of the passage, Capote describes the setting of the gallows as "a dimly lit cavern, cluttered with wood and other debris" (Capote), thus affirming the setting as a depressing place. However, Capote continues to juxtapose this description by describing a pleasant dialogue between spectators of the hanging. As Capote writes, one spectator described the events as “festivities” (Capote); another explaining the action of being hanged as simply "jumping off a diving board" (Capote). Similarly, Orwell juxtaposes his description “desolate” (Orwell) and “.