Hangman Response from Adina

This poem had a very strong moral that I think is important but it was a bit too gory for me. The poem talked a lot about the scaffold growing and growing. In the first part the scaffold is just the size of the courthouse door. In the second section it says “The Hangman’s scaffold had grown in size: Fed by the blood beneath the chute The gallows-tree had taken root”. The scaffold could not have grown by blood but I think it is a metaphor of evil taking root. The scaffold was the instrument of evil that actually killed the innocent people. It grew bigger as more villagers were hanged and nobody did anything. This brings me to my next point. This is a quote that I think is very relevant to the poem. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men to do nothing” (Edmund Burke 1729-1797). This is what exactly happened in this poem. At the beginning the Hangman says the scaffold is for the person that helps him the most. Everyone stands by while people are being hanged because they are afraid if they stand up for them they too will get hanged. Also they hope to be spared because they think they are different then the people how were targeted first. Then at the very end the narrator feels tricked because he thinks that he did not help the Hangman. The Hangman says he helped him by being a coward and not standing up for the other people.

Adina L.