Themes: Time and Mortality

Time figures as a central theme in the story. The ticking of Peyton’s pocket watch moments before his hanging, the primary image of time’s passing, is described as “the stroke of a blacksmith’s hammer upon the anvil.” Just like the metal upon the anvil, Peyton is about to be transformed by time. The clock’s ticking becomes a death knell. Not only does the story explore the idea that time can be unforgiving, it also shows how perception defines...

Themes: Reality and Perception

The story can be read as a meditation on the differences between objective reality and the subjective ways we perceive reality. Though it may seem that reality and perception are binaries, the story makes the subtle point that perception itself forms reality. 

To begin, the way the soldiers and Peyton experience his hanging are starkly different. For the soldiers, it is just a procedure to be carried out; for Peyton, the condemned, the hanging is...

Themes: The Futility of War

Early on in the story, the narrative sets up the contrasting images of the lone individual against a group of soldiers. While the individual is passive, as he must be, being bound, the soldiers are busy and efficient. Yet, they are described in curiously static terms, with the sentinels carrying their rifles in “the position known as support,’ that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown...