Hangman
A hangman is an executioner. In Black Swan Green, hangman becomes Jason Taylors public executioner. The beginning of Hangman as a “character” in the novel stems from an experience Jason had playing a game of the same name in Miss Throckmorton’s class, where he struggles to say the word “Nightingale.” In that moment, Jason’s deepest fear—being publicly outed as a stammerer—takes over. The intensity of his anxiety is captured when he reflects, “It wasn't funny for me, though. Miss Throckmorton was waiting. Every kid in the classroom was waiting. Every crow and every spider in Black Swan Green was waiting. Every cloud, every on every motorway. even Mrs. Thatcher in the House of Commons'd frozen, listening, watching, thinking, What's wrong with Jason Taylor?” (Mitchell 26). Jason’s sense of time stopping shows the pressure he feels and sets the stage for the persona of Hangman and the torment it will cause Jason. Jason is so afraid of his stammer becoming public that he prefers...