Dead Man Walking & # 8211 ; Indepth Essay, Research Paper

The gesture image Dead Man Walking provided a non-fiction penetration into the

universe of offense, justness, and capital penalty. The movie cast several characters from

different backgrounds and sentiment sets in direct struggle with one another. Several little

subjects and one major subject, capital penalty, were explored over the continuance of the

film. While the sentiments and reactions of people to Dead Man Walking may change, the

one invariable is that people will hold a reaction.

Sister Helen Preje, the Catholic nun, appeared to be a truly concerned individual

who took a existent involvement in the condemned captive. She came from a strong background

but chose to & # 8220 ; give back & # 8221 ; to others. Sister Helen explained her demand to & # 8220 ; give back & # 8221 ; during

the movie and appeared to be wholly serious about her committedness to assisting others.

Sister Helen did non have on her wont during the class of the movie. Many people have a

stereotyped vision of Catholic nuns: the wont, apparently out-of-touch ideas and

ideals, and older and/or without any verve. Sister Helen showed what being a Catholic

and a Catholic nun is genuinely approximately. She accepted a call for aid from a complete alien.

Alternatively of turning off or giving up, she persisted, demoing what love and, in a manner,

bravery could make under such desperate fortunes. Through it all, she did it with spirit, life,

verve, and strength. Her relationship with the inmate, Matthew Poncelet, was on two

degrees. The first was as a friend and intimate. Sister Helen was the first to truly explore

Matthew for Matthew. Others tried to larn about him, but merely to revile or reprobate him.

The 2nd degree was as a courier of faith, a courier of God. For the really first

clip, Matthew was given the chance to recognize his worth as a human, and his worth

in the eyes of God. Through this apprehension, he was able to recognize the value of all

human life, including those who he murdered. Sister Helen & # 8217 ; s relationship with the households

of Matthew and the victims was honorable and up-front. She approached each with a aspirant

attitude, seeking to understand them while besides seeking to give them peace. In each case,

she was unsure and discerning. This fact is non surprising, nevertheless, because Sister

Helen is merely human, and her faith is human every bit good. The lone way to certainty is

experience, and this was Sister Helen & # 8217 ; s first clip as religious adviser to a death-row

inmate. All in all, Sister Helen was a shining illustration of strength, bravery, and love that

all people could look up to.

In the beginning of the movie, Matthew Poncelet was non a sympathetic character. He

was stubborn, chesty, biased, hateful, and seemed to desire company merely for his ain

amusement. He did non look to care about his offense, nor those whose lives his offense

changed everlastingly. However, he appeared to allow down a guard during the class of the movie,

which revealed a less-monstrous human being fighting internally with a fact about

himself that he could non wipe out, with pride, and with a demand to outlet his internal feelings.

His choler about his sentencing was justified ; his confederate and evident leader was merely

given a life sentence while he was to decease. While this is surely an unjust state of affairs, it is

unfair because the confederate deserved the maximal punishment under the jurisprudence every bit much as

Poncelet. Towards the terminal of the movie, Poncelet appeared to be a changed individual. He

learned, with the aid of Sister Helen, that the truth would salvage him. And in acknowledging the

truth, he learned the value of life and of love. He said in his concluding few hours, & # 8221 ; I needed

to decease to happen love & # 8221 ; But, in the terminal, he appeared to truly accept his actions, the

reverberations of his actions, and his destiny. He was genuinely regretful and changed in the terminal.

Earl Delacroix was the male parent of the teenage male child who was murdered by Matthew

Poncelet. He harbored a batch of hatred and sadness because of the murder. To do

affairs worse, the slaying of his boy caused a rift between Earl and his married woman, finally

taking to the filing of divorce documents. In a manner, Matthew Poncelet killed Earl & # 8217 ; s boy,

his matrimony, and his bosom. Anyone whose interpersonal relationships have been affected

by outside influences could easy associate T

O Earl, an honest adult male with a good bosom.

Obviously, anyone who has lost a kid or even a loved one would associate to the strain,

unhappiness, loss, and emptiness Earl felt after his boy was all of a sudden taken from him. But

the feeling that many, including myself, can associate to is the weakness when a relationship

beloved to you starts stealing off because of outside influences and state of affairss that are

beyond your control. Those state of affairss do non necessitate to affect slaying, but they could

include different household values, intolerant friends or household, illness, employment

differences or alterations, geographical alterations, educational differences, and more. Earl & # 8217 ; s

state of affairs shows how delicate interpersonal relationships genuinely are, and how people must

actively take part in relationships together, and non trust on one facet to keep it strong.

Earl & # 8217 ; s boy was that facet for his matrimony.

The parents of the slain teenage miss, whose girl was non murdered by

Poncelet but was raped by him, were justifiably upset when they learned that person

was taking the clip to seemingly seek to salvage the liquidator. They asked Sister Helen

at one point & # 8220 ; How can you sit with that trash? & # 8221 ; , and asked her to go forth their place when

they realized that she had non become every bit bloody-minded as they were. It was apprehensible

that they felt hurt by a Catholic nun & # 8217 ; s determination to try to assist person who had

no value for human life. However, their onslaughts on Sister Helen, no affair how inactive

aggressive, were condemnable. The household, unlike Mr. Delacroix, showed no involvement in

being helped to understand her state of affairs. They merely wanted her, and everyone else,

to name for blood. The household did non desire to see any equal justness for Matthew Poncelet

and his confederate, they merely wanted either or both dead. Furthermore, it appeared that

they needed Matthew & # 8217 ; s decease for themselves instead than for the interest of justness, or for

their girl. At the terminal of the movie, during Matthew & # 8217 ; s last words to Earl Delacroix,

they griped, & # 8220 ; What about us? ! & # 8221 ; One would inquire what would go on to their

relationship after the decease of Poncelet. Or, what would go on between them and their

other girl. The film left such inquiries unreciprocated, but one is forced to oppugn

whether or non the capital penalty of Matthew Poncelet genuinely served as a healing

for that household, or whether it was merely the beginning of problem for them. Peoples tend

to keep on to a job or terrible, pressing state of affairs as a drive force. Sometimes, without

proper channeling of their feelings and choler, the closing of such a state of affairs leaves a nothingness

excessively big to be overcome. While the reply may non be known in this peculiar instance,

their actions and statements cause viewing audiences to oppugn it.

The movie shows that capital penalty affects more people and lives than one

would comprehend. It besides shows there is value in every human life, and with proper

counsel, anyone can alter. Matthew Poncelet was non a danger to society at the

terminal of the movie. He had been humbled and had made a witting determination to try,

in any manner he could, to ease the hurting he had caused. He provides hope that anyone

in his state of affairs could go a better individual, and could perchance impact lives in a

positive manner. While it might be stretching such an observation to state that a convicted

liquidator should be let free, it would be just to state that a life sentence is non simply

blowing tax-dollars. A life sentence allows a individual to reflect upon his or her past

and alter the individual that he or she is. It allows for the possibility of assisting others

to non do the same errors. Sister Helen stated & # 8220 ; I & # 8217 ; m merely seeking to follow the

illustration of Jesus who said every individual is worth more than her/her worse act. & # 8221 ;

This statement is relevant to her state of affairs because so she was seeking to demo

Levi that he was a human being, non an animate being or worse. She besides was seeking

to assist his household trade with Matthew & # 8217 ; s actions, and travel on knowing that he was

a individual who made a error. In many ways, that statement could really good hold

been the thesis statement of the film. Sister Helen, like Jesus, befriended the

society-labeled & # 8220 ; vermin & # 8221 ; , and gave him some gloss of ego worth, importance,

and most of import of all, self-respect.