Dead Man Walking Essay, Research Paper

DEAD MAN Walk

Dead Man Walking is a great book that trades with one of our states most controversial issues: capital penalty. The books storyteller, Sister Helen Prejean, discusses her personal positions on capital penalty. She was a religious adviser and friend to two decease row inmates ; Elmo Patrick Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie. From her experiences, she developed positions on the decease punishment. She believed it was morally incorrect and spoke openly about it. Sister Helen successfully defends her positions on capital penalty while saying that capital penalty should be illegal. Her experiences have taught her that although these felons were unsafe and lifelessly, and that their offenses were inexcusable, a decease sentence should non be the reply.

I believe Sister Helen s success in covering with the issue of capital penalty falls on the two instances for which she was a religious adviser. In these instances, Sister Helen ever tried her best to allow corsets of executing or a tribunal entreaty. She fought for what she believed in and tried her best to get rid of the decease punishment. Sister in no manner condemned what these slayers had done, but tried her best to soothe them in their clip of solitariness, sorrow, and demand.

Sister Helen s first instance, Patrick Sonnier, better influenced my sentiment on capital penalty. Her schemes in covering with a convicted slayer were courageous and brave. She was ever willing to run into with Patrick and to speak about anything he liked. She helped him to recognize his error, but more significantly, helped him to go a better individual. She was ever reminding Pat that God had the power of forgiveness, and that if he were genuinely regretful, God would forgive him. Sister Helen s best statements were the inside informations she spoke approximately anterior to Sonnier s decease. When Sister Helen spoke about Pat s legal defence, it made a large impact on me as a reader. She persuaded me to look at things from two angles, alternatively of merely one. As a reader, I was upset with the comparing between Pat s sentence and his brother s sentence. How could two brothers who conspired in the slaying together receive two different sentences: Pat having a decease sentence, while Pat s brother Eddie having a lesser charge in a life sentence. Sister Helen s method of utilizing the line she overheard at Angola about the incorrect brother is being sent to the chair besides pushes the reader to believe that possibly Louisiana is killing the incorrect adult male. How could you be in favour of capital penalty if you are diffident in respect to its truth? Besides, the methods she uses depicting Pat s last dark are really convincing and accurate. Sister describes in great item the shave of Pat s caput, his concluding March into the decease room, and the guards strapping him down. These descriptions, along with the description of his decease, give the reader the thought that this is awfully incorrect and inhumane. Sister s inside informations truly made me believe that there are other methods available for covering with convicted liquidators. Death does non hold to be one of them.

Sister s following instance was Robert Lee Willie. Although this instance besides presented a strong statement opposing capital penalty, I did no

T experience it was every bit convincing as the Pat Sonnier instance. Sister took on this instance after the decease of Pat, and possibly that had an consequence on her ability to be Robert s religious adviser. Her character in covering with Robert Willie did non look as constructed or convincing as her traffics with Sonnier. Although she fought hard for Willie s life, it seemed like she was content when the Pardon Board made its determination to travel along with the sentence of decease. She seemed to hold the attitude like she knew he was traveling to decease, so why attempt and fight it. I think the cocky attitude and the rebel-like personality of Robert gave Sister Helen these thoughts. Although Robert Lee seemed like a nice adult male, he ne’er felt compunction for his actions. He ne’er apologized to the Harvey s for the slaying of his girl, but did state that he hoped they would acquire some peace by seeing him set to decease. I believe that Sister Helen fought and prayed to see Robert Willie non have the decease sentence he had gotten. But I besides believe that she thought there was no hope. Pat Sonnier had a great opportunity to have a stay of executing. He was highly regretful for his actions and was in the center of a confederacy. I believe Sister thought that if Pat did non acquire a stay, there was no manner that Robert Lee Willie would acquire one either.

The victims of these offenses, the Harvey s, LeBlanc s, and Bourque s, supply a good statement in favour of capital penalty. During these subdivisions of the narrative I believe Sister Helen has non-success in covering with capital penalty. By documenting the households responses, she is seting the reader into an highly personal state of affairs. A great illustration of this is when the Harvey s are depicting the decease of their girl. When Elizabeth s brother went to place the organic structure, he was against capital penalty. But after seeing her dead, crush up, broken organic structure, he was all for it. I believe this is Sister Helen s merely failing in her statements opposing capital penalty. Although she tried to soothe the Harvey s, and demo them that capital penalty was incorrect, she was losing something. Sister was losing the awful feeling of a loved one viciously murdered at the custodies of a slayer. Who is to state that people can non alter their heads about capital penalty? As of now, I am opposed to the decease punishment. If person killed a individual I loved or cared about deeply, and they faced a decease sentence, I would truly hold to see my positions once more. This merely shows that you should ne’er be genuinely positive on your positions about capital penalty until you have had the chance of sing a loss by the custodies of a slayer.

I believe Sister Helen was highly successful in depicting her resistances towards capital penalty. Her experiences as a religious adviser to two decease row inmates gave her cognition about capital penalty that was antecedently merely foundation in her beliefs. Her methods of covering with the statements of capital penalty were honorable and just. She presented herself in a manner that made you listen to everything she had to state about the decease punishment. Her grounds and facts were exhaustively supported throughout the book. She besides allowed the reader to make up one’s mind on his or her ain position of capital penalty.