Essay On Dead Man Walking

Sister Helen accuses Edwin Edwards of condoning the death penalty so as not to risk his political career.Do you believe that Edwards is doing his job as governor by carrying out the will of the people, or should he act upon his own convictions?

Has reading this book caused you to reexamine your position on the death penalty?

Which arguments did you find more persuasive: Sister Helen's against the death penalty, or the Harveys' in favor of it?

Robert says, "This whole death penalty ain't nothing but politics" [p. What does he mean by this, and do you think he has a point?

A greatly disproportionate number of the prisoners executed are black.

Sister Helen Prejean looks back on the life and career of her father-- a good man who helped the black people in his segregated community-- and reflects that "systems inflict pain and hardship in people's lives and...being kind in an unjust system is not enough" [p. Does Sister Helen fit your own conception of a nun?

Sister Helen believes that a nun, as a servant of God, should serve the poor, and she sees her political activism as a way of serving the poor.Do you think the South's history contributed to this inequity, and, if so, how? "Look how shamefully secret this whole thing is," says the lawyer Millard Farmer. Do you believe that there is in fact any such thing in today's world as being truly apolitical or above politics?How does that history continue to mold the lives of black and white citizens? "If most people in Louisiana would see what the state did tonight, they would throw up" [p. Both Farmer and Sister Helen believe that performing executions in public would turn opinion against capital punishment. Or do you think, like many, that witnessing executions would simply desensitize citizens about death? What about Camus's next assertion, that the death penalty is as evil as first degree murder because it is premeditated? Sister Helen believes that "to claim to be apolitical or neutral in the face of...injustices would be, in actuality, to uphold the status quo-- a very political position to take, and on the side of the oppressors" [p. Sister Helen often speaks of "government" as though it were entirely separate and dissociated from the people themselves.The people responsible for carrying out executions rationalize their actions by saying that they are just doing their jobs.Are men like Phelps, Rabelais, and Blackburn justified in believing that they are doing the correct thing?Not at a minute's warning, Not in a loud hour, For me ceased Time's enchantments In hall and bower.There was no tragic transit, No catch of breath, When silent seasons inched me On to this death ...Sister Helen quotes Albert Camus on the death penalty: "To assert..a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no one in his right mind will believe this today" [p. Do you feel this is an accurate view of government, or do you feel that the government we have does reflect, at least in large part, the opinions of its citizens?If so, do you think that it is the government's job to educate and lead public opinion or to follow it?-- A Troubadour-youth I rambled With Life for lyre, The beats of being raging In me like fire.But when I practised eyeing The goal of men, It iced me, and I perished A little then. He is expressing how he feels like a walking,breathing corpse. The Dead Man Walking Analysis Thomas Hardy Characters archetypes.