Redemption

Electric Chair

On http://www.anamericanstudies.com/, there is a blog post titled "A Lesson After Dying?" about Troy Davis, a man who was killed by the death penalty just last week after being accused as guilty for murdering a policeman in 1989. In case you did not catch on, the title of Doc Oc's blog post, "A Lesson After Dying?", is a reference to the book A Lesson Before Dying, written by Ernest Gaines. I had the chance to read the book last year over the summer for summer reading. For those of you who are unacquainted with the novel, it's about a black man in the South (seeing any parallels to Davis?) who was accused of murdering a white man by gun (how about now?). Before Jefferson is executed, he gets various lessons from another man, and when he goes to sit down in the chair, he dies as a man rather than the boyish "hog" that he used to be. One cannot help but feel bad for Jefferson not only because he was wrongly accused, but because he had so much personal growth in the time in between when he was sentenced and when he was executed.

What this all comes down to is the concept of redemption. By the time Jefferson had to be executed, he had truly redeemed himself and became a man, which is why the reader feels so upset when he is killed. Davis was not lucky enough to have the chance to redeem himself, but who is to say that if he were to be let free, he would not have redeemed himself then? America was founded upon the ideas of redemption- the first European settlers of the U.S. came over looking for a second chance, trying to find the freedom to practice the religion of their choice, and hoping to get a clean slate and start anew. Many years later the Revolutionary War occurred, when the new inhabitants of the land once again wanted to break free from England and get a chance to live the life they wanted. American history is filled with tons of stories of redemption, and I believe it is an American value we are very proud of. For this reason, it seems very twisted that the death penalty is still used in the United States and that we do not give the second chance to people who have been accused of crimes when Americans throughout time have been give a chance at redemption.