In The Execution of Tropmann Ivan Turgenev describes his views and experience on capital punishment. Ever since Turgenev was little he was surrounded by injustice and cruelty. And this paper describes an event he attended and how his views of capital punishment affected him. His tone throughout the paper is really negative and almost anxious. The event he attended ended up being a beheading of a man named Tropmann, who was convicted of killing a family. The punishment for this crime was a public beheading. The whole even was very foreign to him, because he had never experienced anything like it. One of the reasons why he isn't comfortable at the beheading was because everyone treated it like entertainment. The citizens had to make it a point, to get up early just see this man publicly humiliated, killed. I agree with his point of view, that capital punishment, especially in public is terrible. Of course, a person convicted of a crime deserves some sort of punishment but not a public beheading.
I think his purpose for writing this was that he wants to change people’s opinions on capital punishment, or at least shed a light on how strongly he feels that it’s not justifiable. He wants people to understand that it’s a wrong thing to do. It doesn’t help anyone gain anything it just shows people a cruel world. He explains how, when he was at the execution that he could barely watch, that the whole event just made him sick. He wonders how people could go out of their way to see something like this, especially when they also bring their children. The whole event as he describes it is very gruesome. Like after Troppman’s head is cut off people are dipping their handkerchiefs in his blood, almost like they are taking a souvenir. So they now have proof that they went to the beheading. An argument that could be made is that because this is what people did in this culture they don’t know any better. They were never taught or showed anything different, so how could they know that killing a man in public isn’t getting justice, its being cruel. Turgenev has a lot of good points in this paper, but many people might not feel the way that he does. Like before, some of these people may not know any better, but what about the people that do know better? I think he wonders why these people can’t step up and try to change the way the society is. That people don’t need to be humiliated in front of tons of people just to get justice for a crime he/she may or may not have committed.
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