Watching Death

*This post is based on my opinion not research base*

After revisiting my time lines, I decided to take a second look at execution. Past verses present by the means of method and environment. In the images I choose below, I noticed an evolution I had never really thought about. This notion of death went from being public and in humane to a more private setting and a quicker painless way to pass a criminal’s life. In the beginning death penalties, were few and far between as they are now, but with a few big differences.

People were sentenced to death due to murders and betraying the kings or political figures of the time. Some of the early methods included the cucking stool which consisted of a chair attached to a beam which dunks a person in and out of a body of water by a another person pulling on a rope controlling the lever. This then evolved to dragging a person from a wagon by a rope around their neck. This evolved to hanging someone by rope and removing a platform below them. Then there was a process call stoning which was more of a torture to death way. It involved putting large slabs of stone on a person’s torso crushing them to death. These methods were very painful and were not instant by all means. The French in the 1800’s decided to change the inhumane method of death by inventing a contraption that would cut the heads off of a person in open clean swoop by dropping a sharp blade on the back of a criminal’s neck. This device was called the guillotine. From there on out, a trend evolution was formed to create an instant and painless way to kill criminals. From the guillotine, capital punishment used the firing quad the electric chair. Some places have stopped using the firing squad and electric chair due to the clean up. After the chair, people wanted a less painful way of killing prisoners a new method of injected and over loading person systems with a high dose of drugs. This was called lethal injection and became the most popular way to die. Nowadays lethal injection or the gas chamber is the ways to go because of the easy clean up for the prisons and prisoner’s die in a peaceful state usually his/her sleep. Which brings up the question do they really need a painless method? They harmed someone else or committed a crime so harsh that they were sentenced to death. Why should we give them the easiest and most comfortable way of dying? This is very ironic. From documentaries I have seen, criminals on death row are usually ready and willing to die for their punishment and what to go painless. But I really think they should be punished the manner that is relatable to their committed crime. Some countries still practice older methods of killing such as stoning and firing squads. As the method was humanized the procedure also became more private.

Back in the beginning a community would share in the experience of death whether they like to or not. It was a public affair. The town would gather in the center of the village or in the town square and watch a person plead for forgiveness. Trials were not necessarily fair i.e. Salem Witch Trials. These people would be degraded to their last breath of life and everyone was there to witness it. A family would watch a member die in front of everyone. This was not right. Why a person had to spend their last moments looking into the eyes of a sea of strangers instead a few relatives? Even though the committed a crime I still believe that a person should be able to choose who they want to wittiness their death. The electric chair was one of the last methods to have a large audience. The rooms were seat up with about 12 or more seats. These people main job was to witness the death of a criminal. They would have to sign a contract watch the execution. In the beginning the killer could see the witness but as technology developed they used two way mirrors to protect the watchers. As the years went by and the punishments became “easier” the public setting also diminished. The only people who choose to watch the death were close friends family members or relatives. People do not want to see people die in person we just want to know we have justice. Justice which is a whole can of worms I do not want to go into so we will skip it.

After our first id history class, I feel like it is now coming full circle in a matter of speaking. Now we want to preserve the death in share the death. By doing documentaries, by creating a pixilated sarcophagus, people are become interested in death again. Some criminals are somewhat a celebrity due to the media and stories retelling the crimes they committed. This feeling of wanting to understand the criminal mind and try to figure out what is going on in their heads is becoming more familiar due to television, newspapers, and books. People are becoming interested again. And I do believe that if you had a public execution people would show up. I am not sure if that would be because people are now jaded and less sensitive to death or the just do not know how they would react to a live killing. I know I am going a bit off topic with this suggestion but it would be an interesting psychological test. Would we react the same way as our ancestors did or would we just brush it off? I am not very sure how I would react. All and all I think I have posed a few new questions for myself which I would have never really asked myself before I had to revisit the evolution of execution timeline.