Billy Budd And Capital Punishment: A Tale Of Three Centuries

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H. Bruce Franklin of “Billy Budd and Capital Punishment: A Tale of Three Centuries” investigates the underlying controversial feud that represents the issue of the story, and details the debates surrounding the “profound influence on American culture” (1-18).
Capital Punishment is a controversial debate that has been justified and condemned for over a century. When interpreting Billy Budd, there are two general ways to judge the novel, either by admiration or by condemning the story. Both judgments are complete opposites and are entirely hostile toward one another, a way of exemplifying the groups for and against the issue of capital punishment. The article, “Billy Budd and Capital Punishment: A Tale of Three Centuries” deals with more of …show more content…

Opponents of the death penalty referred of the “Georgian Code” as barbaric and repulsive, as well as “a scandal to the rest of the civilized world” (3). Advocates of capital punishment celebrated the progress digressing away from the Bloody Code, especially since England reduced capital offenses to “three class” of murder, none including circumstances of excitement, sudden passion, or provocation (3). However, articles favoring capital punishment argued that executions should be sentenced when intended murder has taken place by the same person who either resisted arrest or was charged with another crime. Since Budd didn’t necessarily kill Claggart with intent, he still killed a man “superior in grade” while Vere instructs the court that they must dismiss the concept of his intent because nevertheless, he struck a man in a higher position than himself [Budd]. As a consequence for his offense, Budd then receives the sentencing of public execution by hanging, a form of capital punishment repulsed by groups but praised by the opposing party. However, current debates in New York were progressing and as a result, the practice of capital punishment was diminishing slowly, with multiple states reducing the consequences deserved for a …show more content…

However, when a more civilized and modern approach was introduced into the association of capital punishment, the “Battle of the Currents” arose in 1887 by Thomas Alva Edison and George Westinghouse, both seeking to create a form of electrocution that would create an impact on not only the concept of capital punishment, but its future, controversially and politically as well (7). As anticipated, newspapers in New York charged into the battle of the currents, with editors in favor of the electrocution process opposed to William Cullen Bryant, who was an intensely devoted opposer of capital punishment. Papers emphasized that in replacement of hanging, electrocution would serve as a new form of “euthanasia” for it was so quick and deadly (7). New York would be the first community to substitute a more civilized execution opposed to more barbarous methods, and create an example the rest of the world would surely follow. Major newspapers in New York referred to electrocution as “a step toward humanity and decency”, with lengthy editorials being regularly published that highly praised the newest form of capital

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