Dead Man Walking Analysis

Setting is not exactly the point of Dead Man Walking. The book is about the death penalty everywhere, and not just in Louisiana, where the action of the book takes place. Still, the setting matters...

Dead Man Walking is written in first person: it's told from the viewpoint of the author, Sister Helen Prejean. For that reason—surprise, surprise—you mostly get what Prejean knows or sees or he...

Dead Man Walking is a memoir. It's a piece of literary nonfiction that functions as a collection of memories. It's sort of like Walden, only instead of a big old pond, you've got a big old electric...

At times in the book, Prejean is uncertain what to do. Sometimes, she's heartbroken or horrified. There's even one moment where she sounds actively, deeply bitter—when she witnesses Robert's exec...

Dead Man Walking is not a flowery book. It's not a stylish, look-at-me-I'm-a-writer kind of book. It's not a Hemingwayesque, spared down, my-prose-is-so-simple-you-must-gasp-at-my-taciturn-manlines...

"Dead man walking" is a phrase that prison guards in San Quentin used to shout when they took a condemned man out of his cell (7.102). So the title refers to Pat Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie, the...

I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come; for I'd noticed that Providence always did put the righ...

The last few paragraphs of the book are devoted to the victims of Patrick Sonnier, the teenagers Loretta Bourque and David LeBlanc. David's death is compared directly to "Jesus agonizing before he...

Prejean wants this book to persuade everyone. That means you, and you, and you, over there, hiding behind the couch. Shmoop sees you.Where were we? Oh, right. So, in order to persuade everyone, you...

Dead Man Walking doesn't fit well into a classic plot analysis—it doesn't have one plot so much as two plot swings, one involving Pat and one involving Robert. But Shmoop will not be deterred. If...

Okay, we'll give it to you straight: none of Booker's plots even comes close to fitting Dead Man Walking. Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and Return… no, nope, nyet. Tragedy, comedy? Neither...

Sister Helen Prejean accepts an offer to become pen pals with a Death Row inmate named Pat Sonnier. She meets him, gets to know him, becomes his spiritual advisor, and starts to understand how flaw...

In the film, the death row inmate hits on Sister Prejean, because, Hollywood, drama, suspense. That didn't happen in real life. (Source.)In 2014, there were 35 executions in the United States. The...

Dead Man Walking was written by a nun, and it does not overturn any stereotypes about books written by nuns. There isn't much sex in the book, and even less romance. Since the book focuses on heino...

St. Augustine, Confessions (11.68)Walter Berns, For Capital Punishment: Crime and the Morality of the Death Penalty. (10.30)Albert Camus (1.45, first reference), Reflections on the Guillotine...