What do you think of when you hear “death sentence”? Probably someone being injected with lethal fluids and toxins with a sole purpose of immediate death. Another idea that might come to mind would be the classic electric chair. Somebody sitting there expressionless, waiting for the electric bolts to pulse through their body leading to a painful death. Maybe also a gas chamber, or hanging that was used in movies that take place many years ago. The main form of the death penalty used in today’s society would be lethal injection, as it is considered the most humane method. Up until that point the main method used was the electric chair. In Sherman Alexie’s poem, “Capital Punishment”, he aims at the idea of the electric chair. Alexie describes
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His poem, “Capital Punishment”, appeared in a 1996 issue of the Indiana Review and became fairly well-known. Alexie decided to write the poem not long after reading media coverage of an actual execution in his home state of Washington. Alexie’s poem is about a man who is being sentenced the death penalty. The point of view in the poem is a look through the eyes of a chef preparing his last meal. The man being executed is Indian, just as Alexie is as well. It seems throughout the poem, Alexie is looking back through flashbacks of times he has had and then focuses back at what he is doing in the moment. In the beginning, Alexie talks about how it is mostly the darker ones who sit in the chair when the white people die. He refers to the Indian man as an example claiming he tried to win a bet by shoving his fist down someone’s throat. Alexie goes on to say that Indians are always gambling which is a typical stereotype of Indians. Alexie states the Indian does not want much for his last meal, just a baked potato, salad, and tall glass of ice water. He says he can add whatever he wants to the food for the warden because he will eat what is given to him, but cooks …show more content…
I chose ‘Electric Chair’ by Andy Warhol. The scene Warhol hand-printed on the canvas was an empty room with an electric chair at its center. It seems to be a pretty far away shot of the chair in the room, really showing how large the room is. There is nothing around the chair except for a cable running beneath the seat and curled up in front of it. The empty floor space around it seems to be barely illuminated with his use of silver, black and white. The surface he used to work on seems fairly uneven. There are patchy areas that have been layered that are noticeable as well. Warhol created this piece in his design studio in New York. He used a picture of the chair used in the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for passing information on the atomic bomb to Russia during the Second World War. He blew the photo up and transferred it in glue onto silk, then rolled ink across it so it would go through the silk. Warhol developed this new hand-printing process himself and used it for many years. Warhol used this piece as a part of his series he created called Death and Disaster, depicting major car crashes and suicides. Warhol uses death and silence in his painting creating a sheer emptiness of the room with the chair. This relates to the poem because of the use of the electric chair. It also relates with the emptiness and
His poem, “Capital Punishment”, appeared in a 1996 issue of the Indiana Review and became fairly well-known. Alexie decided to write the poem not long after reading media coverage of an actual execution in his home state of Washington. Alexie’s poem is about a man who is being sentenced the death penalty. The point of view in the poem is a look through the eyes of a chef preparing his last meal. The man being executed is Indian, just as Alexie is as well. It seems throughout the poem, Alexie is looking back through flashbacks of times he has had and then focuses back at what he is doing in the moment. In the beginning, Alexie talks about how it is mostly the darker ones who sit in the chair when the white people die. He refers to the Indian man as an example claiming he tried to win a bet by shoving his fist down someone’s throat. Alexie goes on to say that Indians are always gambling which is a typical stereotype of Indians. Alexie states the Indian does not want much for his last meal, just a baked potato, salad, and tall glass of ice water. He says he can add whatever he wants to the food for the warden because he will eat what is given to him, but cooks …show more content…
I chose ‘Electric Chair’ by Andy Warhol. The scene Warhol hand-printed on the canvas was an empty room with an electric chair at its center. It seems to be a pretty far away shot of the chair in the room, really showing how large the room is. There is nothing around the chair except for a cable running beneath the seat and curled up in front of it. The empty floor space around it seems to be barely illuminated with his use of silver, black and white. The surface he used to work on seems fairly uneven. There are patchy areas that have been layered that are noticeable as well. Warhol created this piece in his design studio in New York. He used a picture of the chair used in the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for passing information on the atomic bomb to Russia during the Second World War. He blew the photo up and transferred it in glue onto silk, then rolled ink across it so it would go through the silk. Warhol developed this new hand-printing process himself and used it for many years. Warhol used this piece as a part of his series he created called Death and Disaster, depicting major car crashes and suicides. Warhol uses death and silence in his painting creating a sheer emptiness of the room with the chair. This relates to the poem because of the use of the electric chair. It also relates with the emptiness and