Background Knowledge About the Author and His Works
1) A brief introduction to the author, Jacques Barzun
Connect to www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jpriestley.htm
2) Capital punishment & life imprisonment
Argument
Type of literature: a piece of argument
http://teachnet-lab.org/santab/jeff/sbargue_index.htm
http://homepages.iol.ie/~laoistec/LENGLISH/lpers.html
Detailed study of In Favor of Capital Punishment
Para.1-2 Introduction and admitting that many people of much talent and enlightened goodwill are abolitionists.
Transferred epithet
“ The letters, sad and reproachful, offer me the choice of pleading ignorance…”
“ The assemblage of so much talent and enlightened good will behind a single proposal …”
Parallelism
“ I am asked…”
“ I am told…”
“ I am invited…”
Para.3 The author states that he could be convinced to abolish capital punishment on the condition that:
1) Some fallacies and frivolities in the abolitionist argument are disposed of;
2) The difficulties should be overcome instead of being ignored;
3) The safeguards could be found to really meet the difficulties;
Para.4
The author states that he himself considers the present way of implementing capital punishment is revolting but this cannot be an excuse for the abolitionist to against capital punishment.
Question: Whether capital punishment is justifiable if there is a painless, sudden and dignified death?
Para 5: The four main arguments advanced against the death penalty are:
1) punishment for crime is a primitive idea rooted in revenge;
2) capital punishment does not deter;
3) judicial error being possible, taking life is an appalling risk;
4) a civilized state, to deserve its name, must uphold, not violate, the sanctity of human life.
Para 6-7 Explanation of writer’s agreement on the first pair of propositions.
Question:
1) Why does the writer agree with the first pair of propositions?
2) What does Barzun mean by “the moral basis of civilization”?
Personification
“ No anger, vindictiveness or moral conceit need preside over the removal of such dangers.”
Para 8-11 Both Barzun and the abolitionists base their arguments on a brief in the sanctity of human life.
Abolitionists: capital punishment violates the sanctity of human life.
Barzun: capital punishment protects the sanctity of human life.
1) If capital punishment violates the sanctity of human life, how about the war, the perfect means of killing, launched and supported by these abolitionists?
2) If capital punishment violates the sanctity of human life, how about the bystanders killed by the police who are so excited that he misses the target?
3) If capital punishment violates the sanctity of human life, how about the sanctity of the victims lives?
Conclusion: The absolute sanctity of human life is, for the abolitionists, a slogan rather than a considered proposition.
Para12 -14: The fallacies of the abolitionists should be disposed of.
Fallacy: The victims of violence are easy to forget
Question: Who forgets the victims of violence?
1) Social science: forgetting the victim and paying greater attention to and showing more concern for the criminal who is supposed to be mentally troubled, abnormal or a problem case.
2) Psychiatry and moral liberalism: believe that criminals are sick people who should be cured rather than punished.
3) Modern literature: only interested in people who are mentally and spiritually troubled.
4) The determinism of natural science: strengthens the assumption that all evils in a society have been brought abut by the existing conditions and circumstances of that society.
5) French jurist: It is society alone that should be held responsible for the criminal and his crime
Sarcasm
“ it is too bad.” Cvek alone seems instructive,…”
Determinism: the doctrine that everything, especially one’s choice of action, is determined by a sequence of causes independent of one’s will
The author’s argument: Since so many ordinary people’s lives are deprived by the criminals, where does the sanctity of life begin?
Para15-19: The frivolities of the abolitionists should be disposed of.
Question: What are the frivolities the abolitionists cling to?
Hypotheses: the criminals’ misdeed is “the fault of society”,
Can criminal be cured?
1) The “scientific” means of cure are more than uncertain.
2) Imprisonment only increases the killer’s antisocial feelings.
3) Reformatories and mental hospitals are too full to hold the criminals and these institutions are inclined to release their inmates.
4) Once be released, they will be killer again.
Conclusion: Society has failed twice to protect the victims when convicted murderers are released to commit violent crimes a second time.
Author’s standpoint uttered in Para.16 is: ________________.
Irrationally taking the life of another
↓
crimes passionnels maniac bank robber
( forgiven) ( sentenced to death)
“ This confused echo of modern literature and modern science defines the choice before us….”
—The psychology of this killer is a confused representation of the influence of modern literature and science. This psychology of the killer describes exactly the choice that lies before us.
Question: What is the choice?
— capital punishment
— abolition of capital punishment
— treating the killer as a sick person who is to be cure.
“ …but also a re-education of the mind, so as to throw into correct perspective the garbled ideas of … of our times.” — to cure this type of killer one must also change his way of thinking so that he can judge and interpret correctly the ideas of Freud, Nietzsche, Gide and Dostoevski which he distorted or misunderstood. This killer, with a mania for power, and people of his sort got their garbled ideas from the culture and mood of our times.
“ if psychiatry were sure … the shooting start.”
Sarcasm
“ Failing a second birth …less hypocritical?”
Para. 20: Our society is far from civilized institutions.
Assumption: Establish a law sentencing to death the people who violate the sanctity of orderly discourse in arriving at justice, …
The suggestion of a such a law sounds ludicrous.
Para21-23: Imprisonment is worse than death.
Exemplification:
1) Wilde’s Defundis
2) Charles Burney’s Solitary Confinement
3) John of Arc
4) Mr. Leslie Hale, M. P.’s Hanged in Error
Conclusion: Both capital punishment and imprisonment are irrevocable sentence.
Question:
1) Pick out the words and phrases used to describe how terrible the imprisonment is.
2) How do you understand of the “ I shall believe in the abolitionist’s present view only after he has emerged from twelve months in a convict cell.
3) Barzun states a “model prisoner (is) first a contradiction in terms, and second, an exemplar of what a free society should not want.” Why?
Para.25-28 The fault in the present system is not the sentence but the fallible procedure.
Question:
1) What are the specifics of the Dr. Samuel H. Sheppard, Jr. case? Why was he freed?
2) What reforms in judicial procedures does Barzun suggest?
Para.29 Conclusion: To abolish capital punishment is to violate the sanctity of human life.
Oral practice: Talking about the following questions:
1. Does the writer try to appeal to the readers’ emotions or does he try to convince with logical facts? Cite example.
2. What does the vocabulary of this essay tell you about the audience to whom this essay is addressed?
3. What paragraph organizes the essay? Using this paragraph as a guide, divide the essay into its component parts.
4. What is the unifying theme of the essay?
5. What kind of detail is primarily used to develop the following paragraphs:21,23, and 25?
6. How is transition accomplished between the following paragraphs: 7 and 8, 14 and 15, 22 and 23?
7. Is it fair to say that this essay is largely a seconding of the author’s personal views?
8. Have you found any fallacy in the writer’s arguments?
Paraphrase:
1. The letters, sad and reproachful, offer me the choice of pleading ignorance or being proved insensitive. (Para1)
2. I am indeed aware that the movement for abolition is widespread and articulate (Para 2)
3. I start out by granting that my conclusion is arguable (Para 3)
4. There is pleasure in the spectacle of an airtight case (Para 3)
5. The illicit jump we find here, on the threshold of the inquiry, is characteristic of the abolitionist (Para 4)
6. No anger, vindictiveness or moral conceit need preside over the removal of such dangers. (Para 6)
7. It might be extended to other acts that destroy, precisely, the moral basis of civilization (Para 6)
8. The propaganda for abolition speaks in hushed tones of the sanctity of human life (Para 8)
9. They will bless our arms and pray for victory when called upon, the sixth commandment notwithstanding (Para 8)
10. Absolute sanctity means letting the cutthroat have his sweet will of you (Para 9)
11. The absolute sanctity of human life is , for the abolitionist, a slogan rather than a considered proposition. (Para 9)
12. the “patient material” monopolizes the interest of increasing groups of people among the most generous and learned (Para 12)
13. We are sorry, of course , but they do not interest science on its march. (Para 13)
14. The remote results are beyond our ken (Para 14)
15. Doubtless a nine-year-old mind is housed in that 150 pounds of unguided muscle. (Para15)
Organization Pattern
1) The thesis stated in the title of the essay: In favor of capital punishment
2) In this piece the writer does not appeal mainly to the emotions of the reader.
3) The writer tries to convince his reader through facts and logical reasoning and by refuting the fallacies of his opponents.
4) Weakness: Many abstract terms in essay remain undefined and vague.
Style and Language Features
1) Smooth and polish
2) Convincing and formal
3) Use of many learned, and specialized terms
4) Rhetorical Devices
metaphor
simile
ellipsis
transferred epithet
metonymy
euphemism
Connect to http://www.megabrands.com/carroll/faq3.htmlto get specific information on rhetorical devices
Special Difficulties
Identifying and understanding technical terms in this essay
capital imprisonment
execution
judicial homicide
euthanasia
counsel testimony
penitentiary
miscarriage of justice
acquittal
parole