Tropmann

Ashley G.
Professor Zoller
Life Narratives
12/4/2012

Tropmann

                 This essay was very hard for me to read. I’ve always had mixed feelings about execution. On one hand I feel a sense of justice that the person must pay for their crimes and has been convicted of some heinous act (however justice systems are not always perfect). On the other hand my heart asks, “Who are we as feeble humans to judge, is that not God’s job alone?” The piece really pulled at my heart strings. It was especially hard to hear the author say that Tropmann was younger than twenty probably meaning that he was about nineteen or eighteen; the thought of someone my age murdering someone makes my blood run cold. What made it worse is the fact that I felt somehow drawn to sympathize with Tropmann, almost that he could have been innocent or that his crimes did not fully warrant death. But then again, who are we to judge what crime deserves death? Tropmann, according to history, did in fact “deserve” death. The author could not himself watch the actual execution and I can say definitively that neither could I. I’ve seen movies with comparable violence but I have always taken solace in the fact that the people who were “killed” in films were not actually killed and are not in fact real in any way shape or form. The fact that this account actually happened makes my stomach churn. I know people have been executed before in history but this in-depth and personal account made me uncomfortable. I agree with the author’s final statement that executions should be abolished and that they ought not to be public (as they had been in his day). I do not think that we as humans have the authority over another’s life and we certainly should not give people the sick opportunity to something like this unfold.