rachel wall

Posted on June 11, 2007 by drummerboy

crime – Here in Wall’s narrative crime carries two meanings.  The first is one that she mentions is the traditional form of crime that encompasses actions done that go contrary to the laws set up by a government.  The second parrallels the word crime with sin; this makes those things that are called sins in the Bible the equivalent to crimes normally dealt with by the penal system.

nocturnal excursion – An escapade taken by a person  at night with the intent of committing something mischievious or crimelike.  This phrase stuck out in my mind because it reminds me of animals such as raccoons that are nocturnal and carry out the functions needed to survive at night time, much in the same manner as most criminals, especially thiefs.

publicity – the measures, process, of securing public notice (dictionary.com)  Wall admits to saying certain things in her narrative only because of the appeal that it will have to the public.  If this is the case it makes her narrative questionable.  Choosing to leave certain details out because of some gruesome nature is respectable, but picking and choosing which ones you think the public may find more entertaining over others leaves room to question the validity of the narrative itself.

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powers

Posted on June 11, 2007 by bford

escape – “…but as Providence had ordered it, she did not go home that night, and so escaped the  snare I had laid for her.”  This quote is explaining a night in whichPowers had plotted to hide in the bushes, waiting for his intended victim, who would have been raped but she was able to escape via divine intervention.  This did not deter Powers from resuming his intended act of sexual violence and he was subsequently sentenced to jail but was able to esacape. He was then recaptured where he prompted began another plot to flee which was ultimately unsuccessful but gave him fleeting hope if not but for a moment.

awful sin –  This is the terminology used by Powers to refer to his sexual acts these lustful desires were the reason of his downfall.  He says that he disobeyed his master but it was the lust for flesh that began at when he and another woman were left at the house alone that resulted in his raping of a young woman and the death sentence.  He attempted rape twice and was successful once, sealing his fate.

jollity –  Powers writes that this happiness he sensed about his death and his secret hope of further escape kept the notion of his impending doom from troubling his mind.  This seems very odd the the countenances of his spectators would help ease his mind, as if knowing everyone else is happy he is dying makes him feel as if it isn’t so bad.  Very bizarre thought that doesn’t seem altogether very reliably written.

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wall

Posted on June 11, 2007 by bford

Public – At the outset of Wall’s narrative the writer of this narrative chose to speak to the people reading directly saying “…the ever curious Public…will be anxious to know…” This open address to the reader is a bit odd and makes me call into question the authenticity of this particular piece.  It seems very much like the person who will benefit monetarily from this publication is shaping the work right out of the gates to form a reliable story that is victimized by the fundamental structure of the early crime narrative.  The writer even hints at the fact that those “of serious turn of mind” should be interested in the following discourse.

fear of God – At the beginning of Wall’s story he begins as most of the narratives do, with a context of the family life and how the individual responded to their family.  It is safe to say that Wall is another whose path of disobedience began at the early stages writing that her parents “…taught the fear of God.” She not following her parents counsel decided upon living a life without the fear of God and this has accounted for her dire situation.

innocence – Wall’s narrative includes a short list of a few crimes that she had committed as well as her own admittance that there were far too many other crimes to be listed in such a short narrative.  However she is claiming to be innocent of the said burglary for which she is going to be sentenced to death.  It seems ridiculous that she would be so resigned to her fate, even thanking a litany of people, given the fact that she contends the charges to be false.  This leads me to believe that either she had absolutely no faith in the justice system and became so disheartened as to not care of her own death or that there is something contrived in this narrative.

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powers

Posted on June 11, 2007 by chard3ah

Sin- Powers’ narrative is extremely concerned with sin. He explains that a woman when he is young teaches him “that awful sin” (343). The rest of his narrative is largely concerned with sexual crimes, and we see how he blames his later crimes on the woman who first taught him the awful sin.

Escape- Powers manages to escape from jail while awaiting execution, and even says at the conclusion of his narrative that the thought of escape eases his mind off of his execution. After the end of the story, we learn that Powers does in fact escape. This is very much unlike the other narratives we have read in which the criminals accept their fate and are not only willing, but somewhat excited to die. Powers attempts (and successes) in escaping show his unwillingness to accept his fate.

Intention- Powers states that he overtook a young woman “without any evil intentions,” but after raping her says that he “succeeded in my hellish design” (344). Powers’ narrative seems to be full of not evil intentions, but mere opportunity: “for when I saw the opportunity, the devil, or some other evil spirit, gave me the inclination” (334).

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wilson

Posted on June 11, 2007 by bford

denial – The narrative of Elizabeth Wilson is noteworthy because of the fact that she never admits to commit infanticide. Instead she tells a story in which the illegitimate children are killed by their father after he had called her into the woods. She claims that he rebuked his prior offers to bear the financial burden of the infants.,he then told Wilson to kill them which she would not do and drew his pistol to her head and then stomped the life out of two of his kin. Wilson would ultimately come to terms with her sentence and her previous wrongdoings but would not admit to actually murdering the children.

friend – Her the notion of God as being your “friend” during your last days on this earth while in confinement is a fascinating notion of the preparation continually taken by criminals to ready themselves as best they could for the afterlife. Through his mercy God becomes “friend of sinners” and offers them his hand. They must embrace him for he is singly important at this stage in the game, knowing the fate has been determined in this world.

family – The notion of family in this narrative is quite interesting. There is the murder of one’s own children either by the father or the mother, we can’t be sure of Wilson’s testimony, coupled with the notion of illegimate children that cannot be part of a true family being born in sin. There is also the case of the brother who is said to have visited Elizabeth while she was incarcerated and even obtained a letter that was to delay her execution. He being delayed himself along the way back to her execution, arrived 23 minutes after she had been “turned off”. He even was said to have taken her home where he tried to revive her somehow and seeing that she was “irrecovably gone”, “she was decently enterred”.

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mount

Posted on June 11, 2007 by aaust6yp

1. sincerity– this word indicates that Mount confessed to all of his crimes willingly and the account that was published was not given based on any other basis than genuineness. this caught my eye because we have questioned the validity of some of the narratives we have read. here, however, both the narrator and mount himself state that his confession is voluntary. this factor makes the account, perhaps, a little more heartfelt rather than dramatic: “the voluntary confession of Thomas Mount” “in sincerity and truth make the following confession.”

2. desert– mount has an undying urge to abandon people to whom he has agreed to be loyal. it began with his parents, ” at the age of 10 or 11, i quitted my parents” continued through ship assignments, and even through his military enlistments. his desertions always result in more theft. the combination of the two cause a continuous cycle in which mount was caught. this cycle created a life of unrest for him. he was always running and trying to escape the punishment for his life of crime.

3. disguise– mount eventually reaches the point that he must disguise himself in order to even go through the motions of a normal life. “and told her i was a fortune-teller, and repeating several things that i had heard of her, she thought i was really a fortune teller; then i proposed to marry her, and she approved of my offer.” also, “but this i could not do unless i was disguised.” his life had become so corrupt that his original identity had been lost. a disguise was one of the only ways he could escape being caught for his many crimes.

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Levi Ames

Posted on June 11, 2007 by mtt3e

Recompense– Ames repays people he steals from with other stolen goods.  He does not elaborate on why he chooses to recompense certain people for their losses.  Maybe he only repays people who know he stole from him so they won’t report him to the authorities, but still it seems like a stranger bartering system.  Perhaps, because he seems to steal almost compulsively, he feels bad about his thefts later.  He says at one point “but though I lived such a wicked life, it was not without some severe checks of conscience.  For after I had stolen, I had been so distressed at times, as to be obliged to go back and throw the stolen goods at the door, or into the yard, that the owners might have them again.”

 

Personalization– In these narratives, it is common for the condemned to read Bible passages and think that God is speaking directly to them.  These passages usually have something to do with redemption.  Ames says of one passage “[I] could not help looking on this as God’s gracious promise to me, and I tho’t that as I knew God could not lie, if I would not believe this, I would believe nothing.”

 

Blame– A lot of the texts vilify minorities and women, but Ames blatantly blames women for his stealing (although the two are completely unrelated).  He warns youth against “bad women” who he says “have undone many, and by whom I have suffered much, the unlawful intercourse with them I have found by sad experience, leading to almost every sin.”  He makes it sound as though he were tricked into intercourse by these women.

 

 

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Syllavan

Posted on June 11, 2007 by mtt3e

Submission– Owen’s submission to authority is complicated.  Although Owen seems rebellious early in life, seeing his parents as tyrannical, he later becomes a model citizen and even takes “great delight in discipline” in the army.  Despite his outward submission, he is one of the least submissive characters from the narratives so far.  He is not openly disdainful as Fly was, but he never stops his counterfeit business (even in jail), negotiates with his jailers, and refuses to give away his cohorts.  In the end he says that he is “not willing to die.”

 

Guilt– Owen confesses to his crimes, but he never seems to think of himself as “guilty.”  He turns the guilt on the criminal justice system when he says that he will not “betray them (his partners), or be guilty of shedding their blood.”  He has a perspective that many modern readers can by sympathetic to, which is that murder is a more serious crime than counterfeit and counterfeit should not be punishable by death.  Although he says at one point that he “deserves” the gallows, he seems to be talking more about the standard punishment than the punishment he thinks he deserves.

 

Money-Maker– According to the text, early in Syllavan’s life, there are no signs of his being overly ambitious or greedy, but later his identity becomes completely wrapped up in his job as a money-maker.  Despite the promise he showed in other fields, he does not seem to consider switching once he gets in trouble.  People refer to him as money-maker, often in a derogatory way, but it is a carefully crafted career for him that he takes seriously and seems to take pride in.

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powers

Posted on June 10, 2007 by aaust6yp

1. naturally-Powers never tries to blame his “villainous” acts on others. he believes them to be part of his character-an innate aspect of himself. “but i was naturally too much inclined to vice, to profit by his precepts of example…” “but being naturally vicious i improved my talents…” “i supposed it was because i was naturally inclined to be light-fingered…” this is contrasting to many of the other narratives we have read. he doesn’t try to find an alibi for his actions such as his lack of education or an impoverished family. rather, he creates an image for himself that an onlooker would regard as perhaps the worst kind of villain-the natural kind, a truly evil person.

2. liberty– powers is always in search of liberty or freedom. “with the help of two of my companions we broke goal after three hours hard work.” this depiction of liberty in this narrative goes back to our earlier discussions of how prisons, although a more humane form of punishment, punishes a person by depriving them of their liberty. powers is obviously, whether consciously or subconsciously, keen to the idea of how valuable liberty is. “i sawed off my pinions across the grates of the prison; and with the help of a knife, got a piece of board, with which i pryed off the grate. i then went to work to cut up my blanket, into strips, tying them together from the grate, i descended from the upper loft.” the extent to which power goes to attain his freedom is indicative of how valuable a luxury freedom and liberty is to a person.

3. donor-this is by far the first time the idea of donating has been addressed in any narrative. this is interesting because the criminal’s worth is so belittled in a community due to their acts and accusation of crime. they are seen, until conversion, and then only by the ministers who have invested so much time in the conversion, as worthless, less valuable than an innocent person within the community. this is even true of today.. however, in powers’ case, his physical body became of actual monetary value. the criminal became of value to society.

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thomas powers

Posted on June 10, 2007 by drummerboy

deceit – having something or someone appear to be something that they are not.  this happened to Powers a lot in his narrative.  Many times after his escape he turned to familiar people to take him in and help him in his time of need, with the end result being betrayal on their part.  I’m not so convinced that this was a factor of his being a convict, or the fact that he was a black man which in that time was a  sort of imprisonment in its own right.

justice – To Powers justice was receiving a punishment suitable for the crime that he committed.  Ravishment was an unforgiveable crime and it deserved an unforgiveable punishment, and what better than death.

wicked – mischievious or playfully malicious (dictionary.com) Powers started out early as a mischievious person stealing things from whomever he lived with.  He admits himself that if he had received a beating severe enough after being caught stealing then that would have stifled his desire to do wrong.  By not receiving that just punishment, it lead to him enjoying his wrong in am almost playful manner and this lead to his becoming wicked.  Wicked enough to fathom rape in his mind and to carry out the act.

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