Hugo's "The Last Day on Death Row" Synopsis, Commentary, and Thoughts - Hugo's best novel, entrusted with his thoughts against the death penalty.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885)Wikipedia.
Hugo's Last Days on Death Row was published in 1829.
I read "The Last Days of the Death Penalty" translated by Akio Kogata, published by Ushio Press.
The commentary at the end of the book describes the work as follows
The world has yet to reach a consensus on the abolition of the death penalty. It is understandable that victims and their bereaved families want to kill criminals. It seems unlikely that the tendency to believe that a person deserves to be put to death because he or she has killed someone will ever disappear. On the other hand, some countries in the world have decided to abolish the death penalty and have put it into effect.
In October 1981, France's Mitterrand government finally decided to abolish the death penalty. The death penalty is now in effect. At that time, many French people must have thought of Victor Hugo, who advocated the abolition of the death penalty throughout his life in the 19th century. Hugo had advocated the abolition of the death penalty throughout his life, whether in his novels, poems, political pamphlets, parliamentary speeches, or drawings, and he used every opportunity to advocate it.
Why did Hugo continue to advocate the abolition of the death penalty throughout his life? In this book, we are sure to find out why.
Ushio Publishing House, translated by Akio Kogata, The Last Days of the Death Penalty, p. 375
Hugo remained opposed to the death penalty throughout his life.
This novel is a work of art in the form of the diary of a condemned prisoner awaiting execution.
His opposition to the death penalty can be traced back to his childhood experiences.
His fear and interest in death row can be traced back to his own early childhood experiences. Five-year-old Victor saw dead guerrillas hanging from a tree on the road to Italy, where his father Leopold had been appointed governor of Averlino, and on his way home from a visit to his father, a general in Spain at age 10, he witnessed an execution on the gallows in the square in Burgos. He also witnessed the execution of his mother's lover, General Laurie, who had been Napoleon's personal advisor, and was shot to death.
He later recalled that at the age of sixteen, he witnessed the torture of a young woman branded with a bright red branding iron for stealing in front of the court. And Hugo said that even years later, he could not get the horrifying screams of the victim woman out of his ears.
Ushio Publishing House, Akio Kogata translation of "The Last Days of the Death Penalty", p375-376.
For Hugo, executions must have been nothing short of terrifying.
Interestingly, Tolstoy, the great Russian writer, was also a man who was extremely disgusted by executions. It is said that he too was angered by the executions he witnessed in Paris.
In those days, executions became a spectacle for the people. Many people enjoyed watching them as a form of entertainment.
In such a situation, Hugo and Tolstoy must have looked at it with very different eyes from the people.
In the work, a condemned prisoner continues to write about his own final hours in his journal. Hugo has him tell the following story.
Perhaps it will not be in vain for me to write this way. If I continue this diary of my suffering, hour by hour, minute by minute, with each moment of intense pain, until it becomes physically impossible to continue, will it not carry with it a profound lesson? There may be many lessons for those who condemn in the record of thoughts of impending death, in the unfolding of ever-increasing anguish, in a kind of intellectual dissection of the prisoner. If they read this sentence, will their hands have more weight when one day they throw a thinking head into what is called the scales of justice? Perhaps those who impose that unfortunate punishment once considered that the quick formula of the death sentence includes a slow succession of torture? Have they ever considered the gut-wrenching idea that there is an intelligence in the people they eliminate? An intelligence that relies on life, a soul that has no expectation of death. They see only a falling triangular blade in all this, and they think, perhaps, that for the condemned there is nothing before, nothing after.
This one sentence will make them realize their mistakes. Perhaps one day it will be published, and it will turn their minds for a moment to human suffering, because human suffering is what they cannot imagine. Because human suffering is the one thing they cannot conceive of. They boast that they can kill with little physical suffering. Oh well! Is that the problem? How much physical pain can compare to the pain of the spirit? Fear and pity, these laws that are made this way! Someday it will come, and perhaps this memoir, the last confession of a miserable man, will contribute. ......
Ushio Publishing House, Akio Kogata translation, "The Last Day of the Death Penalty," p. 15.
In this novel, you will continue to listen to the painful inner thoughts of this condemned prisoner. This condemned man is not a savage killer, but even somewhat intelligent. Although Hugo intentionally does not reveal the crime of this man, it is clear that he is not an easy-to-understand, cruel villain.
This work tells the story of such a person's fear and anguish.
Thoughts - From a Dostoevskyian Perspective
And Hugo's Last Days on Death Row.Notre-Dame de Paris.It is a work that the young Dostoevsky was familiar with as well as
Although this work depicted the scene just before the execution of a condemned man, Dostoevsky himself would not have thought at the time that he would later have the same experience.
Dostoevsky was also arrested and sentenced to death in 1849 on the charge of frequenting banned socialist circles.
Just before he was to be executed by firing squad, he was pardoned by the Czar and exiled to Siberia.
Dostoevsky is a man who, just like the protagonist of this work, was on the verge of death. In five minutes I will die! He was in such an extreme situation!
Dostoevsky later wrote his masterpiece novelThe Moron.and let the main character, Marquis Myshkin, talk about his experiences at that time.
One of them was mentioned earlier in Hugo's text, "They are triumphant that they can kill with little suffering to the flesh. Oh well! Is that what the problem is? Compared to the pain of the spirit, how much more can the pain of the body be compared to the pain of the body! In some passages, the response to the words.
The influence of "The Last Days on Death Row" may have been one of the catalysts for Dostoevsky's sublimation of his own experiences into literature.
What do people think when they are placed in an extreme situation where they are "sure to die in a few minutes" by the death penalty? This is a very serious theme, but it is a work that makes us think about important things.
The works themselves are not that long, so they are easy to pick up.
This will be an important book for those interested in death penalty issues.
The above is a synopsis of Hugo's "The Last Day on Death Row": a full-length novel entrusted with Hugo's thoughts against the death penalty.
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