Dead Man Walking - Indepth

The motion picture Dead Man Walking provided a non-fiction insight into the world of crime, justice, and capital punishment. The film cast several characters from different backgrounds and opinion sets in direct conflict with one another. Several small topics and one major topic, capital punishment, were explored over the duration of the movie. While the opinions and reactions of people to Dead Man Walking may vary, the one constant is that people will have a …

…that he was a human being, not an animal or worse. She also was trying to help his family deal with Matthew's actions, and move on knowing that he was a person who made a mistake. In many ways, that statement could very well have been the thesis statement of the movie. Sister Helen, like Jesus, befriended the society-labeled 'vermin', and gave him some semblance of self worth, importance, and most important of all, dignity.