The Plot of Death Penalty in William Thackeray’s and Ivan Turgenev’s Writings: ‘Going to See a Man Hanged’ and ‘The Execution of Tropmann’

Abstract

The article provides a comparative analysis of two works on the theme of death penalty – W. M. Thackeray’s Going to See a Man Hanged and I. S. Turgenev’s The Execution of Tropmann. The main topics considered by the writers have been identified: the moral aspect of punishment, psychology of a condemned person, attitude of the society toward the execution. Special attention is paid to the contrast between inhumanity of the death penalty and people’s everyday routine described by both writers. The analysis performed has revealed undeniable commonness of Thackeray’s and Turgenev’s writings at the poetic level – they have similar narrative approaches, plot structure, description of the audience, and both attempt to penetrate into the psychology of the condemned person. The purpose of writing the works also makes them similar – they both aim to show the absurdness and unacceptability of such a punishment.  To this end, the writers use the genre of essay as the most relevant one in both English and Russian literatures. However, the comparison has established the principle and obvious difference between Going to See a Man Hanged and The Execution of Tropmann. It is particularly visible at the worldview level. Thackeray addresses the event from the Christian point of view, which unites his views with Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s position (this point, however, requires special investigation). Turgenev shows Tropmann’s execution through the prism of individual consciousness, without giving his ideological justification and attracting readers’ attention mainly to the feelings of Tropmann, thus anticipating consideration of the death penalty by a modernist’s consciousness, when the event is perceived at the level of sensory, subjective experience.