Oh thank you! I used to be really interested in history when I was in school, but I feel like so much as flown out the window in my brain. Very opinionated people, indeed.
What I found interesting was I was looking up stuff and I saw that in 1868, Scotland and England had their last fully public hanging/executions. And how at the beginning of the century all classes would attend these events, but towards the middle of the century it wasn't considered 'fashionable' to do so anymore. Because I was curious when that practice ended with how the book started. I don't know why I'm surprised it went on that long, but then it was mentioning how newspapers were coming about and I guess media coverage wasn't in favor. And then I was all omg when did newspapers start! :P
Speaking of beheading (warning, tangent coming) I was shocked when reading Giovanni's Room where it mentioned an execution by guillotine. The book's setting was 1950s France. I thought that couldn't be right. As it turns out, France used it on convicted criminals into the 1970s.
Are you serious?? That's shocking to me. Obviously I know some countries still do them and stoning etc., but I wouldn't have thought France would still have been doing them that late. How disturbing.
I could see that. Its always been yuck to me too. Like an afternoon show or something. How did people not faint or puke? But yeah, the article I was reading seemed to infer that they stopped for various reasons, but one was that it was a class issue of the upper not wanting to attend something like that with the lower and the attention they were getting elsewhere.
I'm curious about that Red Queen from long ago. I'd be interested if she really did bathe in blood. Gross.
Death penalty was only abolished in 1981, and the last execution was in 1977. Now, what is mind blowing, and it tells a lot about the evolution of our sensitivity, is that the guillotine is a product of the Enlightenment era. Its invention was instigated by Dr. Guillotin's will to look for a human way to execute people. It was considered that severing heads with a neat, fast, painless whack was more human than an executioner fumbling with an axe (think Marie Stuart) or being hanged, or the wheel, or anything else at the time. People worked on the project, and the guillotine is the result of careful studies about how killing human beings with humanity. (!!) But, again, it meant a fast and painless death, and It was actually a progress. What wasn't, was how it ended in a blood bath during the Terror. In this regard, it became also a kind of mechanization, industrialization of death, an improvement in efficiency, which is definitely not a progress for humanity.
I remember when death penalty was abolished. I remember that it has been a huge controversy, how some people feared that criminality would rise exponientially, how others rejoiced that human rights had won. Strangely, I don't remember people talking a lot about the guillotine itself. There is some kind of tacit cultural agreement at stake there, probably. I am not sure either that guillotine is worse than any other modern way of executing people. What is true, however, is that it brings back collective memories or images of mass executions, and mutilation. Maybe people here in France didn't question the instrument itself, maybe I just don't remember, but it's interesting for me to see how shocking it is to you. And...Ahem...Why is it so shocking? I mean, what I find shocking is that death penalty was only abolished in 1981. What do you see that I don't see?
Thanks for the background and facts. The fact that the death penalty was abolished merely 34 years ago in France is not so shocking form the American POV, where many states still practice capital punishment. When I think about it objectively, the guillotine is no worse than lethal injection, electric char or hanging, and it may in fact be more humane. But there is something _spectacular_ about cutting off heads which makes the use of the guillotine shocking. That, and like Kate mentioned, its association with the Reign of Terror.
What is shocking is the fact that we haven't abolished the death penalty in the US. Even if it did prevent crime (which it doesn't) the system is totally fucked up. Executions are botched all the time. Most death row prisoners spend years and years going through appeals spending untold resources. It's a mess.
Yes, sorry Jenn. I didn't mean to hijack your thread either. It's just that I've obviously always known about the guillotine and that it sometimes lull our critical mind to sleep. I wondered if there was something glaringly obvious that I couldn't see. And in a way, that is exactly what has happened. I had to think hard to imagine what a shock it could be to learn about it now. We also associate it to the Terror of course; but not only, and that's probably because of how history is taught and how we're molded to think about it. About the spectacular thing : people were furious at the time because they felt robbed of the convict's suffering. A few seconds, and it was done. Unacceptable! It made one hell of a ruckus.:)
About public executions : I've just read an article about it, and as far as France is concerned, it seems that executions have progressively become 'secret' from 1870 to 1939 (!!!) when public execution was formally, legally prohibited. Many tendencies concurred to that : the evolution of sensitivities, the fact that the elite feared the crowd, the fact that cities were developing and there was less and less room for it, Foucault's thesis about detention, etc....Sorry again, but also thank you because it lead me to very interesting articles.:)
What I found interesting was I was looking up stuff and I saw that in 1868, Scotland and England had their last fully public hanging/executions. And how at the beginning of the century all classes would attend these events, but towards the middle of the century it wasn't considered 'fashionable' to do so anymore. Because I was curious when that practice ended with how the book started. I don't know why I'm surprised it went on that long, but then it was mentioning how newspapers were coming about and I guess media coverage wasn't in favor. And then I was all omg when did newspapers start! :P
I'm curious about that Red Queen from long ago. I'd be interested if she really did bathe in blood. Gross.
I remember when death penalty was abolished. I remember that it has been a huge controversy, how some people feared that criminality would rise exponientially, how others rejoiced that human rights had won. Strangely, I don't remember people talking a lot about the guillotine itself. There is some kind of tacit cultural agreement at stake there, probably. I am not sure either that guillotine is worse than any other modern way of executing people. What is true, however, is that it brings back collective memories or images of mass executions, and mutilation. Maybe people here in France didn't question the instrument itself, maybe I just don't remember, but it's interesting for me to see how shocking it is to you. And...Ahem...Why is it so shocking? I mean, what I find shocking is that death penalty was only abolished in 1981. What do you see that I don't see?
What is shocking is the fact that we haven't abolished the death penalty in the US. Even if it did prevent crime (which it doesn't) the system is totally fucked up. Executions are botched all the time. Most death row prisoners spend years and years going through appeals spending untold resources. It's a mess.
Jenn - apologies for the thread hijack.
About public executions : I've just read an article about it, and as far as France is concerned, it seems that executions have progressively become 'secret' from 1870 to 1939 (!!!) when public execution was formally, legally prohibited. Many tendencies concurred to that : the evolution of sensitivities, the fact that the elite feared the crowd, the fact that cities were developing and there was less and less room for it, Foucault's thesis about detention, etc....Sorry again, but also thank you because it lead me to very interesting articles.:)
Well, in a way I am.