New Critical
Analysis of “Capital Punishment”
In Sherman
Alexie’s 1996 poem, “Capital Punishment,” the speaker, a cook at possibly the
Indian reservation prison, explains his process of the food he prepares for an
Indian man about to be executed, and what he does during that execution. From
the beginning of the poem, it is known that an unnamed man, whom the speaker (a
participant narrator) repeatedly refers to as the “Indian man to be executed,”
is considered a criminal for shoving a hand down a white man’s throat because
of a bet about the size of his heart (lines 10-13), and is about to be placed
in an electric chair for his wrongdoings. The speaker prepares the best of food
for those about to die, so they can enjoy their last, and always keeps an
additional sandwich in the back of the fridge in case the condemned survives
his fate the first time. During the execution, the speaker sits alone in the
kitchen with the lights off and contemplates the reasoning behind the executed
man’s fate, and ultimately his own. Overall, the speaker is at conflict with
not only the external world, but internally with himself as well; the most
obvious paradox in the poem is the constantly repeated phrase, “I am not a witness,”
which although is literally true, since he is not physically present at the
execution, is also false; he is a witness at the same time because of all of
the preparations and knowledge of the subject, and his sympathetic relationship
with the “Indian man to be executed.” Therefore the speaker is almost forcibly
denying his presence as a witness to the execution through constant repetition
of the phrase, “I am not a witness,” completely ignoring his up-close
involvement within the event, and ultimately through this denial is
paradoxically letting himself come closer and closer to the same ultimate fate
as that “Indian man to be executed” who shoved his hand down a white man’s
throat to win a lousy bet.
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