The Last Day of a Condemned Man in Never too Late to Read Classics

Oct 31, 2022 Sara rated it liked it

Shelves: death, french, short-stories-novellas, 19th-century-literature, philosophy

Victor Hugo's examination of the mind of a condemned man was doubtless a very shocking and moving epistle in its time. He obviously took some time to research and know every step of a condemned man's last days, from the time he was sentenced to the day of execution, which in those days was a very brief interval. The reader is meant to feel the anguish and despair of the situation, and it is apparent that Hugo, himself, decried capital punishment.

The argument against the death sentence, I find, h Victor Hugo's examination of the mind of a condemned man was doubtless a very shocking and moving epistle in its time. He obviously took some time to research and know every step of a condemned man's last days, from the time he was sentenced to the day of execution, which in those days was a very brief interval. The reader is meant to feel the anguish and despair of the situation, and it is apparent that Hugo, himself, decried capital punishment.

The argument against the death sentence, I find, has changed very little from his time to ours. It is, indeed, excruciating to spend this time walking beside the convict as he is put through the ordeal of going to meet his execution at the guillotine. We are told nothing of the reason or circumstances of his crime beyond the fact that he is guilty, by his own admission, of murdering someone.

I am not making an argument for this being the correct or moral course of action for the state, but I could not help, when reading his laments about how his innocent mother, wife and child would suffer from his punishment, thinking that he might have thought of them before committing the crime, knowing what the sentence would surely be. Also, some thought should be given to the death sentence he has pronounced on another person, who surely had a mother, and perhaps a wife and daughter, as well.

The treatise is meant to make the issue seem simple, when in truth I wonder if there could possibly be a more complicated issue, or one that torments the minds of society more. I found the read both interesting and disturbing. It is not the first time I have contemplated the issue, nor, I'm sure, will it be the last. To say that every case is very individual might sound naive, but I do think circumstances matter and that capital punishment should never be given unless there is 100% proof of guilt. At this time, the guillotine was in much too frequent use, executions were public, and the blood that had run in the streets during the revolution was not forgotten. I think Hugo a brave man to take on the system and thought of Mr. Dickens, who was pressing the same case in England. ...more

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Jul 29, 2017 Khalil rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-read-books

Sargguzasht e Aseer(translated in Urdu by Sadaat Hassan Manto published in August 1933 by Urdu Bookstall Lahore ) was a translation of Victor Hugo's novel The Last Day of a Condemned Man originally published in 1829. In this story Victor Hugo condemns the prevelant death penalty laws and he raised his voice to abolish the capital punishment acts through his character who is condemned with death penalty. Saadat Hassan Manto has translated this novel like an adept translator. ...more

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