Capital Punishment Sherman Alexie Summary

An eye for an eye. Everyone has heard this platitude sometime in his or her lifetime, whether it be when speaking of revenge or a simple disagreement. “Capital Punishment” by Sherman Alexie delves into the morality behind the adage by following the thought process of a man who works as the cook for persons on death row. Throughout most of the poem, the man reassures himself that he is “not a witness”; however, toward the end he breaks this pattern when he finally admits “I am a witness” (102). Upon first reading “Capital Punishment,” it is unclear why the narrator can go from strongly affirming his position as “not a witness” to admitting defeat in the last few stanzas; however, a close reading of the poem reveals that the narrator could not

The repetition is used to mark the narrator’s different justifications as to why he is “not a witness” (5). He first begins by blaming society for the Indian man’s death rather than himself, because “it’s mostly the dark ones / who are made to sit in the chair” (6). The narrator is quick to use the racism within America to escape from the reality that he has done nothing to stop the injustice. Upon realizing that he cannot blame an entire country he moves on to blaming the killer himself saying “those Indians are always gambling” (14). After finding someone to blame as to why the Indian man is there, he begins to justify how he can sit there and watch a man be killed. He uses the fact that as the cook he “[cooks] just right / for the Indian man to be executed” as a way to make what he is doing better than everyone else involved (28-29). He attempts to be nice to the man, even putting an “extra sandwich” in the fridge in case he survives the first shock, to redirect the attention on the fact that he is voluntarily watching a man be killed (35). Finally, he attempts to justify his actions through the excuse that he is doing volunteer work as he “[prepares] the last meal for free” (42). Understanding the difficulty the man has with justifying to himself that he is not a witness, paves a way to understanding why he suddenly changes his

He sees all the electricity in the building flicker as the chair comes alive. The narrator compares the experience of watching the “whole damn prison dim” to that of “your first kiss / or the first hard kick to your groin” saying that he can “remember it too clearly” (50-56). The narrator snaps when he begins to think of the food the Indian man requested “a salad, a potato / a drink of water all taste like heat” (61-62). He attempts one more reconciliation with the fact that after “[tasting] a little,” he was with the Indian man when he died, “Maybe a little bit of me / lodged in his stomach, wedged between / his front teeth, his incisor, his molars” (65-73). At this point, the narrator has become aware of the injustices in the world “American fills / its dictionary” (84-85). He speaks of filling this “dictionary” with every “kill,” enough so that “we write down kill and everybody / in the audience shouts exactly how / they spell it” (84-87). He becomes disgusted with the onlookers and reporters who are there for a story and thrill. The narrator concludes that each story is the same “1 death + 1 death = 2 deaths” (98). Finally, he admits to himself “I am a witness,” leading to the epiphany that no man is without sin and eventually everyone will be struck down and have “no idea for which of our sins”