Watching the movie “Dead Man Walking” helped me to get a better understanding of the death penalty. In this movie, there are many reasons why a person could or “should” be for the death penalty and why others might be against it. In the story, a man named Matthew Poncelet has been put on death row on because he committed a double murder and raped a young woman. Matthew’s accomplice in this crime got off because he had some money and was able to provide a good defense attorney for himself and was acquitted of the murder charges. This movie shows Matthew’s last days as he is on death row and how a nun, Sister Helen, tries to help him get the death penalty charges revoked. Many arguments in this movie are thrown in very stealth-like, so the viewer may not even notice that he is getting pulled into a certain opinion. However, many of the arguments made in the movie against capital punishment can be easily refuted.
In this movie, the main arguments made would definitely be against the death penalty. Basically the whole plot of the movie is about Sister Helen trying to get the death penalty off of Matthew Ponsulate. However, many of the arguments made in the movie are not accurate and rely heavily on pathos, which are arguments based heavily on emotion instead of logic. One fallacy which occurs often when someone uses pathos to try to convince his/her opponent that they are correct is appeal to pity, which is “when one tries to win acceptance by pointing out the unfortunate consequences that will otherwise fall upon the speaker and others, for whom we would then feel sorry.” When one uses pathos in an argument, it is usually a very effective way to convince the other person of your side, however, when the argument is looked at logically, it can be very easily refuted. For example, in “Dead Man Walking” there are many occasions where it shows how broken up Matthew’s mother is over her son’s upcoming execution, which plays heavily on the emotions of the person watching...