Dead Man Walking Comparison Essay

Someone is about to die - one innocent, one guilty, now on death row and fighting for their lives. Both the The Life of David Gale and Dead Man Walking have key similarities and differences.

In the Life of David Gale, David, a University of Austin professor, is awaiting death. He is on death row after being found guilty of rape and murder of his best friend and fellow Death Watch member, Constance Harraway. As David awaits for his life to end, he invites Bitsy Bloom, a reporter, to interview him. At first all Bitsy is after is a story. As she digs farther into the crime, her belief in David’s guilt is challenged.

The main character in Dead Man Walking is also a death row inmate, Matthew Poncelet, who calls on Sister Helen Prejean. He wants her to help him with his last appeal saying that he is not guilty

Flashbacks makes it easier to tell the real stories. Mathew’s flashbacks are dark and sinister. David’s flashbacks, until Bitsy gets the tape of the murder, were mostly subdued. The viewer can see for themselves what really happened and make up their own minds if the men belong on death row.

Another significant contrast is that Dead Man Walking shows Mathew Pocelet dying, while The Life of David Gale doesn’t show David Gale dying. The endings would not be as emotional if they would have ended the same. In Dead Man Walking, as Mathew is dying, you could tell how connected Sister Helen and Mathew are. In the Life of David Gale David, dying was not the end of the movie. So, a scene of him dying would have broken up the ending of the movie.

Although these movies have similarities and differences, they encourage people to think over their beliefs of our country’s capital punishment laws and the inmates who have suffered this sentence. Was the punishment just? What were the choices and influences that happened to the inmate that led him down this path? The answers to these questions are personal and different for