Sean Hruswicki
14/09/2017
English 11
Capital Punishment in “Two Fishermen”
Capital punishment AKA the death penalty is when somebody is killed by authorities because of a crime they have committed. Methods of carrying out this punishment have gotten more humane as time went on. The methods of capital punishment are: hanging, gas chamber, electric chair, firing squad and lethal injection. If the story “Two Fishermen” took place in Canada then the timeline would be around 1865-1976 because capital punishment in Canada was introduced in 1865 and was attempted to be removed but it was not in 1914. Capital punishment was finally abolished in 1976.
In the story a character named Thomas Delaney was executed for killing a man who raped his wife. I highly disagree with the decision to execute Thomas because the rapist would likely have been executed himself because in 1865 only treason, murder and rape are considered crimes bad enough to be executed. Thomas shouldn’t have been executed because he didn’t really commit murder even though he killed somebody, he was only defending his wife from the rapist. Lastly he may have accidentally killed him because there was no mention of him using a weapon and you can accidentally kill somebody with your bare hands when you are very mad, especially if your wife is getting raped.