TOW Post #1- Article: "4 Sentenced to Death in Rape Case That Riveted India"

       

 
            There has always been an argument about weather or not the death penalty should be legal or not. In the United States Constitution, the Eighth Amendment states that there shall not be any "cruel or unusual punishments," yet there are still states that rule capital punishment legal. Not only has the death sentence sparked a controversy in the United States, but also worldwide; in this case India. The death penalty certainly relates to an emotional aspects, where as revenge and angry play a part in reasons why people want the death penalty against someone. On the other hand, there is the moral aspect; is it ethical to decide if someone's life should end?

            Author Ellen Barry, George Polk Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, wrote an article about four men who were charged for a rape crime, after nine months, in New Delhi, India, where the death penalty is has now been sentenced. The four men had brutally raped a young women who, two weeks later, died from her injuries. The victim's parents and many women were celebrating after the four men were convicted to die by hanging. However with India's religious views, people are concerned with this sentence.

            Barry includes many opinions relative to the death sentence throughout her article helping her achieve her purpose: getting people to think about and take action on if the death penalty be a legal option. The only way this can be changed or remained legal are the people voting: who are putting the political people in power. One strategy that Barry uses is contrasting; showing two different opinions about the death penalty. She writes how one man believed that “after death, they will get freedom...they should be tortured and given shocks their whole life”; opposing the death penalty. Barry then includes how protests are shouting comments such as "Hang the rapists." With these to opposing comments, the reader is pushed to think about who's right and take a side.

            Another strategy that Barry uses to achieve her purpose is using statistics. She states how "polls show that Indians remain ambivalent about using the death penalty, with 40 percent saying it should be abolished". Barry also includes the fact "if convicted rapists were hanged consistently for a year: 10,000 neighbors, shopkeepers, tutors, grandfathers, fathers and brothers," would be dead. These two shocking statistics really make the reader consider how ethical the death penalty is. With these strategies, Barry does successfully achieve her purpose in writing her article.

Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/world/asia/4-sentenced-to-death-in-rape-case-that-riveted-india.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=world