Dead Man Walking was an autobiography written by Sister Helen Prejean. The novel tells about Prejean’s life in dealing with her intimate journey through her dealings with capital punishment. Prejean was a Roman Catholic nun that worked in St. Thomas. She worked in a New Orleans housing project for black residents. In January of 1982, Prejean was asked to be a pen pal with a death row inmate named Pat Sonnier. Prejean accepted because she believed that the work seemed to fit with what she was doing at the time. Prejean wrote to Sonnier, believing that she would not be written back. Sonnier, convicted of the brutal murder of two highschool students at a local football game, surprisingly wrote back. Sonnier was sentenced to the electric chair. Prejean, from writing to Sonnier, realized that he was an innocent man. The true guilty man was Sonnier’s brother. Prejean was very bothered by the fact that Sonnier was going to be murdered for something he did not do. Prejean and her associates work every day, up until his execution, to keep him from being electrocuted. Throughout the time Prejean and Sonnier spent together, Prejean discussed how much she despised the death penalty. She doesn’t believe that anyone should have to go through the agony of the death penalty. After the death of Sonnier, Prejean takes on another inmate by the name of Robert Willy. Prejean writes to Willy and he writes back. Prejean visits the parents of the victim, Faith. Willy is on death-row for the rape and murder of Faith. After visiting Faith’s parents, Prejean walked for three days from New Orleans to Boston. Prejean is much more forward with Willy almost as if she is scolding him. Willy is guilty of what he did and admits it. Even with Prejean being Willy’s spiritual advisor, she still believes that the death penalty is wrong. After her ordeals with the two inmates, Prejean begins to get along with her own lif...
