2. life– this text allows the reader to see life as something other than a reproducing, growing entity. it transforms life into a possession. this was most apparent to me when reading about atkinson securing fly. i felt that at that point, fly’s life was no longer his own, in a sense. it had been repossessed by atkins. fly also turned life into a possession when he “stole” it from jenkins and this other shipmates by killing them. their life was no longer theirs.

3. tremble– this act of shaking seems to be directly connected to fly’s nonconversion and absence of devout repentance for his actions. it is indicative of the unknown to which he is leaving his soul; it is significant in the sense that it is a physical manifestation of the fear that one must have felt when they did not heed the sermons and prayers of the ministers and christians of the town.

“he still persisted in his unrelenting frame…but it was observed…that in the midst of all his affected bravery, a very sensible trembling attended him…and so we mus tleave him for the judgment to come.”

“Full proof” could lead to any sentence, but in the 17^th century, proof would have been hard to obtain. Their definition of full proof, however, was ambiguous: the testimony of 2 irreproachable witnesses could count as full proof. Confessions, too, were taken as truth. Officially, a confession was ambiguous, but people took it as the most important proof that could be offered. Confessions were not always completely voluntary; torture was “a great means used by classical criminal law” that was later repeated and accepted as spontaneous and solid evidence.

Visibility: extent that an event is open and observable to the public

The role of the public in executions is also ambiguous because public outcry has been cited as a reason for the end of public executions and torture but here, Foucault says that when the guillotine was introduced to France, the crowd cried out that they wanted their gallows back.

Paradox: a situation with no obvious solution

Torture was used as both a punishment and means of getting a confession. This does not make sense, because the accused is punished before his guilt is certain. This torture was a kind of theater and also displayed the sovereignty of the law. Because the law was sovereign, the methods of achieving confessions were not questioned. Punishment and trial were wrapped up together in a “theatre of hell” and the eternal.

Judge-  Foucault’s first real mention of judging is on page 21 with his mention of a trial judge who “certainly does more than ‘judge’”.  The notion of judgment, however, is prevalent throughout this chapter: those watching a public execution are judgmental of both the condemned man and the public punishment that he faces (as we see through multiple criticisms of the practice).  Foucault notes that in the penal system more people have the power to judge (psychological experts, magistrates, etc) than actually have the power to punish.  The new legal system seems to have “led judges to judge something other than crimes,” they must determine an appropriate punishment, and often “pass sentence not in direct relation to the crime”.

Blame- Foucault notes that when punishment shifted from the public to private sphere, “the apportioning of blame is redistributed”: that is, the shame of a public execution which often brought “pity or glory” to the victim has been replaced by a more secret shame of a modern execution, something that is made private in order to separate it from the justice system that ordered it.  The secrecy surrounding executions makes them seem more like a necessary evil than a spectacle that the public is a part of.  The increasing secrecy of executions seems to point of a sense of shame about the penal system, a feeling that the justice system is blamed for them.  By eliminating the “glory in punishing”, the justice system separates itself from the ugliness of executions and the blame that they receive for them.