Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Living... on death row for the murder and rape of two teenagers. No one in his family has made the trip out there. They say it’s too long of a drive from Slidell.
Profession… inmate. Matthew has been in prison for six years and is scheduled to be executed soon by lethal injection. Without anyone else to turn to, Matthew reached out to a nun named Sister Prejean to help him appeal his case.
Interests... making racist comments, trash talking, and finding trouble. But he has found a new interest on death row – reading the Bible. He only has three days left before his scheduled execution, so he figures it couldn't hurt. Sister Prejean, who is trying to help him get a fair trail and acting as his spiritual advisor, is teaching him about forgiveness and God. After all, Matthew may be meeting Him soon.
Challenge... dealing with the fact that death is breathing down his neck. He has asked Sister Prejean to help him get a stay of execution because he can’t afford a lawyer. As he says, “Ain't nobody with money on death row.” Matthew claims that he doesn’t deserve to be executed because he didn’t pull the trigger, but he is running out of time to make his case. He feels desperate and afraid.
Personality... arrogant, bigoted, and cruel. People consider Matthew an animal – especially for the terrible crime he committed. But Helen is able to see a side of Matthew that gives her hope that he can be redeemed. No one is more surprised than Matthew himself.
Get to Know him in...
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A justice drama based on a true story about a man on death row who in his last days forms a strong relationship with a nun who teaches him forgiveness and gives him spirituality as she accompanies him to his execution. Susan Sarandon won an Oscar for best female actress for her convincing portrayal of Sister Helen Prejean.
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In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean became the spiritual advisor to Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers who was sentenced to die in the electric chair of Louisiana’s Angola State Prison. In the months before Sonnier’s death, the Roman Catholic nun came to know a man who was as terrified as he had once been terrifying. She also came to know the families of the victims and the men whose job it was to execute—men who often harbored doubts about the rightness of what they were doing. Out of that dreadful intimacy comes a profoundly moving spiritual journey through our system of capital punishment. Here Sister Helen confronts both the plight of the condemned and the rage of the bereaved, the fears of a society shattered by violence and the Christian imperative of love. On its original publication in 1993, Dead Man Walking emerged as an unprecedented look at the human consequences of the death penalty. Now, some two decades later, this story—which has inspired a film, a stage play, an opera and a musical album—is more gut-wrenching than ever, stirring deep and life-changing reflection in all who encounter it. From the Trade Paperback edition.
