The Theme Of Capital Punishment In Charles Dickens Great Expectations

For many people, Capital Punishment is the last moment of their lives. One of the customary things to do while on death row is to request a last meal. These meals can be as ordinary as Ted Bundy’s bacon and egg breakfast with home fries or as peculiar as Victor Feguer’s request. Feguer was a convicted killer and requested a single unpitted olive. He requested this in hopes that the pit would grow an olive tree forth from his corpse. This tree would be a sign of peace and an apology to his victim’s family. Feguer’s remorseful peace offering was a gleam of goodness in the heart of an evil man. In Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, Dickens shows a theme much like Feguer’s, that all evil people have potential for goodness. The three major characters who show this are Abel Magwitch, Miss Havashim, and Estella.
When Abel reveals himself to Pip, he hands Pip a wallet full of bank notes and money for his twenty-first birthday. As he gives Pip the overstuffed pocketbook, he says: “There’s something in that there book, dear boy. It’s yours. All I’ve got aint mine; it’s yours. Don’t you be afeerd on it. There’s more where that came from. I’ve come to the old country fur to see my gentleman spend money like a gentleman. That’ll be my pleasure. My pleasure ‘ull bee fur to see him do it. And blast you all” he wound up.”Blast you everyone from the judge in his wig to the colonist a-stirring up the dust, I’ll show you a better gentleman. Better than the whole kit on you put together.”(Dickens 146)
Even though Abel has to care for himself, he puts aside the majority of his money for another person. If an exiled convict can donate all of his money to a poor boy’s advancement, then he truly shows that good is in all