Under Construction @ Keele 2016 Volume 1 Issue 1 | Page 11

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An Exploration of the Relationship between Religion and the Death Penalty as
portrayed in Victorian Literature
Kimberley Braxton
(PhD English, Keele University)
‘Thou shalt not murder’ - with this commandment hanging heavily over
their heads, the legal system’s relationship with the Church was
imperative in a realm which propagated the death penalty. The iconic
image of The Passion ever present and as a result the prospect of
execution could be portrayed as a way of connecting with Christ. With the
public spectacle of executions hidden behind prison walls during the
Victorian period it fell to literature to present the spectacle and horror.
Through ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’ I explore the portrayal of
martyrdom in contrast with the consumerism of death depicted in ‘The
Uncommercial Traveller’ by Charles Dickens. Towards the end of the 19th
century religion began to lose its hold on the nation and as a result so did
the death penalty. However, as time progressed industry became a
religion, the soul at risk from execution as I shall demonstrate using ‘The
Cage’ by Henry James. The focus of punishment moved from the body to
the mind as the source of power moved from religion to the state.
Keywords: Church, Religion, Death Penalty, Victorian Literature, Power

Christianity and the death sentence were inseparable. The monumental moment in
Christianity is The Passion, when Christ was executed for the sake of humanity.
However, religion is but one element. Michel Foucault explains in Discipline and
Punish – The Birth of the Prison, “The public execution, however hasty and
everyday, belongs to a whole series of great rituals in which power is eclipsed and
restored”.1 The Government needed a way of controlling its people; by imbuing
themselves with the power to control their right to live or die it would appear they had
ultimate control but this required the support of the Church:
A Christian country which maintained capital punishment for murder was
always anxious to secure scriptural authority and ecclesiastical support for
so doing. Man was made in the image of God, and life was God-given.

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1

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish – The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheriden, ed. Allen
Lane (London: Penguin Books, 1977), 48.