Under Construction @ Keele 2016 Volume 1 Issue 1 | Page 18

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turns, came out”.45 As she walks into the fog, we see her walking into the mouth of
industry and being consumed by it, coming out the other side a ghost. Foucault
wrote that, “one will die, without any doubt, and it is one’s soul that one must save”,
but for James’ protagonist it is too late.46
The relationship between religion and the death sentence was not a simple
one and it was developing constantly. During the time of the Reformation and Post
Reformation, the state persecuted and executed many religious people. Connecting
those executions to the execution of Christ gave purpose and glory to their deaths,
as can be seen in Hopkins, thus giving others the strength to die for their religion. It
must also be taken into consideration that death was not viewed in the same way
that it is today, death was a fact of everyday life:
the ravages of disease and hunger, the periodic massacres of the
epidemics, the formidable child mortality rate, the precariousness of the
bio-economic balances – all this made death familiar and gave rise to
rituals intended to integrate it, to make it acceptable and to give a
meaning to its permanent aggression.47
Religion was intrinsic to attitudes towards death because only religion promised a life
after death, a source of comfort desperately needed. With the commonality of death,
the penalty was not as shocking as it is today, as we can see in Dickens, death held
some horror but also intrigue, and in some cases, entertainment.
Potter believes that the relationship between the Church and the death
sentence was clear, that “[t]heir central importance is explained by the fact that
hanging was an institution which demanded, and even craved for, religious
sanction”.48 He further argues that, “[h]ad the Church denounced it, it would have
withered and died, as indeed it did quickly and without hope of resuscitation in the
1960s”.49 That is not to say that members of the Church did not have issues with the
death sentence, evidence suggests “it put chaplains under a terrible emotional strain

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45

Ibid., 111.!
!Foucault, Discipline and Punish – The Birth of the Prison, 46.!
47
Foucault, Discipline and Punish – The Birth of the Prison, 55.
48
Potter, Hanging in Judgement – Religion and the Death Penalty in England, vii.
49
Ibid., vii.
46