illustration

Examples of illustration/exemplification

 * 1) "At the supper table at night I am listening to the stories Sister Therese St. Pierre tells of the three- and four-year-olds in her preschool group who do not know words like 'over' or 'lettuce' or 'sofa.' Most of these children will hit the overpopulated, understaffed and ill-equipped public schools with 'failure by third grade' stamped on their foreheads."
 * 2) This is the part of the book where she's saying that being kind in an unfair system isn't enough. It illustrates how the children are disadvantaged from the start of their schooling, and many are doomed to failure.
 * 3) page 7
 * 4) Mr. Sloan

1. "I am watching how easy it is for a teenage boy to "rung a bag" of cocaine down the street for an easy twenty bucks" 2. She is describing the sadness of a life where young boys are handling drugs for money.\ 3. Page 8 4. Katie Wood


 * 1) "The details of the depravity stun me. It is like the spinning merry-go-round that I had once tried to climb aboard when I was a child, but it was spinning too fast and threw me to the ground"
 * 2) This is the part where helen is think about the poor families of the victims of the cruel crime.
 * 3) Pg 17
 * 4) NabillKTA

1. "Despite his friendly letters I had half expected Charles Manson- brutish, self-absorbed, paranoid, incapable of normal human encounter. But even if he were unlikable and repuslive, even if he were Manson, I still maintain that the state should not kill him. For me, the unnegotiable moral bedrock on which a society must be built is that killing by anyone, under any conditions, cannot be tolerated. And that includes the government" 2. In this passage, Sister Helen uses the image of Charles Manson to show how deeply she believes in life. Using Manson, she is able to show Pat Sonnier in a more flattering light, persuading readers that he is a human, a remorseful- even normal person. 3. Page 31 4. Gabrielle Regenhardt


 * 1) "I also realize now how naive I was about the criminal justice system. I had always known, of course, that there were imperfections in the system, but I honestly thought that when a person faced death, he or she would at least be given an adequate legal defense. I thought the Constitution promised that. It took me longer than it should have to realize the shamefully inadequate legal counsel that Pat Sonnier and others like him get. By the time I sought remedial legal help for him it was too late. If I had acted sooner, I believe he would be alive today..."
 * 2) Talk about how her (and probably many other people's) misperceptions about the legal system allowed her to not do everything she could and may have led to the death of Pat Sonnier.
 * 3) Page 32
 * 4) Will Christiansen


 * 1) "Three young men with juvenile records of violent crime, including several armed robberies, kidnapped a fourteen-year-old girl, Virginia Smith, beat her, robbed her, forced oral sex on her, and while giving a Confederate yell, slit her throat, stabbed her numerous times, and left her to bleed to death in the woods, Two of them got life sentences and one got thirty years. Virginia Smith was black. Her assailants were white."
 * 2) By withholding the race of the subjects until the end, Sister PJ presents the case in an unprejudiced manner. Then the comparative injustice of that case (relative to other cases in the book) is exposed to be caused by prejudice.
 * 3) Pg. 48
 * 4) Andrew Maguire

1. "I am beginning to feel relieved and picture a substantial boulder being hoisted into Pat's wagon . This is new to me, that the Louisiana code requires intent to kill. I had always thought that if two people were involved in a felony that led to murder, the very fact that they were present during the crime made both equally guilty." 2. In this passage the idea that Pat is in deep trouble and has a "boulder" on his shoulder because he received a more severe prison sentence then his brother. 3. Page 52 4. Aaron Fernelius
 * 1) "Death-row inmates look at me all the time, words unspoken, their eyes, asking the question: 'Am I going to die?' keep hope alive."
 * 2) This is a scene where Helen begins to think about how all of the inmates look at her and what they must be thinking.
 * 3) Page 54
 * 4) Josh Goldsmith

1. "I picture the words bouncing off the oak wood chair and wrapping themselves round it: be not afraid." 2. "Be not afraid" are the words in the prayer Sister Prejean is saying with Sonnier. This is right before Sonnier finds out if he has been condemned to death. The quote is an illustration to how the jail cell is bare and hopeless, and how these words of hope are trying to surround Sister Prejean and Sonnier with hope. 3. Page 81 4. Paige Fery

1. " I look up. His left hand has gripped the arm of the chair evenly but the fingers of his right hand are curled upwards." 2. In this part of the book, Sister Helen is watching Pat Sonnier get executed by the electric chair and illustrating all of the gruesome details. His hands and body are being bent into abnormal positions, but no sound is coming from Pat throughout the entire experience because of the mask over his face. 3. page 94 4. Caitlin Gruis 1. "...saying he can't wait to see Robert Willie 'fry,' that he can't wait to see the 'smoke fly off his body.'" 2. In this quote, the vivid imagery in presented through quotes from Vernon Harvey, the step-father of the murdered Faith Hathaway. Harvey is very outspoken, and does not hesitate to express his opinion of the death penalty. In this specific case, Harvey is talking about Robert Willie, who is the Sister's next spiritual-advisee. 3. page 118 4. Dona Sansone

1) Robert comes into the visiting room. He is wearing a black knitted hat. He walks with a little bounce, poising momentarily on the balls of his feet." 2) Here, Sister Helen describes what Robert Willie looks like when he walks into the visiting room. She illustrates and exemplifies the minor details of his presence so as to better specify the experience. 3) Page 145 4) Max Stevenson 1. "How is it, I wonder, that the mandate and example of Jeses, so clearly urging compassion and nonviolence, could so quickly become //accomodated?// Over the centuries, 'lawful authorities' - supposedly in God's name and with God's blessing -- have hanged, shot, guillotined, drawn and quartered, burned, gassed, elecrocuted, lethally injected - criminals." 2. At this point, Sister Helen is explaining why she feels so strongly against the death penalty. She feels that it is hypocritical, and illustrates the many examples of what the government has done to criminals over the years. 3. Page 123 4. Caitlin Gruis
 * 1) "Driving home I think of the man I have just met. I had expected a wild-eyed, crazed, paranoid type, but met instead this polite, soft-spoken, obviously intelligent young man."
 * 2) She is describing one of the men on death row whom she was advising. She is bringing the emotional aspect of humanity into the question making you feel sympathy for this man. She is illustrating that not everyone on death row is "wild-eyed, crazed, [and] paranoid type," but many are polite, intelligent people.
 * 3) Page 128
 * 4) Connor Liston

1. "I think of the young man I have just visited with the neatly combed hair and the quiet voice. I think of how he exhaled his smoke downward so that it didn't blow into my face." 2. Sister Prejean has a flash back moment of Robert Willie and how mannerly he seemed as she speaks to Vernon and Elizabeth, telling them that she with be his spiritual advisor. 3. Page 138 4. Ronika Ibrahim

1. "I imagine her (Faith Hathaway) coming from beyond the grave to speak at this Pardon Board hearing. I picture her speaking of love swallowing up hate and all she knows is love now and that she hopes her mother and stepfather can move on with their lives and not worry about avenging her death because she's past all that, she's past all that is negative and downward and hurtful and she occupies another kind of universe and she hopes they can occupy this universe too." 2. Prejean is illustrating how she believes Faith Hathaway would act if she could speak to her parents and the pardon board. Even though Faith is obviously not at the meeting, Prejean is still able to portray the hope she has that people can forgive those who have done wrong to them. In fact, she has so much hope for this that she has the entire situation illustrated in full detail in her mind. 3. page 159 4. Christina Jones

1. ""He was another one I thought shouldn't have died," he says. "During a robbery he shot the storekeeper in the arm-in the //arm-//and the bullet entered the man's heart and killed him. That's not intent to kill, not when someone shoots a man in the //arm//." "But Knighton was a black man who killed a white person and was tried by an all-white jury," I reminded him." 2. Prejean is illustrating the inequality and injustice that Earnest Knighton received. She is showing that even when the evidence was on Knighton's side, because he was tried with an all-white jury, he was still convicted and killed. Through out the book she is trying to speak of the injustice that occurs in regards to the death penalty and this illustration, of a personal example, adds to the pile of support. 3. Page 174 4. Connor Liston

1. "Then he says he hopes he gets to see the football play-offs before he goes to the death house because he has two ice creams bet on Miami and he hopes he gets to bring his radio because he can't make it through a day without music and he says how his life-style has changed since he came to the Row because now he's in bed by 10:30 p.m., right after the 10:00 news." 2. This passage, paraphrasing Robert Willie's thoughts about moving to the death house, illustrates his humanity. Watching football play-offs, listening to the radio, and watching the 10:00 news are all extremely common in the average American household which helps Sister Prejean's argument by allowing the reader to relate to Robert. 3. Page 178 4. Hannah Brodke

1. "I'm not sure how long I'm going to be able to keep doing this," he says. "I've been through five of these executions and I can't eat, I can't sleep. I'm dreaming about executions. I don't condone these guys' crimes. I know they've done terrible things. I don't excuse what they've done, but I talk to them when I make my rounds. I talk to them and many of them are just little boys inside big men's bodies, little boys who never had much chance to grow up." "I get home from an execution about two-something in the morning and I just sit up in a chair for the rest of the night. I can't shake it. I can't square it with my conscience, putting them to death like that." He can't persuade himself that he's just doing his job. 2. This passage shows the death penalty from the Major's perspective. This is a man in charge of all of death row; he supervises inmates and guards, and brings the prisoners to the electric chair. It is illustrated that the death penalty is sickening because it requires men to kill a defenseless man. It also shows the negative effects it has on those men instructed by the government to carry out murder. 3. Page 180 4. Sarah Eckstein

1."Now, once again, here's the familiar feeling of the tight, cold grip of fear in the hollow of my stomach. Talking through the morning with Robert, I had forgotten where I was. But now, talking to Warden Blackburn, I know all too well where I am, and I say, "I have to get back to Robert" 2. In this excerpt, he is worried about Robert and him taking the polygraph test, and is very descriptive in saying how he feels about it. 3. Page 191 4. Aaron Fernelius

1. "But no one here tonight seemed able to get the blood on the doorpost in time, and some have been visited by the Avenging Angel more than once...

My son was abducted and shot twelve times. It was just a few days before he was to appear as a witness to a drug-related murder. He had seen two boys killing someone. We had gotten threats and I had called the D.A.'s office for protection I sent my other son to the country to stay with kinfolk. They was callin' him and threatenin' him too...

My son was shot by his girlfriend. She just got a gun and shot him in the eye, his right eye, and I'm going to have to quit y second job so I can pay more attention to my younger daughter. I'm so worried about that child." 2. In this excerpt, Prejean is talking about a Survive meeting, and she says that the grieving parents there have been through more than any parent should have to go through. Then she uses the two examples above to further exemplify and illustrate her claim. 3. Page 237-238 4. Koko Novak