“There are spaces of sorrow; only God can touch.”
Author: Helen Prejean (born April 21, 1939, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana)
Genre: Memoir (Non-Literary Fiction)
Tone: Determined
Setting: Louisiana, the early 1980s
Themes
The Redemptive Power of Love
The Linked Symptoms of Social Injustice
The Importance of Personal Responsibility
Main Characters in Dead Man Walking
Sister Helen Prejean – The author and narrator of the book.
Frank C. Blackburn – The warden of Angola during Robert Willie’s execution.
Major Kendall Cody – The man responsible for the death house.
Chava Colon – Prejean’s friend from the Prison Coalition.
Tom Dybdahl – The head of the Prison Coalition and a close friend of Helen Prejean’s.
Elizabeth Harvey – The mother of murder victim Faith Hathaway.
Millard Farmer – A death row attorney from Atlanta.
Famous Quotes by Helen Prejean
“People are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives.”
“I watch what I’m doing to see what I believe.”
“A person is more than the worst thing he has ever done.”