Character Clues

Character Analysis

Direct Characterization

As we've mentioned Dead Man Walking is not a fancy-pants big-literary-ambitions book. When Prejean needs to characterize someone, she's likely as not to just tell you about them, without messing around with subtlety or irony or that kind of thing. In fact, if she did that kind of thing, we might have a harder time believing her or accepting that what she's telling us it the unvarnished reality.

If Prejean wants you to know that the Bourques are devout Catholics, she just tells you: "The Bourques are devout Catholics" (1.86). When she wants to tell you that C. Paul Phelps is a social worker at heart, she says: "I know that at heart he's a social worker" (5.62). And that's that.

Speech and Dialogue

If Prejean doesn't tell you directly what someone is like, then often she'll just let them speak for themselves. Major Coody shows that he's a thoughtful and conscientious man when he says, "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" (9.38). And when Robert Lee Willie says he admires Adolf Hitler, you get a clue that he is not a very nice person (9.57)—though you probably knew that already from his actions.

Actions

Actions tell you a lot about two of the main characters, Pat Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie. Both committed horrible murders. Now, Prejean insists that that is not the only thing to know about them; she says that there is good in them, too. Still, what they did is a big part of who they are; it's an aspect of their characters you can't forget.

Thoughts and Opinions

Dead Man Walking is full of thoughts and opinions—most notably Sister Helen Prejean's, of course. You learn about her character (her morality, her faith, her mind) often through what she says about the death penalty and about social injustice. In fact, the most important thing about her character is the change of opinion she has early in the book: "…I realized that my spiritual life had been too ethereal, too disconnected. I left the meeting and began seeking out the poor" (1.20). From here on out, everything in the book is about changing opinions.