Foucault Reading 3-16

Foucault vividly describes the evolution of punishment in society and how it is used in terms of propaganda. He begins with the very lengthy and very public execution of a man who is severely tortured before being burned in for everyone to see. He then transitions into the french in the mid 20th century using private and quick executions under a guillotine. Finally he arrives at todays very clear outlined methods of capital punishment. This is all a very significant transition because it shifts the blame and guilt of the judicial system for carrying out such harsh measures (the viewers may feel sympathetic towards the accused) to making them a medium. Now, after the accused is convicted they are sent off to a bureaucratic institution that lets the prisoner suffer in silence, torturing the soul, out of public eye. The rhetoric for this shift is that the transition marks a step in the right direction in many minds away from the barbarity of medieval-like torture.