It can easily be argued that the punishments given to the main character in White Bear are inhumane. There's no doubt that, even if one were to consider "an eye for an eye" fair, what the woman is having to go through isn't what the girl did. The little girl had to go through what she did once and once only. However, even considering all of what the woman is being forced through, perhaps there is a point where you have committed a heinous enough crime that you have forfeit your rights as a human being.
To get to the bottom of this, you have to think about what, exactly, is fair or just. Is justice receiving a punishment completely equal to the crime one has committed? Is it receiving suffering equal to the suffering one has caused? If so, then if you think in a certain way, the woman in White Bear's punishment was completely deserved.
White Bear is shown in a way that hides what everyone had to go through. It barely shows the way that the country united in search of the little girl. Then, after all of that, they come to find that not only was the little girl burned alive in a bag, but she was burned there while the two who did it simply watched and even recorded it. If we had gone through all of what those people had, then we would possibly think that the punishment she's receiving is actually too little.
Another point is that, if you want to give justice through equal punishment to suffering cause, consider again what the woman did to the little girl. She stood by and watched as the girl burned. Do you think that she had in mind at all how to be moral and humane to that little girl? Perhaps you could consider it an eye for an eye if court in turn doesn't consider how to be moral or humane to her.
Maybe it's fair to not think of her as a human at all since she clearly didn't treat that little girl like one.
If you think that way then it's easy to say that this punishment she's receiving is completely right. She is treated as an object and even used to entertain all these people who united to find the little girl, to soothe their hearts after their loss. This is her way of paying them back after what she did.
1 comment:
Tyler,
I enjoyed your viewpoint on "White Bear." I like how you tied in the question about if she is even human then after seeing what she had done, and do you treat her like an object. Maybe you are right in that this is more for everyone else to deal with their anger in pain in this way instead of looking at it as just punishment. Well written post.
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