"With the invention of the guillotine, capital punishment becomes a technical matter. The figure of the executioner is reduced to the meager role of machinist. The austere practicality of this new method leaves no room for style.
The executioners, however, refuse to give up their characteristic gesture of lifting the head of the condemned for the rabble to see, once the task has been carried out.
a)The executioner offers decisive proof of his performance, not as a matter of personal pride, but as a means of gaining recognition and reward.
b)The rabble adores simple, categorical statements. The head serves as a period at the end of a sentence. Everyone is happy. The executioner as aphorist.
(a) and (b) seem to exhaust all possible explanations for the act. But the executioner knows the alphabet of death from beginning to end. Starting with (c), there are more personal reasons, which represent favors or concessions afforded the condemned. This is the executioner’s secret rebellion.
It is a little-known fact among those outside the profession that the head remains conscious with full use of its faculties for nine seconds after being severed from the torso. Lifting the head, the executioner gives his victim one last, waning glimpse of the world. As such, he not only contravenes the very idea of punishment, he also turns the crowd into the spectacle."
Comemadre
