punishments adaptation

in this story Foucault discusses torure and punishment, but he does it in an interesting technique. He analyzes torture in comparison to that of it less than century ago and now days. He starts out with a very grotesque story about someone who was quartered and burned to ashes from breaking the law. The story was very detaled and sickening. Punishment is nothing like it was back then. They wanted to make it not only as tramatizing as possible, but also to do it in public, and with weapons and tools that weren't very efficient, so things often went wrong and it was more painful than even intended. For example in the story the horses failed to quarter the body at first, it merely just dislocated the joints. They tried again with 6 horses instead of the previous 4, and in the end they had to hack off the thighs because the horses failed to totally rip his body apart. Horrifically the man was able to survive through mose of this, so he had to go through all this unimaginable conscious and alive.

Over the years however, the act of punishment and torture has lessened in pain and publicity. As states on pg. 9, "Punishment had gradually ceased to be a spectacle." And whatever theatrical elements is still retained were now downgraded..." Later on this page it also states, "Punishment, then, will tend to become the most hidden part of the penal process." This shows that over the years it has become more of a private thing. It appears that over this century of time, this tortures punishment and slowly drifted away from a public "exciting/dramatic" event, to an event more in private, less cruelty, less pain, more kindness, more respect, more "humanity". (pg. 16). Foucault takes alot about how the "condemned man was no longer to be seen" (pg. 13) . This went along with the new found belief that the punishment should be done more on the soul than just that of the body. So punishment became more of a painless efficient tool like it is much today. Rarely is anyone killed in an inhumane, painful manner... at least in the public killings. The point is for the victim to be punished for what they did, debatibily putting more emphasis on there physical body or soul, not just to cause them unnecassary excruciating pain. So with that although punishment has been around forever and will forever reamin, the way about going about it and its emphasis has changed dramasticaly over the past few years.