On Dead man walking

Abstract

The author tries to understand the behavior and the personality of Matthew Poncelet, from a Tim Robbins' film called Dead Man Walking. This character was sentenced to death due to a cruel murder. In the film, the relationship between the killer and a nun gave him support based on empathy and truth. This permitted the integration of his self with the recognition and the acceptance of his finitude. The ideas presented in this paper were established based on Winnicott's concepts about the origin of aggressiveness and of infant development, as well as the relationship between the mother and her baby. Keywords: Aggressiveness, Death, Empathy, Truth, Integration.