SantiagoA

In the short story Escape From Spiderhead by George Saunders, there is 2 prisoners with a criminal past. Nearing the end of the story the main character Jeff was in a tricky position as his friend Rachel was on the death block. Earlier in the story Jeff had already been forced to watch Heather take her own life and in the text Jeff reflected upon how emotional and gruesome the feeling really is, “It was like all I had to do to be a killer again was sit there and wait,”(76). While sitting there Jeff realized there had to be something he could do, so he saved Rachel by switching the Darkenfloxx into his own MobiPak. Despite Jeff’s killer tendencies he still had a soul ripe enough to save Rachel as he did not want to watch her die. Abnesti, the one who has forced this cruel pain upon them was enjoying his dominance as he looked over Jeff and Rachel. Although Jeff is viewed as a bad person, a criminal who was in prison this does not make Abnesti the ‘good guy’ in the story. Abnesti tried to convince all the prisoners he was doing the right thing but he made sure they were suffering as he looked over them. Abnesti’s respect for the prisoners was completely absent since he was unable to view them as human beings.