Innocent Man Pamela Coloff Analysis

Pamela Colloff's, "Innocent Man" is a inequitable story about a man named Michael Morton who is imprisoned because they believe he killed his wife. It is injustice for Michael and he is showing his emotions, speech, and actions that he didn't kill his wife. When Michael came back from his work, he saw his wife dead on his bed, he become a suspect with no evidence and sentenced to life in prison. He is the protagonist that waiting to be justice, but the readers need to know that he is innocent or not. Colloff wants to show the readers about Micheal's charactzation by showing his emotions, actions, and personality.

In the story, readers can tell that Michael Morton is a father and he is shown his feelings about his son by writing a letter to

the judge, "I don’t know what else to say except I swear to God that I did NOT kill my wife. Please don’t take my son from me too, (63). His emotions shows the reader that he is worried about losing his son. Also, he wrote that he missed his son and wondered if he is okay, "I have been told that you are to decide if I am ever to see my son, Eric, again. I haven’t seen him since the morning that I was convicted. I miss him terribly and I know that he has been asking about me.”, (63). The reader can see how emotional Michael is by trying to explain his relationship with his son and kept saying that he didn't kill his wife. He don’t care that he will go to the jail, but he said that he want to prove because of his son: ‘“That’s when I finally broke”, Michael told me. “Nothing before then did it-not Chris’s murder, not my arrest, not my trial, not my conviction. Not getting a life sentence. Not the failed appeals, not the lab results that led nowhere. Eric was what I had been holding on to. He was the reason I was trying to prove my innocence.”’, (Colloff 111).
On the other hand, Michael Morton’s actions is really difficult to see and may cause people to think that he killed his wife. His friends gave the statements that Michael and his wife’s relationship was unsatisfactory, “The candor with which they spoke to each other could unnerve even their closest friends. ‘When they argued, they were both very vocal,’ Christine’s best friend, Holly Gersky, told me. ‘That’s how their marriage worked. They got everything out in the open.”,(Colloff 69). When readers read the statements, it is obviously to see Morton’s rudeness attitude so he can’t defense that he is innocent. Also, Gersky who is Morton’s wife’s best friend said, “He teased her a lot, and he would go right up to the line of what was acceptable, and sometimes he went over it,” shows the readers that he may be a funny person who can trust his wife. On the other hand, few people thinks that is insult that he teased her which caused him into suspect of his wife’s death. The big problem in this issue is his attitude where most people thinks he is a monster that ruined his wife’s life.

Michael Morton’s personality is truly inspiring because he have a strong belief that he didn’t do anything wrong.

During the court, there is no one who can help him to prove that he is not guilty and his friends seems to think that he is guilty for killing his wife. It is really tragic that he is guilty in a second without evidence, but his tone seems brave that he didn’t lose faith. “During this whole ordeal, he never fell apart,” Allison told me. “He wanted people to see him as strong. And I think in the end, that very trait worked against him.” shown the readers that Morton is confident because he knew the truth. When someone asked him questions about his wife’s death, he kept saying that he didn’t do it. He was waiting for the truth to come out because he endure all go pain, false accusations, and lost a family. He shown everyone that he will keep his faith and keep moving forward with confident.

In conclusion, Pamela Colloff's, "Innocent Man” is a painful story because one wrong word could change someone’s lives. The author used charactzation to make the reader understand the character by looking at his emotions, actions, and personality. Without charactzation, readers will be confused and don’t know why they choose him to be the murder without evidence. Morton have a courage to stand up what he believe and claim that he didn’t kill his wife. The author proved that injustice is really cruel and change their live, but having faith will never

lose.