Varieties of Punishment Summary and Analysis

Prison is torture, aimed to take things from a person. They have tried to take Abbott's soul, but he considers himself to have a superior psychological endurance, such that they cannot take his soul.

Abbott has undergone punishments now ruled unjust and cruel, yet the same people preside over him and he has received no apology. He suffered from claustrophobia for four years, in which he felt crushed by the walls. The guards responded by tying him to bed every night, which was its own nightmare because he could not move.

Once for a period of about 25 days Abbott is subjected to staying in a blackout cell, a cell in which no light penetrated. Abbott likens the experience to "swimming in ink." He is fed a starvation diet of one bowl of broth and a hard biscuit...