Handmaid's Tale Critical Essay

7/29/2019 Handmaid's Tale Critical Essay

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American Academy of Political and Social Science

Responsibility and Crime in LiteratureAuthor(s): Edward Sagarin and Robert J. KellyReviewed work(s):Source: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 477, TheInsanity Defense (Jan., 1985), pp. 12-24Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of Political and SocialScience

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ANNALS, AAPSS, 477, January 1985

Responsibility and Crime in LiteratureBy EDWARD SAGARIN and ROBERT J. KELLY

ABSTRACT:Accountability for one's actions has been a major themethat literary artists have grappled with over the centuries. Among theworks in which it plays a significant role, and which are here analyzed, arethe Oedipus trilogy, Hamlet, The Brothers Karamazov, Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde, The Trial, The Stranger, and three twentieth-century Americannovels: An American Tragedy, Light in August, and Native Son. Insightsinto the dark recesses of the human mind, which can complement theinsights of legal philosophers and social scientists, are revealed in these andother works. They point to an argument that prophesy is not immutabledestiny and that social causation is not social determinism. The humanbeing achieves freedom by acceptance of responsibility, each man for hisown acts, each woman for hers.

Edward Sagarin is professor emeritus of sociology and criminal justice at the CityUniversityof New Yorkandformer president of the American Society of Criminology. Theauthor or editor of numerous books, he is currently working with Donal MacNamara on astudy of serious criminality of preteen children.Robert J. Kelly is associate professor of sociology and special education at BrooklynCollege and of criminaljustice in CUNY's doctoralprogram in that discipline. His work onorganized crime, deviant behavior, and allied subjects has appeared in many scholarlyjournals. He is editor of aforthcoming book, Organized Crime:A Global Perspective, andauthor of a book of poetry.

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CRIMEN LITERATUREWhatI havedone,That might your nature, honour andexception

Roughly awake, I here proclaim wasmadness.Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? NeverHamlet:If Hamlet rom himselfbe ta'enaway,And when he's not himself does wrongLaertes,Then Hamletdoesit not;Hamletdenies t.Whodoes it then?His madness.[Hamlet, act 5, scene 2]

Is this passage, spoken by Hamlet, anearly version of the insanity defense? IsHamlet engaging in a clever piece ofrationalization to exculpate himself forwhateverwrongshe has done to Laertes?For answers to these and kindred ques-tions, one turns to the legacy of litera-ture where the nature of love, death,crime, madness, and responsibility aredepicted. Inhis reflections on literature,Sartre asserts that the writer's task im-poses ethical obligations: because theliterary artist is a creator of conscious-ness, his vocation is not purelyaestheticbut deeply moral as well.'Fiction and drama are in many waysthe ideal instruments for displaying thearchitecture of the moral symmetriesand deviations of social life. They canabstract from the multiplicity of ex-perience, from the sprawl and pande-monium of everyday life, events andcharacters reduced to their most sig-nificant psychological lineaments; a setof verbal acts presented in narration,dialogue, or monologue can be freedfrom their specific existential situationsand linked logically with other acts.Unfetteredby an obligation to historicaland biographical reality, literary artistsmay create persons and events that

1. Jean-Paul Sartre, What is Literature?(New York: Philosophical Library, 1949).

instruct us profoundly on the nature ofsociety and humanity.In their need to plumb the mysteries,tragedies, and absurditiesof life, writershave produced a body of work thatintuitively reveals truths often beyondthe reach of manipulated experiment,scientific observation, or accumulateddata. The admiration for fictional crea-tion and speculation suggests not somuch a crisis of faith in the scientificethos, but rather the complementaryroles of social scientists, moral philos-ophers, and literaryartists. In this sense,every idea, every fresh inroad into anunderstanding of humanity and societythat a Sophocles, Shakespeare, Kafka,or Faulkner bringsout of the rushof lifegives a specialresonance to the interplayof exquisitely personal concerns andbroad social problems.

It may be claimed that literaryartistspossess only a body of speculationsbased upon idiosyncratic observationsand lack scientific theory or rigorousmethodology to studyformsof behaviorlabeled "insane"that have generatedsomuch consternation in the courts, thecriminaljustice system, and the public atlarge. Thus their ideas about insanity,crime, and responsibility,while scarcelydull or arid, may be unreliable andinapplicable to anyone other than thecharacter deliberately created to ex-press, through the metaphor of liter-ature, an author'svision of the world.It is in fiction, however, that thecharacter is seen as someone constitutedwithin a web of historical events, whoselife and sentiments are rooted in cir-cumstances that constrain and compelbehaviorandfeelings.The world maybefull of pathos, but for the artist it is notderelict or fugitive. The art of fiction,through devices of narration, plot, anddialogue, weaves a spell in which one

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THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

discovers a world full of echoing voices.Sometimes self-consciously, more oftenunwittingly, the literary sensibility isacutely attuned to ideas and produceswork that parallels the most sophisti-cated thinking of its age, and may evenbe the prescient forerunner of suchthinking. The visions of life that artistsportray are not merely derivative of thescientific and philosophic culture, butappearto share in an unconscious com-plicity with it.

OEDIPUS:PROPHECY IS NOT DESTINY

The concept of individual responsi-bility, particularly for wrongdoing-aleading theme of some of the mostcelebratedliteratureof the West loomsas a central issue in the Oedipus trilogyof Sophocles.2 According to LionelTrilling, the plot of Oedipus Rex isreally a detective story, in which Oedi-pus is forcedbythe evidence he uncoversto recognize himself as having commit-ted parricide and incest.3 Two greatercrimes are difficult to imagine, yet bothwere carried out unbeknown to theperpetrator.The oracle had prophesiedthat the child would one day slay hisfather and marry his mother. Despitethe salutary possibilities of such warn-ings, which might have turned into self-defeating prophesies, both events come4to pass.4

2. For a discussion of various theories ofresponsibility, see EdwardSagarin and Robert J.Kelly,"Morality, Responsibility, and the Law:AnExistential Account," in Law and Deviance, ed.H. Laurence Ross (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publi-cations, 1981), pp. 21-43.3. LionelTrilling,"OedipusRex,"in Trilling,Prefaces to the Experience of Literature (NewYork: Harcourt BraceJovanovich, 1979),pp. 4-8.4. Although Robert K. Merton has made thephrase"self-fulfilling prophesy"an everydaytermin the English language, he has also focused

When revelations of the kinship rela-tions among Oedipus, the man he slew,and the woman he married are made,he gouges out his eyes and becomes, bythe terms of his own proclamation, anoutcast. Is this fate deserved? How re-sponsible is Oedipus for the acts that hehas committed? Ifhis fate is predestined,as foretold bythe oracle, then are we notcompelled to declare that Oedipus wasnot a free agent in his actions, and henceshould not be held accountable forthem? One interpretationmight well bethat Oedipus feels compelled to sufferfor his inner blindness, and hence pun-ishes himself accordingly.Culpability appears to be circum-scribedby ignorance, and if the victim ofthe slaying were not his father, there isno moral culpability,for the murderwascommitted in self-defense. But Oedipusdoes suffer punishment, and in factinflicts it upon himself, indicating thatthough the acts of parricide and incestwere predicted, they cannot be said tohave been predestined. Oedipus is re-sponsible because a prophesy is not animmutable destiny. It can, in fact, be awarning, and in this sense, all personsare responsible for their own actions,even though the actions may have beenprophesied. Oedipus acts in a mannerthat fulfills the prophesy, but that is thecourse of action that he chooses; neithergods nor exogenous forces compel himto act in preordained ways.5 From thevantage point of moral responsibility,people areresponsiblefor anyconditionthat they would be able to change if theyattention on how prophesiescan be self-defeating.See Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure(New York: Free Press, 1957).5. For adiscussionof thissubject,see BernardKnox, "Sophocles' Oedipus,"in Tragic ThemesinWestern Literature, ed. Cleanth Brooks (NewHaven, CT:Yale University Press, 1955),pp. 7-29.

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CRIME IN LITERATURE

made the effort, no matter how de-manding and painful, and this is trueeven were the condition originally theconsequence of forces outside theircontrol. To abandon this principle is tolose the distinction between intentionalagents and those incapable of choiceand will. Thus Oedipusdeclares,"ItwasApollo, friends, Apollo,/ that broughtthis bitter bitterness, my sorrows tocompletion. But the hand that struckme/ was none but my own." 6

In Oedipus at Colonus, Sophoclesoffers what might be construed as a legalconception of responsibility. After twodecades of wandering and suffering inhis blindness, the exiled Oedipus hassecond thoughts as to the moral justi-fication of his self-inflictedpunishment:Thetruth s thatatfirstMymindwasa boilingcauldron; othing osweetAsdeath,deathbystoning,couldhavebeengivenme;Yet noonetherewouldgrantmethatdesire.It wasonlylater,whenmymadness ooled,AndI hadbegun o thinkmyrageexcessive,My punishment oo great for what I haddone.7

The tragic dimension is that Oedipusis himself the instrument of his ownunnecessarily cruel punishment. Buteven if he may be exonerated legally onthe basis of ignorance, he remains pol-luted and mustatone by the standards ofAttic law. Sophocles thus makes animportantdistinctionbetweentwo kinds6. Sophocles, Oedipusthe King,trans. David

Grene, in The Complete Greek Tragedies,vol. 2,Sophocles, ed. David Greneand Richmond Latti-more (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1959), pp. 68-69.7. Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, trans.Robert Fitzgerald, in Complete Greek Tragedies,vol. 2, Sophocles, ed. Grene and Lattimore, pp.98-99.

of responsibility: though Oedipus hasnot sinned in that he was not an activeagent in the deliberate creation of evilevents, he was nonetheless perpetrator.He is defiled, whether by gods or byother forces alien to him, the nature ofwhich he cannot grasp or comprehend.His cry that he was the helpless victimbeforeforces over whichhewasvirtuallypowerless is less than exculpatory.Oedipus pleads that he is guiltless andblameless, but it is a legal, and not amoral, claim.8

THE PROBLEM OF HAMLETHamlet is a man of desperate, evencloying, passions. In him, love is disap-pointed; it is a love deceived by thefatality of death. What other recourse isthere but madness? "In Shakespeare,"

Foucault writes, "madness is allied todeath and murder." 9 Like the tragicOedipus, Hamlet had been passive by-standerand not active perpetratorin thecrimes that so deeply affected him. LikeOedipus, Hamlet looks to fate as justi-fication of the surrender of personalresponsibility: "Our indiscretion some-times serves uswell/ When ourdeep lotsdo pall, andthatshouldlearnus/ There'sa divinitythat shapesourends,/ Rough-hew them how we will." Thus, Hamletgrasps two mutually complementaryexculpatory defenses:"there'sa divinitythat shapes our ends," and it was notHamlet who did it, but "hismadness."'?

8. An elaboration of the interrelationshipsbetween guilt and responsibility may be found inPaul Ricoeur's essay, "Guilt, Ethics, and Re-ligion," in Ricoeur, The Conflict of Interpreta-tions: Essays in Hermeneutics (Evanston, IL:Northwestern University Press, 1974), pp. 425-39.9. Michel Foucault, Madness and Civiliza-tion. A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason(New York: Pantheon, 1965), p. 31.10. Hamlet, act 5, sc. 2.

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When Hamlet faces the stark truththat his father was murdered by hisuncle Claudius, the slain man's ownbrother,in an act that the princebelieveswas planned, if not consummated, incomplicity with his-Hamlet's--adul-terous mother, he agonizes over his lackof resolve to take revenge. Tormentedby his inability to act, by his failure toseek justice, he mordantly mocks him-self: "This is most brave!/ That I, theson of adearfathermurder'd Promptedto my revenge by heaven and hell,/Must, like a whore, unpack my heartwith words,/ And fall a cursing like avery drab,/ A scullion."1

Perhaps Hamlet's self-ascription ofmadnessand his embraceof fatalism aremerely pretenses, to explain in asociallyacceptable way his failure to carryout aself-imposed injunction to fulfill his ob-ligations to avenge his father's death,and to atone for his actions in inflictinggrave harm upon Laertes. In the end,Hamlet's doubts andquestions concern-ing his duty, his obligations, and themorality of retributivejustice seem re-solved. He embracesrevenge,not for thesake of his father, but ratherbecause hedeems it necessary in order to effacethose who destroy virtue. Like Oedipus,Hamlet faces a problem not of his ownmaking, yet he must anddoes ultimatelyassume responsibility for setting thingsaright. He must bring about justice,though in so doing he follows a path ofaction that he personally abhors andthat must lead to his own damnation.

THE DARK SIDE OFDR. JEKYLLThe insanity defense that Hamletoffered-it is not Hamlet who does it,

11. Hamlet, act 2, sc. 2.

but "his madness"-is presented in astark and terrifying form in Dr. Jekylland Mr. Hyde. The dual personality ofJekyll and Hyde is afrightening, literaryinvention."2The conflict that rages inStevenson'scharacter s muchtoo facile,too neatly drawn, to attain the depths ofpsychological understanding found inthe sublime tragedies of Sophocles andShakespeare; yet it is a conflict thatarises not infrequently in courtroomscenes, especially with a murderer n thedock, and may well be an example ofhow life mimics art. In a Freudianinterpretation, it is possible to see inJekyll and Hyde the failure of the super-ego to control the darker side of thehuman soul."3

Stevenson's tale portends and antici-pates not only the psychiatric defensesof schizophrenia, multiple personality,amnesia, and irresistible impulse, butalso of drug-induced psychoses. Yetsurely Stevenson leaves the patheticJekyll responsiblefor creating Hyde andfor capitulating to Hyde's evil actions.BecauseJekyll is Hyde,he is accountablefor Hyde's crimes. Following Jekyll'sdenial, one cannot claim in answer to thequestion-to paraphraseShakespeare-Who does it then? that it was either hismadness or his other self.'4

12. This is all the more remarkable inasmuchas Stevenson based his tale on an actual case. SeeJohn S. Gibson, Deacon Brodie:Father to Jekylland Hyde (Edinburgh: Paul Harris Publishing,1977).13. See Sigmund Freud, The Ego and the Id(New York: Norton, 1962).14. Dostoevsky, Conrad,andothers have dealtwith the two sides within the person, the strugglebetweengood and evil when a personconfronts hisor her double, but unlike Stevenson, the twopersons are not embodied within a single identity.See particularly the meeting between Lord Jimand Brown toward the denouement of Conrad'snovel.

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CRIME IN LITERATURE

All of the popular metaphors of goodand evil are embodied in Jekyll/Hyde.Jekyll is a successful,middle-classphysi-cian, a genial, shy, handsome man withan abiding interest in science that makeshim a bit eccentric in the genteel bour-geois society of his day. Hyde, in con-trast, is physically deformed, dwarfish,callous, and secretive-a diabolical andmurderous character. They are the twosides of each other, physically, emotion-ally, morally, and in their actions aswell, but they are nonetheless one andthe same person, so that that person isresponsible for both parts of himself.When Jekyll seeks to explain andjustifywhat-has happened, to unburden him-self of the guilt he bearsfor the deaths ofthose who crossed Hyde's path, it is apitiable performance because it lacksconviction,buttheanguishof the respect-able physician is appealingly genuine.Jekyll is depicted by Stevenson asunsuccessfully struggling with a quan-dary: is Hyde a creation of Jekyll,something truly alien that drugs pro-duced, or is Hyde actually the expres-sion of the evil dimensions of a selfliberatedby the chemicals? This conun-drum is painful for Jekyll, and heflounders withcontradictoryresolutionsto the dilemma. "Itwas Hyde after all,"Jekyll cries out, "Hyde above all thatwas guilty," writing as if Jekyll andHyde were not the same person, andhence exonerating himself. Later,Jekyllis filled with doubt, unsure that he canbargain with the forces of nature withwhich he has tampered. He writes thathe "projected and shared in the plea-suresand adventures of Hyde;but Hydewas indifferent to Jekyll." Note the useof the third person as a technique forestablishing distance from oneself. It islike Hamlet asking, "Was't Hamlet

wrong'd Laertes?" and then replying,"Hamlet denies it."Jekyll bears responsibility for bring-ing Hyde into being, for which his life isforfeit. Yet, one must concede that

Hyde's acts are those of a man Jekyllhardly knows-it has often been notedhow little we know ourselves-and thusJekyll pleadsthathe not be held account-able. In thecurrentpsychiatricnosology,Jekyll requeststhat we think of his alterego as an example of dissociative re-sponse for which the respected andrespectable person should not be heldanswerable.

KAFKA AND CAMUS:RESPONSIBILITY IN AN

ABSURD WORLDInJekyll and Hyde there is a glimmerof hope in that the bewitched doctor hadsome control over life and hisdespicablecreation, if only in the slim sense that hecould end the grief and misery hewrought by destroyingboth of his selves.In Franz Kafka's The Trial, even that

privilege is denied. Guilt drove Jekyll todeath at his own hands, but it was a guiltwithout the need for a public accuser. Itwas a verdict imposed by himself fordeeds that had occurred and for whichhe was at least partially, if not fully,responsible. In Kafka, it is not theindividual that is the accuser, but theworld out there,and an absurdworld, atthat.With The Trial,we confront a uniquemodern phenomenon, distorted by theprocess of rationalization and bureau-

cracy: guilt as condemnation before theaction occurs and without any knowl-edgeof wrongdoing.Joseph K. isaccused,and he never attempts to exoneratehimself. Instead, he seeks to learn thenature of the crimethat he has evidently

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committed. Theprotagonistcannot pleadincapacityto understandthe meaningofright and wrong because he does notknow what he has done that is wrong or,for that matter, right. The deed is in factirrelevant:condemnation is an inherentprivilege of judges, courts, state, andsociety. Nor can one explore the motivewithout having the act divulged.It hardly matters that Joseph K. is aman thoroughly imbued with ration-ality, for the same is not true of thesociety that he confronts. He accepts hisguilt, but pursues the search for theaccusation in a legalistic fashion. In thedread castles and eerie courts, he wan-ders like a quixotic figure in search ofjustice, only to discover thatjustice is asmeaninglessas it is unattainable.JosephK. is the hopelessly naive and utterlyestranged individual. The very condi-tions of his alienation from the statemachine inhibit any meaningful interac-tion with it. He must determine why heremains on the margins of society,thereby condemning himself to con-tinued guilt when acquittal, or at leastendless postponement of the day ofreckoning, would be possible throughcompliance and obedience. But then hereflects,To meet an unknownaccusation,not tomention tspossible xtensions, hewholeofone's life would have to be recalled tomemory,downto the smallestactionsandaccidents,presentedand examined fromeveryside.'5The paradox in which Joseph K. iscaught is that the total recall of eachminutedetail of life is essentialto defendoneself, but it is an inherently impos-sible task; even a Joyce or a Proustcould not accomplish it. Hence Joseph,

15. Franz Kafka, The Trial (New York:Schocken Books, 1968), p. 128.

like all of us, is doomed. We arerespon-sible for all the actions of our lives,including those in the deeply buried, theforgotten, the irretrievable past. LikeJoseph K., we will be judged in everyaspect and act of life by the authority ofthe father figure embodied in the state.In the criminal career of Meursault inThe Stranger, Albert Camus offers us aflawed vision of responsibility. Meur-sault displays the wistful petulance of aperennial and self-exiled outsider. Hemurders an Arab after some mutuallymenacing encounters in which he hasreason to believe that he might be at-tacked, and then refuses to cooperate inhis own defense at the trial. He does notregret killing the youth, offers no coun-tenance or pretenseof contrition, recallsno mitigating circumstance that mightexplain the act.'6Camus mounts a complex probleminthe novel by having Meursault fire fourextra bullets into the youth, thus re-ducing the persuasivenature of a plea ofself-defense. "Thehero of the book," theauthor writes,is condemnedbecausehe does not playthegame. In this sensehe is a stranger o thesociety in which he lives;he drifts in themargin, n the suburbof private, solitary,sensual ife.17

It is a thesis of Camus that Meursaultis held responsible not so much for themurder itself as for flouting the rules ofsociety. Meursault refuses to manifestfeelings of grief at his mother's funeral,thus exposing himself to the conformingsociety as a morally reprehensibleman.

16. For a devastatingcritiqueof the depictionof the trial and a charge that Camus ignores therealityof a Frenchmanaccused of killing an Arab,see Conor CruiseO'Brien,Albert Camusof Europeand Africa (New York: Viking Press, 1970).17. Quoted in ibid., p. 19.

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CRIME IN LITERATURE

Although the fact that Meursault haskilled is inescapable, Camus maintainsthat condemnation occurs for legallyand morally extraneous reasons, a viewechoed by one critic:For officialsocietytendersextenuating ir-cumstances o the criminalwho rendersasincere r anhypocriticalomage o conven-tionalvalues.Meursault's rongdoingsnotso muchhavingcommitteda crime as it isbeing,in the eyes of a theatrical ociety,acongenital riminal, criminal"in he soul."Thismakesa stranger f him.'8

Ifpeople areprosecutedfor the wrongreasons, when indeed they are guilty, itis more a reflectionof the abilityof thosewho hold power in society to passjudgment on others than it is exculpa-tion or even mitigation of the guilt of theaccused. Julien Sorel-in Stendhal's TheRed and the Black-hurls the charge ofwrongdoing back into the face of hisaccusers, contending that he is standingin the dock, not for what he has done-and indeed he has done it-but becausehe was a lower-class, self-educated manwhose presence and achievements chal-lenged the structure of class relation-ships in France.Meursault is guilty of an unjustifiedslaying. The prejudicial and irrelevantevidence paradedbefore the court, how-ever, can give us pause about a criminaljustice system; it can awaken us to thedangers confronting the most innocentpersons who might be caught up in asimilar web of intolerance and rejectionwerethey aliens or strangers.Meursault,however, is not the innocent alien. Hestands responsible and accountable forthe murder, while his accusers must

18. Robert J. Champigny, A Pagan Hero: AnInterpretation of Meursault in Camus's "TheStranger" (Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl-vania Press, 1969), p. 15.

assume responsibility for their mode ofprosecution. He is in the end answer-able, and while the world can applaudthe verdict of guilt, without condoningthe execution, only a few will believethat a guilty verdict wasjust despite theprejudice against the outsider that sur-rounded the social and legal condem-nation.

ON NATIVE SONSAND AMERICAN TRAGEDIES

Three characters in American fictionillustrate a single theme in criminalresponsibility,namely,the separationofthe preceding causes from the conse-quent acts. Society, it has often beensaid, prepares the crime; the individualcommits it. So it is with Clyde Griffiths,Joe Christmas, and Bigger Thomas, thecentral charactersin Dreiser'sAmericanTragedy, Faulkner's Light in August,and Wright's Native Son, respectively.They symbolize in their lives politicaland moral failure, but it is the failure ofsociety to offerpreparationand supportfor the moral righteousness it demands.Each has killed, and each is presentedasvictim of a social system that has pre-pared him for the act, and then aban-doned and condemned him for havingcarried it out. Or, more accurately,abandoned him to the act. They arevillains in that they have done evil, andvictims in that society led them to thepoint where they carry out their evildeeds. Griffiths and Christmas couldhave been called native sons, and thestories of Christmas and Thomas couldaptly have been termed American trag-edies. Indifferentways, each is in searchof the self, or self-knowledge, that willliberate him.

Clyde Griffiths yearns for riches, forsocial acceptability nthehigherechelons

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of a social-class system. The poverty-stricken relative of a rich uncle andcousin for whom he works, he is ambi--ious to rise from the ranks of theexploited, and is frustrated because asexual indiscretion leading to the preg-nancy of a factory girl is the obstaclebetweenhis presentstatus and the heightof the social ladder that he wishes toclimb. He plans to kill the girl, hesitatesas the act is about to be perpetrated,andthen watches without trying to save herwhile she drowns. His trial involves afutile attemptto evade responsibilityforhis act. To his pathetic end, he fails tounderstand his culpability:that it was hewho succumbed to ambition, he whoconstrued his poverty as an excuse tokill. Yet Clyde learns no lesson from hisexperience; unlike Raskolnikov andLord Jim, he is unable to come to termswith himself as wrongdoer.19He isguiltyin both the legal and moral sense, andmust be held responsiblenot only for thekilling but for his failure to see andunderstand the affirmativesteps that hehad taken to bring about the death ofanother.Joe Christmas is a man living in theinterfaces of racial America. Neitherblack nor white-and, more significant,not knowing his genetic heritage-andrejectedby both races, he is confoundedby a staggering and seething hate thesources of which he but dimly perceivesand little understands.Joe kills compul-

19. The theme is developed in greater detail,asit applies to Raskolnikov, Lord Jim, and severalother fictional characters, in Edward Sagarin,Raskolnikovand Others:Literary magesof Crime,Punishment, Redemption, and Atonement (NewYork: St. Martin's Press, 1981) and also in idem,"Literatureand Crime," n Encyclopediaof Crimeand Justice, ed. Sanford Kadish (New York:Macmillan, 1983), pp. 1006-13.

sively in order to relieve the chokingpressures welling up within him. On apretext whose origins are traceable to apast in which he has been systematicallybrutalized, he lashes out at the whitewomanwho offershimherlove. Rejectedby him, the spurnedwoman seeks to killboth herself and Joe rather than liveunfulfilled, but he murders her andescapes. When another suspect passesthe word that Joe is a black man-somethingthatneitherJoe nor the readerknows the veracity of-it is assumedwithout evidence or trial that he is thekiller,andhe istrapped,captured,killed,and then, for violation of the mostsacred of racial taboos, emasculated.Joe Christmas was condemned, notfor what he did oreven for beingwhat hewas, but for being perceived by hispursuers to be in a category of peoplewho were not owed the niceties of trials.Like Meursault, he had done what themob that pursued him and its leaderwho slew him accused him of doing. Thetragicdimension of his life is symbolizedby the victim of his murderousanger:hestrikes out at the person who wantedhim, who accepted him, who sought tohelphim,who repudiatedhisoppressors,and who was unconcerned about theenigma of his genetic heritage. If Grif-fiths was the killer fashioned by theinequitiesof social class, then Christmaswas the killershapedby America'sracialchasm, andso, even more explicitly, wasBigger Thomas.How is a black man, whose mind isstamped with fear and cluttered withanger, able to act rationally?This is oneof the questions that Richard Wrighthurls in the face of racist America. Theposing of the question is not meant toexonerate hischaracter,BiggerThomas,but only to deepenourunderstanding,toshock, and to reveal the terrible and

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21CRIME IN LITERATUREappalling consequences of the racialpolicy dominant in America betweenthe first and second world wars.Theagonizingconfrontationof blacksand whites is depicted first in the acci-dentalslayingbyThomas of thedaughterof the family that has employed him asits chauffeur. Despite his limited under-standing, he realizes that no one in thewhite world-and few in the black,although this would not be particularlyrelevant,giventhe powerrelationships-will accept the truthful explanation ofwhat had occurred:that he had acted toprotect the girl from the outrage of herparents for her intoxicated state byplacing a pillow over her face in order tomuffle her drunken moans. The scene iscontrived:the blind mother coming intoher daughter's room, the terrified andstill innocent chauffeur frightened lesthe be apprehended next to this whitewoman's bed. But it is contrivance thatenables literary artists to present theirinsights that each of us-chauffeur inhis way, parents in theirs-is account-able for the actions of self; and thatcrime, as Dostoevsky so acutely de-picted when the planned murder of thepawnbroker eadsto the unplannedmur-der of her sister, is uncontainable.In Native Son, unlike in Crime andPunishment, it is not the premeditatedkilling leading to the spontaneous one,but rather the reverse: an accidentalslaying is followed by a deliberate one.In the fear that overcomes when herealizes that the white girl is dead,Bigger seeks to dispose of her body byburningit in the furnace,and in so doingdestroys the evidence of his innocence,that he had not raped or sexually mo-lested her. He confides in his own girl-friend, Bessie, seeks to draw her into aransom plot, and when she resists hisefforts, she becomes his second victim.

He had not planned to kill:Thoughhe had killedby accident,not oncedid he tell himself that it had been anaccident. ... His crime seemed natural; hefelt that all of his life had been leadingtosomething like this. . . . No, it was noaccident,andhe wouldnever aythat t was.Therewasin him a kindof terrifiedpride nfeelingandthinkinghatsomedayhewouldbe ableto say publicly hat hehad doneit.20

The murder redefines Bigger'slife forhim. It is his accomplishmentthat, how-ever dreadful, the white world cannotwrest from him. In the surge of powerexperienced when he realizes that he hasconfounded white society, he is exhil-arated,thus nourishing, in his final daysbefore he will be put to death, theclandestine inner world that has becomehis source of life.

UnlikeClydeGriffiths,BiggerThomasis reconciled to his fate at the hands ofthe executioner. In words that mighthave been written by Sartre, he accepts"the moral guilt and responsibility forthat murder[of the white girl] because ithad made him feel free for the first timein his life." 21 Though the killing wasaccidental, he does not reject his guilt;but, whereas Bigger agrees that he mustpay for the wrongs he has committed,the same cannot be said for the societythat made his actspossible. Is society forWright, as for Dreiser, so diseased andoppressed by racism and class antagon-isms that only violence offers the vic-timizers some hope of dignity throughretribution, though they themselves besacrificed in the process?

20. The quotation is from the novel itself, notfrom a commentary on it;the ellipses are not in theoriginal, and they indicate omitted material.Richard Wright, Native Son (New York: Harper& Row, 1966), p. 101.21. This quotation, too, is from the novelitself; ibid., p. 255.



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THEANNALSOF THE AMERICANACADEMYIn Clyde Griffiths, Joe Christmas,and BiggerThomas, threemajorcharac-tersfrom Americanfiction, thereis over-

whelming evidence of external forcesthat impinge upon their desires andneeds, bringingthem to the point wherethey commit theircrimes. Bigger, Clyde,and Joe do not create the conditionsthat drive each of them to his act andsadend, but each bears the obligation toresist the impulse to act out the rageandthe compulsions that he did not create.

THEKARAMAZOVSANDSHARED RESPONSIBILITYFor a final literarywork, in which canbe found what maybe the most sweepingexplicit statement on responsibility inthe history of fiction, we return to thenineteenth century.The central event inThe Brothers Karamazov is a parricide,andof fourbrothers,all but the youngest,Alyosha, mighthave killed their father.22Dmitri, on trial, cries out,

Iunderstand owthat such men as I need ablow, a blow of destiny. ... I accept thetortureof accusation, ndmypublicshame.I want to suffer and by my sufferingbepurified.23He insists upon his innocence, admitsthat he had wished his father dead, yetwas not the one who had spilled hisblood. Reminiscent of the Christianprinciple, enunciated in the New Testa-ment, that would equate desire for

22. For a seminal analysis of this theme, seeSigmund Freud, "Dostoevsky and Parricide,"inFreud, Collected Papers (New York: Macmillan,1963), vol. 5.23. From Feodor Dostoyevsky, The BrothersKaramazov,trans.Constance Garnett(New York:Modern Library, 1950), p. 540; all quotationsfrom The Brothers Karamazov are from theGarnett translation.

adultery with the sin itself, Dostoevskyimplies that the murdereris not always,or at least not solely, the one whoperpetrates the slaying. "You are stillresponsible for it all," the illegitimateson of theslainKaramazov,Smerdyakov,states in his accusation to Ivan, at thesame time exonerating their brotherDmitri,since you knew of the murder and chargedme to do it, and went away knowing allabout it.... You are the only real murdererin the whole affair,and I am not the realmurderer,houghIdid kill him.You aretherightfulmurderer.

How will it all end, Alyosha asksIvan, to which Ivan, not yet fully com-mitted to the accused Dmitri, answersambiguously by quoting the words ofCain: "Am I my brother's keeper?"Although it is asked as a rhetoricalquestion in the book of Genesis as inDostoevsky, inboth instancesthe answerappears to be the opposite of that in-tended by the speaker.Amid the brothers' doubts, recrim-inations, and psychological discoveriesis the philosophical interlude of FatherZossima, the spiritualtutor and mentorof Alyosha. In the recollections of hisyouth, the holy sage propounds one ofthe most sweeping Christian principlesregarding responsibilities and obliga-tions: "We areeach responsibleto all forall, it's only that men don't know this."The doctrine of responsibilitywas nevergivenwiderapplication.But theresponsi-bility of any one of us for the actions ofanother does not relieve that other: allpeople remain responsible not only forthemselves but for all others. Thus,Zossima's approach,not a new doctrinebut radical in its reiteration in the cli-mate of estrangement that Dostoevskycreates,does not commit us to remedying

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every manifestation of evil and injusticein the world, but only to aver that we areindeed our brothers' keepers, and thatwhat befalls any individual in the worldis the concern of us all.Zossima's mysticism, his ethic of uni-versal fraternityand love, urges upon usvery practical attitudes about how all ofus, collectively and individually, governour lives. Dostoevsky suggests that weought to determine what things are most

important and then try to see where weourselves have a contribution to maketo remedy evil and to avert gratuitoussuffering among others. Then we shallbe able to justify our lives. It is ademanding morality, but not an impos-sible one.In sum, the concept of responsibilityis used by Zossima, it appears, in adouble meaning: that we are account-able to all humanity for what each of ushas done, and that we have an obli-gation to all humanity-constituted, asit is, of our brothers and sisters-for itsplight. Butresponsibilityherecannot beextended to causation, and hence thedoctrine of Zossima places no criminalresponsibility on the innocent.24With this thesis, Dostoevsky seeks totranscend the fragile, tottering moralshame of a world that is subvertedby thechaos of greed, injustice,depravity, and,above all, the despairof isolation causedby vanity, venality, and megalomania.As the novel's momentum carries theKaramazov brothers through tests of

24. The doctrine of responsibility to all, forall, and for everything is the theme of a majoressay by Herbert Morris, "Shared Guilt," inMorris, On Guilt and Innocence: Essays in LegalPhilosophy and Moral Psychology (Berkeley:University of California Press, 1976), pp. 111-38.We acknowledge a debt to Morris, but we havedeparted somewhat from his interpretation ofDostoevsky.

theirdesiresandthrough personalexplor-ations of theirthoughts of good andevil,the ethic of fealty preached by Zossimafinds its fulfillmentin Dmitri and theninIvan. Dmitri spurnsefforts to have him-self declared mentally aberrantin orderto avoid punishment and obtain apardon. He confidently and profoundlyasserts his newfound insight: "I acceptmy punishment, not because I killedhim, but because I meant to kill him."Ivan, too, is infected with the ecstaticspiritof Zossima's truth. He had wantedhis father murderedand admits to con-spiracy with his half-brother Smerdy-akov. "If he is the murderer, and notDmitri," he asserts, "then, of course, Iam the murderer,too."Themoral implicationsbecome plain.If, in Oedipus,criminal sanctions can beimposed because there is the perpetra-tion of the deed without the intent, itcannot be imposed because there issimply the intent, as with Dmitri andIvan,without the commission.Any otherreasoning would efface the distinctionbetween the offender and those whowished the offense committed but whohad imposed discipline and restraintupon themselves. Our legal system de-pends upon the preservation of thiscrucial distinction.

FREEDOM AS A LITERARY IMAGEIn our literary heritage, so rich withsevere criticism of injustice, freedom isdepicted in termsof choice, and respon-sibility in terms of the vision of ourselves

as free human beings, willing to be heldaccountable for the choice that is freelymade. Confusions and uncertainties asto whether one disapproves of specificacts of individuals, or of their motivesand intentions, plague us. This compli-catesourjudgments.Butlegaljudgments

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and moral ones cannot be identical; atbest, we can hope that they frequentlycoincide. The seven deadly sins cannotbe written into a penal code, althoughthey might well lead to or even concealactions that a society must deem crim-inal. Neither gluttony nor greed is acrime, and as for pride, it has almostbecome a virtue.The literary images of parricide andmadness, of incest and revenge, plumbthe depths of human darkness and illu-minate the human psyche in a mannerinfinitely valuable to legal philosophers

and social scientists. They offer insightsinto the confusion of minds, into per-sonal histories tainted by horrors, andinto the inner world of those overcomewith rage. They display the blending ofsocial causation and personal initiative,of social pressure that falls short ofdeterminismandindividualfreedomthatisdependentupon choice and acceptanceof responsibility. The legacy of literaryimages can offer guidelines in theshaping, fashioning, and rethinking ofour system of criminaljustice.

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