Jodi Picoult Court Cases

In many disputes, there is always a propensity to lean towards a side. Especially in court cases, where it ends with one side being right and the other wrong, it is easy to fall in favor of a side that seems morally correct. However, in such cases, there are flaws within both sides of an argument, which leads to confusion in what is right and what is wrong, and who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist. For writer Jodi Picoult, she leaves readers to question the morals of many complex issues in her novels, such as genetic engineering, school shootings, and medical malpractice, through contentious court cases. With many diverse character perspectives surrounding each case, Picoult challenges the “protagonist” and “antagonist” concept and its existence. Jodi …show more content…
Many court trials can take days, maybe weeks, to finalize a decision. The reason being is to hear all sides to the situation, from the plaintiff to the defendant, in order to eliminate any previous bias towards the case and to choose which side is morally correct. Like a court case, Picoult makes her readers perceive the situation from all sides, with a diverse range of backstories and narrations from her characters. Karen Campbell noted that Picoult’s “greatest strength [is] her ability to inhabit other people’s feelings, relishing the bits that are complex and contradictory.” Her talent in exploring the characters’ strengths and flaws encourages the readers to perceive the cases with open eyes to discover that only one side of an argument being only morally correct is notional and never realistic. This can be seen in Picoult’s 2004 novel My Sister’s Keeper, where the mother, Sara Fitzgerald, is seen as an antagonist in her daughter, Anna Fitzgerald’s court case for emancipation. In many character’s