When considering the relationship between law and literature, one might come to the conclusion that the intersection between the disciplines is one of interrogation. Literature enables man to ask questions of the letter of the law without endangering himself. If this scenario were to happen, how would this be handled legally? Is the legal decision just and/or moral? It enables man to venture into the psyche of the legally accused and say, “Is this man guilty? Does guilt imply evil? What if I were found guilty;; does that make me evil?” Literature asks the questions which citizens may not be able to ask and provides answers which the law may not be able to give. The leading question: can the law be the final determinant of guilt? The answer
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Where there is motivation and variance, how can the law apply? Literature has explored worlds wherein conformity is enforced, and even still complications arise. Various speculative fiction works explore the notion of conformity: 1984 by George Orwell, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Yet each of these works presents conformity as evil. To have such a strict governing law with rigid adherence is viewed negatively and labeled as worlds of dystopia;; the people lead dehumanized and fearful lives from their rules. However, also labeled dystopia is a world without law, as seen in The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Thrust back into a Hobbesian state of nature in which laws no longer exist and every man must preserve his own life by any means necessary, morals deplete to non-existence as man-on-man atrocities run rampant. In The Road, the narrative focus is on a man and his son who only trust each other and flee from their fellow man at sight because of the brutal nature of their interactions. Station Eleven varies in its narrative focus over an array of characters. However, each character attempts to re-engage with micro-societies of varying type. It is in the interactions between micro-societies where
Where there is motivation and variance, how can the law apply? Literature has explored worlds wherein conformity is enforced, and even still complications arise. Various speculative fiction works explore the notion of conformity: 1984 by George Orwell, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Yet each of these works presents conformity as evil. To have such a strict governing law with rigid adherence is viewed negatively and labeled as worlds of dystopia;; the people lead dehumanized and fearful lives from their rules. However, also labeled dystopia is a world without law, as seen in The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Thrust back into a Hobbesian state of nature in which laws no longer exist and every man must preserve his own life by any means necessary, morals deplete to non-existence as man-on-man atrocities run rampant. In The Road, the narrative focus is on a man and his son who only trust each other and flee from their fellow man at sight because of the brutal nature of their interactions. Station Eleven varies in its narrative focus over an array of characters. However, each character attempts to re-engage with micro-societies of varying type. It is in the interactions between micro-societies where