Let's start at the very beginning...most of the novels and dramas we
will read this year contain some sort of conflict...it could be an
actual armed event (as with WWI in All
Quiet on the Western Front),
or an emotional one (as with our
narrator's personal struggle with taking the lives of others in order
for his to go on in that same novel).
Regardless, these conflicts
produce the same effect on character's in the stories - they are forced
to make often difficult choices, life and death ones, in order to make
it through whatever conflict they are facing.
And
whether or not we personally
agree with the choices these characters made, we have to, as students
of literature, examine them on a larger social scale...good vs.
evil...moral vs. immoral...right vs. wrong. But who can make these
judgments? How can we decide who lives and who dies any better than our
character's can?
We need a
structure, a way of
examining these very questions that allows for objectivity and
rational, reasonable dissection and argument. In short, we need to get
legal.
The Accused:
It's time to go to court,
and try the cases
of some of our prime offenders!
Back to: 
Acknowledgments:
