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NCJ Number:	136195

Title:	Rough Justice

Editor(s):	M L Friedland

Date Published:	1991

Annotation:	Thirteen essays by literary scholars explore issues of crime and justice in a wide range of literary works.

Abstract:	The volume opens with an essay on crime and sin in the bible and concludes with an essay on detective stories. Other essays focus on perceptions of crime and justice in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," Middleton's "A Fair Quarrel," Fieldings "Jonathan Wild," Scott's "The Heart of Midlothian," Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend," Faulkner's "Sanctuary," Dreiser's "An American Tragedy," Wright's "Native Son," Wiebe's "The Scorched-Wood People," and various works by Oscar Wilde and a number of Canadian playwrights. The criminal justice system, as portrayed by the various authors, is viewed as either corrupt and cynical or, at the very least, as insensitive and unresponsive to the real issues in the work. The agents of criminal justice -- police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges -- are repeatedly portrayed as ignorantly or willfully blind to the truth, causing the reader to question the justice of their disposition. Pulling in the opposite direction, however, is the reader's feeling that justice has in some sense been done in spite of the criminal justice system, even if by a wrongful conviction. Many of the works thus provide sufficient "poetic" justice to satisfy society's desire for retribution. Chapter notes

Main Term(s):	Criminal justice system effectiveness

Index Term(s):	Fiction; Literature; Public Attitudes/Opinion

Publication Number:	ISBN 0-8020-6849-9

Sponsoring Agency:	University of Toronto Press Toronto, Ontario M4Y 2W8, Canada

Sale Source:	University of Toronto Press Marketing Manager 10 St. Mary Street Suite 700 Toronto, Ontario M4Y 2W8, Canada

Page Count:	277

Type:	Historical Overview

Language:	English

Country:	Canada



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