The problem of justice and law is highly debatable in American literature. Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird and Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible is one of the brightest works revealing this problem. The present paper is aimed at analyzing the way how the issue of law and justice are disclosed in both works.
At the very beginning, we would like to admit the fact that one work may serve as a background for another. The diabolic sense of terror wraps up everyone engaged in reading To Kill a Mockingbird and The Crucible.
The reasons for this terror are similar in both cases. In Harper Lee’s novel, people of different are persecuted not only by law but by the whole society as well. In the world depicted in Arthur Miller’s play, the situation is nearly the same: the characters are unable to appeal to human justice and reason, being cooked together in the witch’s cauldron. Both works are social by their nature, with the emphasis made on society and not only on a particular individual. Both authors try and analyze the reasons for the degradation that American society undergoes. In their works, they make the reader understand that the rule of equal rights and absence of special privileges does not work in American society, and this is the ruling class that seems to be responsible for this failure.
The “outsiders” Tom Robinson and Boo Radley from To Kill a Mockingbird are turned by society into witches from The Crucible. The difference between these witchlike creatures and the rest of the world is crucial and terrifying. The symbol of the crucible so appropriately chosen by Arthur Miller renders how the temperature of social grievance and madness increases. The only people who seem to be able to change the existing situation are children from To Kill a Mockingbird. They feel that the problem needs urgent solving but are not aware at the moment how to do it. It is notable that the epigraph from Charles Lamb admits the childish nature of the whole world and the lawyers as its best representatives. How knows, maybe, this feature of modern society is destined to cure it of the injustice diseases? Maybe, it is it that might help the world to pass the test on humanity?
We want to admit the fact that the problem of justice and law is hidden in the very titles of the works under consideration. The “mockingbird” refers to unprotected victims of severe society whose rights are neglected and lost among the rights of the ruling class. The “crucible” stands for both the chaotic society, supersaturated with anger, as well as for the trial it needs either to pass or, to bear the burden of its consequences.
As it is seen from the mentioned above, the problem of social injustice and the law’s inefficiency to protect the rights of all people raised in both works gives us a green line to say that the connection between the works exists. Skillfully written To Kill a Mockingbird and The Crucible present one more attempt of the American authors to hasten the establishment of people’s equality and law that works disregarding the class difference. Though Harper Lee and Arthur Miller sound rather pessimistic in their works, a feeling of would-be triumph win over the feeling of fear that is present in the play and the novel. Two different authors offered one way out from the horrific situation which spread across America. It is rooted in the change within the human’s assumption of the outside world that is foreseen by the authors. The time the American society needs to overcome the problem it faces depends purely on the people’s desire to change their lives for the better.
References
Johnson, C. D. (1994). Understanding to Kill a Mockingbird A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historic Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.