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‘As a glow brings out a haze’: understanding violence in jurisprudence and Joseph Conrad’s fiction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Stephen Skinner
Stephen Skinner*
Affiliation:
University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus
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Abstract

This paper explores connections between jurisprudential discussion of pain and violence and the methodology of law and literature. Starting with Robert Cover’s work on law’s ‘field of pain and death’, it argues that the theory on which he relied in rejecting literary approaches to law can equally justify a turn to fiction in understanding violence. It then considers the experiential dimension of Austin Sarat’s and Thomas Kearns’s jurisprudence of violence and argues that interdisciplinary perspectives, including relevant fiction, can assist in engaging with the challenges of capturing such experience in textual form. Situating the argument in relation to broader law and literature rationales, the paper finds relevant illustrations in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes. It argues that Conrad’s stories represent dimensions of pain and violence that might otherwise be irreducible to non-fictional textual discourse, whilst also expressing the limits of that representation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 465 - 485
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 2007

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References

Notes

1. See further S Skinner ‘Stories of pain and the pursuit of justice: law, violence, experience and jurisprudence’ [2007] Law, Culture and the Humanities (forthcoming).

2. Cover, R. ‘Violence and the word’ (1986) 95 Yale Law Journal 1601.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also

3. Sarat, A. and Kearns, TR ‘A journey through forgetting: toward a jurisprudence of violence’ in Sarat, A. and Kearns, TR (eds) The Fate of Law (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 1991) pp 209–273;Google Scholar

4. Tuitt, Compare P ‘Law and violence in Richard Wright’s;“Native Son”’ (2000) 11 Law and Critique 201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Cover ‘Violence and the word’, above n 2, at 1601.

6. Cover refers specifically to Dworkin, R. Law’s Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

7. Cover refers specifically to White, JB When Words Lose Their Meaning (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Heracles’ Bow: Essays on the Rhetoric and Poetics of the Law (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986).

8. Cover ‘The bonds of constitutional interpretation’, above n 2, at 817.

9. Cover ‘Violence and the word’, above n 2, at 1602.

10. Scarry, E The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).Google Scholar In ‘The bonds of constitutional interpretation’, Cover calls Scarry’s work ‘a brilliant evocation of the world-destroying character of pain for those who suffer it’; above n 2, at 817. Ways in which Scarry’s work has been questioned are outlined in Sarat ‘Introduction: on pain and death’, above n 3, pp 7–9 and P Fitzpatrick ‘Why the law is also nonviolent’ in Sarat Law, Violence and the Possibility of Justice, above n 3, pp 142–173 at p 161.

11. Scarry, ibid, p 4.

12. Ibid, p 4.

13. Ibid, p 5.

14. Ibid, p 162.

15. Ibid, p 162.

16. Ibid, p 280.

17. Ibid, p 307.

18. Ibid, p 326.

19. Compare C Nordstrom A Different Kind of War Story (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997).Google Scholar

20. Brison, Compare S The uses of narrative in the aftermath of violence’ in Card, C. (ed) On Feminist Ethics and Politics (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999) pp 200–225 Google Scholarand see n 54 below.

21. Butler, J. Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (New York: Routledge, 1997).Google ScholarMy thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this reference.

22. For different views on the connections between Cover’s work and ‘literary’ approaches see C Greenhouse ‘Reading violence’ in Sarat and Kearns Law’s Violence, above n 3, pp 105–139 and M Constable ‘The silence of the law: justice in Cover’s “Field of Pain and Death” ’ in Sarat Law, Violence and the Possibility of Justice, above n 3, pp 85–100.

23. Sarat and Kearns Law’s Violence, above n 3. See further Skinner, above n 1.

24. Sarat and Kearns ‘A journey through forgetting’, above n 3, p 210.

25. Sarat and Kearns ‘Introduction’ in Law’s Violence, above n 3, p 2.

26. Sarat ‘Situating law’, above n 3, p 3.

27. Sarat and Kearns ‘Introduction’ in Law’s Violence, above n 3, p 2 and ‘A journey through forgetting’, above n 3, p 219.

28. Sarat ‘Situating law’, above n 3, pp 6–7 and 9.

29. Sarat and Kearns ‘A journey through forgetting’, above n 3, p 272.

30. Skinner, above n 1.

31. Abbink, J. Preface: violation and violence as cultural phenomena’ in Aijmer, G. and Abbink, J. (eds) Meanings of Violence: A Cross Cultural Perspective (Oxford: Berg, 2000) p xv.Google Scholar

32. See further Skinner, above n 1.

33. G Aijmer ‘Introduction: The idiom of violence in imagery and discourse’ in Aijmer and Abbink, above n 31, p 2.

34. Weisberg, Robert The law-literature enterprise’ (1988) 1 Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities 1;Google Scholar and Law and Literature: Possibilities and Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); A Manji ‘Law, labour and resistance to French colonialism in Sembene Ousmane’s Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu’ (2005) 25 LS 320 at 322. See also R West ‘Jurisprudence as narrative: an aesthetic analysis of modern legal theory’ (1985) 60 New York University Law Review 145 and ‘Disciplines, subjectivity and law’ in Sarat and Kearns The Fate of Law, above n 3, pp 119–157.

35. Douzinas, C. and Geary, A. Critical Jurisprudence: The Political Philosophy of Justice (Oxford: Hart, 2005) p 342.Google Scholar

36. Sarat and Kearns ‘A journey through forgetting’, above n 3, p 210.

37. Douzinas and Geary, above n 35, p 342.

38. Williams, above n 34, p 191.

39. Skinner, S. A benevolent institution for the suppression of evil”: Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent and the limits of policing’ (2003) 30 J Law and Society CrossRefGoogle Scholar420 at 440.

40. Pantazakos, above n 34, at 35 and 43. See also Massaro, T. Empathy, legal storytelling and the rule of law: new worlds, old wounds?’ (1989) 87 Michigan Law Review 2099.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41. Skinner, above n 39, at 423 and 440.

42. Richard Weisberg, above n 34, p 4.

43. Ibid, p 46.

44. Ibid, p 46.

45. Nussbaum, M. Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defence of Reform in Liberal Education (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993) pp 6,Google Scholar10–11 and 85–92.

46. Nussbaum, M. Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995) p xvi Google Scholarand note p 12.

47. Ibid, pp 90 and 120.

48. Robert Weisberg, above n 34, at 17–18.

49. See also Aristodemou, above n 34, pp 2–4 and Williams, above n 34, p xxix.

50. Manji, above n 34, at 336.

51. Williams, above n 34, p xxiv.

52. Lane argues that whereas psychology, philosophy and sociology tend to ‘explain away’ aspects of human behaviour, a more complete understanding can be derived from literature ‘which recasts social issues in imaginative ways and lets responsibility take a backseat to representation’; Lane, C. Hatred and Civility: The Antisocial Life in Victorian England (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004) p xx.Google Scholar Nussbaum argues that novels allow for the exploration of issues in imagined social settings, which in their difference from, or similarity to, the reader’s call for reflection and critical (re)assessment; above n 46, pp 7 and 29.

53. Delgado, Compare R. Storytelling for oppositionists and others: a plea for narrative’ (1988) 87 Michigan Law Review 2411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54. For example Godwin Phelps, T. Shattered Voices: Language, Violence and the Work of Truth Commissions (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 2004)Google Scholarand see further Skinner, above n 1.

55. For example Schramm, J-M Testimony and Advocacy in Victorian Law, Literature and Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).Google Scholar

56. Nordstrom, above n 19, pp 10, 16–24 and 116 and C Nordstrom and Robben, A. (eds) Fieldwork Under Fire: Contemporary Studies of Violence and Survival (Berkeley: California University Press, 1995) p 12;Google Scholar see further Skinner, above n 1.

57. See also Nussbaum, M. Introduction: form and content, philosophy and literature’ in Nussbaum, M. Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) pp 3–53 Google Scholarat p 3 and Richard Weisberg on content and style in legal discourse, above n 34, pp 6–7.

58. All references are to the Oxford World’s Classics series: Watts, C. (ed) Heart of Darkness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002);Google Scholar and

59. Levenson, M. Introduction’ in Levenson, M. (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Modernism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) p 1.Google Scholar

60. M Bell ‘The metaphysics of modernism’ in Levenson, ibid, p 9.

61. D Trotter ‘The modernist novel’ in Levenson, ibid, p 77.

62. See Hawthorn, J. Joseph Conrad: Narrative Technique and Ideological Commitment (London: Edward Arnold, 1990);Google Scholar especially pp 56–57; and Skinner, above n 39, pp 424–425.

63. Carabine, K. Under Western Eyes’ in Stape, J. (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) pp 122–139 Google Scholar at p 122.

64. For example Gillon, above n 62; Roussel, R. The Metaphysics of Darkness: A Study in the Unity and Development of Conrad’s Fiction (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1971);Google Scholar

65. Raval, ibid, p 2. Lord, ibid, p 95 argues that ‘[h]umankind in the late nineteenth century was forced to acknowledge that human ideals are derivative of our own illusions, ultimately unsupported by any reality outside ourselves’.

66. Raval, ibid, pp 167–168.

67. Gillon, above n 62, p 143.

68. For some readers three works will be too many or too few: the aim is to support the arguments advanced with a broader than usual range of examples, but within reasonable limits.

69. Watts ‘Introduction’ in Heart of Darkness, above n 58, p xix.

70. Ibid; see also Lord, above n 64, p 93.

71. Lord, ibid, pp 63–64.

72. Ibid, p 101.

73. Heart of Darkness, above n 58, p 105. See further Lord, above n 64, p 104.

74. On violence in the Belgian Congo, see Ward, T. State crime in the Heart of Darkness ’ (2005) 45 British Journal of Criminology 434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

75. Watts ‘Introduction’ in Heart of Darkness, above n 58, pp xxi–xxvii.

76. Heart of Darkness, ibid, pp 114–115.

77. Ibid, p 149.

78. Ibid, p 150.

79. Ibid, p 149.

80. Lord, above n 64, p 113.

81. Heart of Darkness, above n 58, p 164.

82. Ibid, p 178.

83. Lord, above n 64, p 113.

84. Skinner, above n 39, at 435–437.

85. The Secret Agent, above n 58, pp 47–48.

86. Ibid, p 49.

87. Ibid, p 86.

88. Ibid, pp 87–88. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for reminding me of these passages. Further examples of violence can be found in Verloc’s reflection on Stevie’s death, Winnie’s graphic mental picture of her brother’s death, her attack on her husband and her subsequent suicide in chapters 11 and 12.

89. Houen, Compare A. Terrorism and Modern Literature: From Joseph Conrad to Ciaran Carson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) pp 43–45 Google Scholaron the interconnectedness of violence and text.

90. Kim, S. Violence, irony and laughter: the narrator in The Secret Agent ’ (2003) 35 Conradiana 75.Google Scholar

91. Fleishman, A. Conrad’s Politics: Community and Anarchy in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1967) p 193.Google Scholar

92. The Secret Agent, above n 58, pp 59 and 179.

93. Ibid, p 234; see also Hampson, above n 64, p 159.

94. Ibid, eg p 171; see also Fleishman, above n 91, p 196.

95. Ibid, pp 127–132; see also Skinner, above n 39, at 434–435.

96. Ibid, ch 11.

97. Under Western Eyes, above n 58: see, eg, the time-shift at the start of Part Fourth and the mixed perspectives and narrative interjections in Part Second.

98. Ibid, p 3. See also Hawthorn, ‘Introduction’ in ibid, p xxi.

99. Ibid, p xxv.

100. Ibid, p xxvii.

101. Expressive eyes and faces convey more than the conversation: ibid, p 132.

102. Ibid, pp 135–136.

103. Ibid, p 139.

104. For a surprising account of Conrad’s sophisticated portrayal of anarchist terrorism, see Scanlan, M. Plotting Terror: Novelists and Terrorists in Contemporary Fiction (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001).Google ScholarCompare Houen’s analysis, above n 89.

105. Under Western Eyes, above n 58, pp 22–23.

106. Ibid, pp 270–271.

107. Ibid, p 271.

108. Ibid, pp 14–16.

109. Ibid, pp 20–23.

110. Ibid, p 70.

111. Ibid, p 146.

112. Ibid, pp 179–212.

113. Compare Lane, above n 52, pp 168–174, on Razumov’s counter-intuitive and ultimately self-oriented ‘eschatological’ violence.

114. Compare Nordstrom, above n 19, p 116.

115. Conrad famously declared this aim in his preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897).

116. Hillis Miller, J. Poets of Reality: Six Twentieth-Century Writers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966) p 19.Google Scholar Hillis Miller argues at p 27 that Conrad sought ‘to make the truth of life, something different from any impression or quality, momentarily visible. Not colours or light, but the darkness behind them, is the true reality’.