Legally Blonde but intellectual (lyric essay on guilt)

The courtroom looms - cavernous, with plush wood paneling, walls soft enough to cushion the screams of the innocent, hard enough to echo the cries of injustice.  

But for now, the courtroom is silent. 

It’s time for closing statements to begin. 

The prosecutor stands before the jury. He starts off with a low, calm tone - voice passionate, but with a righteous anger. Then he starts to pace, voice rising as he does - the jury begins to murmur. His voice crescendos, enumerating the long list of wrongs the defendant has committed - it seems, an endless, unbreakable stream of horrors - until finally, the courtroom reaches its boiling point - judge and jury all overcome with righteous fury. In a whirl of commotion, the jury swiftly convenes, the defendant is deemed guilty, and the judge bangs his gavel - justice is served. 

This is the picture that comes to mind when most of us think of the word guilty. Okay, maybe I think of this iconic Legally Blonde scene first, but the intense courtroom is a close second. But in all seriousness... where did we get this image? 

For many students, To Kill a Mockingbird is their first literary introduction to themes of justice. In Harper Lee’s world, the victim and the aggressor are pretty clear - Tom Robinson is a victim of false accusation based on racism, and Bob Ewell is the perpetrator - a borderline caricature of a white Southern racist. Harper Lee’s version of guilt is relatively simplistic. It simply asks: who committed the crime? Who didn’t? 

Through To Kill a Mockingbird, our view of guilt is shaped so that we come to see the line between guilt and innocence as smooth and decisive. 

And yet, this definition of guilt doesn’t fare well with the complexities of life. Rather than a definitive line between guilt and innocence, it more likely resembles a cobweb - a complex concoction where guilt and innocence are inextricably intertwined. 

               visual reference - (also real life footage of my handwriting)

In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus is caught in the middle of that cobweb. In part due to fate, in part due to his own honesty/curiosity, Oedipus commits two atrocious acts: 1) he kills his father, Laius and 2) he marries and births children with his mother. Although it’s undeniable that Oedipus committed these acts, the question of Oedipus’ guilt isn’t so simple. See, Oedipus reflects the complexity of life - after all, Aristotle states that a defining characteristic of Greek tragedies is that characters must be “lifelike.” And when has life ever been simply smooth and decisive? As uncomfortable as Oedipus’ ambiguous lines of guilt and innocence may make us feel, this complexity is what makes Oedipus compelling - what has ensured its timelessness. As readers, Oedipus’ story makes us grapple with the uncomfortable reality that, when it comes to defining guilt, there are more factors at play than just who committed the crime.

So, what are these other factors then? 

Fate is obviously a factor - at least in Oedipus. But to a modern audience, the concept of fate may seem unfamiliar, and even, silly - after all, fate is not a factor in our criminal justice processes. 

Or is it? 

Native Son helps us understand fate in a modern context. Bigger Thomas is a black boy in the 1930’s who accidentally kills a white woman, Mary Dalton. In Bigger’s trial, his lawyer, Max, argues that the racist environment Bigger lived in - “the queer conditions of life, conditions thrust outside the normal circle of our civilization” (Wright 393), must be considered when determining the degree of guilt Bigger must bear. By definition, environmental factors are things that we cannot control, that we are born to. There is a sense of inevitability. Similarly, fate is beyond our realm of control - Oedipus asks “[who] can save his life from the flashing bolts of god?” (1446) - and Oedipus is “cursed by birth” (1455). 

The parallels between Bigger and Oedipus only deepen from here. By killing Mary Dalton, Bigger has fulfilled the expectations of society - a society that believes that black men are inherently violent and aggressive. Isn’t this similar to how Oedipus fulfilled his fate and the expectations of Apollo? 

By exploring Native Son, we come to see that the environment and expectations of society are the modern equivalent of fate in how they influence our understanding of, and ultimately determine the appropriate degree of guilt. 

Up until now, the factors in guilt we have examined appear as relatively objective. But there’s still a missing piece in our definition of guilt: sympathy. At the end of the day, our understanding of guilt comes down to our understanding of ourselves - of our own human fallibility. By design, Greek tragedies conjure up feelings of sympathy - Aristotle refers to a Greek tragedy that does not do so as one that “lacks every requirement.” As readers, we cannot help but sympathize with Oedipus' struggle against the uncontrollable - especially during COVID, the struggle against the unpredictable, the inevitable, and the horrific resonates deeper than ever. To say that Oedipus is guilty would be to condemn ourselves.  

So overall, what do all these factors (details of the crime, environment, sympathy) mean for our definition of guilt? Well for starters, it means that our definition of guilt isn’t perfect. Far from it - guilt is clouded by our own biases and our ability to sympathize with other human imperfections. Secondly, it means that our definition of guilt isn’t static - rather than the simple question of who committed the crime, our definition of guilt changes as we ourselves change - as we grow in empathy and experience. At first glance, the imperfection of this definition may seem depressing. 

And yet, the complexity and the malleability of guilt should actually give us hope - that in an imperfect world, we have a definition of guilt that is able to grasp those complexities rather than avoid them, a definition that looks kindly on the fact that humans cannot be perfect, no matter how much we try.