The setting of this play is a small village called
Huisum. Adam, the judge of this small
village, is seen as a kind of ultimate authority by the people of the
village. This is because he is the judge
and he decides the outcome of all of the cases in the village. Now, since Adam is the ultimate authority,
the judge, of the village, the people of the village would never even have the
idea cross their mind that Adam could be guilty of something.
In this
play Adam happens to be both the judge and the criminal. During the trial, nobody suspects Adam to be
the guilty one except for Licht and Walter.
Walter is able to be suspicious of Adam because he is not a resident of
that village and does not see him in the way that the rest of the people
do. Licht is suspicious of Adam because
he is an intelligent person and can see past the idea that Adam always does
what is right.
The
people of the small village make it easy for Adam to run the court how he does
and act how he chooses. They do not
think he could do anything wrong. If
Licht and Walter had not been involved, Adam may very well have been able to
get out of this situation without being caught.
I think this is one of the main themes of this play: the struggle between authority and individual. And I also thought it was ironic that the people assumed Judge Adam was honest just because of his position of authority, while the outsiders Walter and Licht were the only two that suspicioned him as corrupt.
ReplyDeleteIn a different context this would be terrifying. Had Walter not been there an innocent many would've been convicted and relationships would've been destroyed.
ReplyDeleteExcellent points! Adam's authority was completely unchecked and had Walter not coincidentally supervised the trial, terrible things would have happened. We'll explore this idea in class.
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