Theme and message

The main theme of the story “The Case for the Defence” by Graham Greene is earthly justice versus divine justice. This theme is enhanced by motifs such as fear, uncertainty and capital punishment.

Earthly justice versus Divine justice

Earthly justice refers to the judicial systems people have implemented throughout history in order to punish crimes and maintain social stability and security. The story targets the justice system of the UK in the 1930s, a time when capital punishment was still used as a way to punish crimes.

The story clearly shows how defective the justice is and raises many dilemmas. Since capital punishment is the ultimate definitive sentence, passing a judgment becomes a delicate issue that needs to be dealt with caution. If an innocent man is convicted, there is no way of saving him later and amending a wrongful capital sentence. This is, in fact, what allows for the accused in the story to be acquitted. As nobody could say for sure whether he or his twin committed the crime and they both had alibies, there was no other option but to set them free.

However, the story may sound a little superficial today. Logical reasoning tells us, based on the witnesses’ accounts, that one of the men must have been guilty and it was only a matter of establishing which of them did it. Yet, this does not happen in the story; the justice system does not take the investigation further.

Under these circumstances, the story shows that justice systems can be disappointing as they do not always manage to protect their citizens: “But if you were Mrs Salmon, could you sleep at night?” (p...

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