* This is a modified version of an article which appeared in Innovation Abstracts.

John Nelson is a Professor of English at North Shore Community College, Danvers.

Eve, Oedipus, Hamlet, Hester Prynne, Malcolm X, Humbert Humbert-these are some of the characters my students have analyzed, reflected on, prosecuted, and defended in the course "Criminals in Literature." The course originated with the realization that many of our greatest literary works--from the Creek tragedies to Kafka's The Trial to Orwell's 1984--are stories of crime and punishment. Some, such as Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, are recognized classics of criminal psychology. Other works, not generally considered crime stories, take on new dimensions when approached as studies of criminal behavior--or behavior judged to be criminal. The story of Jesus in The New Testament is the story of an innocent man wrongly accused, arrested, tried, convicted, and executed for treason. By the standards of his slaveholding society, Huck Finn abets a serious theft of "property" in helping a slave escape. Huck's adventures expose him to a world of adults engaged in murder, robbery, feuds, duels, and child abuse.

Criminals in Literature" is one of several options (including "Life Stages," "Film and Fiction," the traditional "Introduction to Literature," and others) which students may choose to fulfill the Composition II requirement at our college. The focus on crime gives the course thematic cohesion and provides a clear basis for comparing seemingly disparate authors. At the same time, students are introduced to literature in a variety of genres from various cultures and historical periods. One semester, for instance, we compared Euripides' Medea, a Greek tragedy first produced in 431 B.C., to The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, an Australian novel published in 1972 by Thomas Keneally (author of Schindler's List). The two works require the students to analyze and compare radically different societies: Greece in the pre-Homeric era of heroic quests and scheming gods, the Australian outback on the eve of independence in 1901. Yet both stories focus on murderers (one a woman and foreigner, the other a detribalized aborigine) who have been uprooted from their native cultures, who turn to violence after extreme provocation, who seek revenge while lacking any legal or legitimate means to redress their grievances, and who kill innocents in the process.

In their first writing assignment, students create literature; each student narrates, in first person, a crime story in which the narrator reveals and dramatizes the motives for his criminal act(s). Some students project themselves into the perspectives of historical figures who have committed crimes; some try to fathom and mimic the reasoning of sociopaths; some create characters who confront ethical dilemmas (e.g., whether to assist in the suicide of a beloved, terminally ill relative) some write wish - fulfillment stories which explore the seductiveness of crime without risking prosecution. Subsequent writing assignments are analytical and argumentative. Students analyze the motives, the values, the internal conflicts, and life circumstances of characters who commit crimes, as well as the political and moral values of the societies which judge certain behavior as criminal. Students often choose topics which require them to prosecute or defend a character. The challenge of arguing guilt or innocence (whether legal or moral) stimulates them to develop skills necessary in any form of critical thinking and writing. They must state a precise thesis; interpret a text and select supporting evidence which is specific, relevant, and persuasive; refute opposing views; and marshall their arguments into a coherent, well-reasoned essay.

The value and appeal of literature lie in its ability to draw us into the viewpoint of any character, whether it be the hero who slays the monster in Beowulf; or the monster himself as depicted in John Gardner's Grendel. The study of how criminals are portrayed in literature is a particularly effective way to get students thinking about the dynamics and the significance of narrative point of view. Throughout the course we consider questions of perspective and judgment. Who is telling us about this crime, and why? Who is judging this behavior as criminal, and why? Can we trust the narrator? What techniques are used to direct our sympathy toward this character rather than that one? We consider these questions when we discuss Angela Carter's "Our Lady of The Massacre," a modern, revisionist version of the captivity narratives -- stories of settlers captured by Indians which were popular in colonial America. The narrator, an orphaned young woman in 17th century England, is a thief and prostitute, convicted and sentenced to a seven-year punishment of indentured servitude in colonial Virginia. In Virginia, after resisting an assault by a lecherous overseer, she flees her servitude and is eventually taken in by an Indian tribe, who have no concept of intratribal theft or prostitution. She marries an Indian, gives birth to a son, and encourages the tribe to unite with other tribes and wage war against the English, who are encroaching on Indian land. In the ensuing battle the tribe is massacred, her husband is killed, and she and her son are captured by the English. To the English soldiers, she is a dangerous criminal, a convicted thief, and an escaped convict who has abandoned her religion, consorted with savages, conspired with the enemy, and betrayed her countrymen. To the narrator, it is the English who are thieves, despoilers of Indian lands. She has become an Indian; she believes that she owes no allegiance to English law. Judgment of criminality depends on point of view. As a companion piece to this story, we read William Bradford's Of Plimouth Plantation, which chronicles the Pequot War in New England from the Pilgrims' point of view.

One idea that helps to hold the course together is that readers are like jurors. Both are told a story, or versions of a story, about events involving strangers. Both are given some but not all points of view. Both must make inferences about the motives and reliability of the "witnesses" who appear before them, compare possible interpretations, and decide on the meaning or truth of the story they have been told. The course fosters the idea that a good reader, like a good juror, is an attentive, thoughtful, responsible, and independent-minded member of a community.

Several times each semester we break from our customary class discussion to conduct a mock trial, a format which can work in any literature course but which is especially well-suited to the study of literary criminals. From Sophocles' play Antigone we have prosecuted both Antigone and Creon. We have tried Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll for the crimes of Mr. Hyde, raising issues of intent and criminal responsibility. We've put Ben Franklin's heroine, Polly Baker, on the stand and heard her plea that she should be memorialized, not fined, for bearing illegitimate children. Students choose their roles as defendants, prosecutors, defense attorneys, witnesses, and jury members. We spend several class periods in small groups preparing trial strategy and several periods acting out the trial itself. In addition to generating interest and cooperation among students, this format encourages them to study the assigned text in depth so that they can perform their roles with some self-assurance. It also helps students to clarify and articulate their responses to the literature; once they have testified and deliberated with their classmates, they are better able to define the issues raised by the literary work, to select relevant evidence in order to defend or attack a given point of view, and to express their interpretations in writing. The most bashful, self-doubting student often blossoms into a relentless prosecutor, an ingeniously self-justifying Dr. Jekyll, or an indignant, impassioned Polly Baker.

"Criminals in Literature" was designed as an alternative to the traditional Composition II course, but it could also be offered as a literature elective or an interdisciplinary course. Some knowledge of the law is helpful to the instructor, especially in defining certain acts as crimes, but legal expertise is not essential. I tell my students I'm an English teacher, not a lawyer or police officer. If I'm unable to answer technical questions about the law, I direct them to law books or colleagues with legal expertise.

The course has special appeal for students in certain career programs (Criminal Justice, Paralegal), but it also draws many liberal arts students as well as those from other career programs. Students vary in their enthusiasm and aptitude for the study of literature, but they share a bond as members of a society governed by a code of laws, and, with few exceptions, they are fascinated by stories of crime.

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