Exploring the theme of justice in two crime fiction works

Genre can be seen as a lens through which one experiences literary work. Throughout the course of Crime Fiction, many different sub-genres such as detective fiction, Nordic noir, hardboiled, and historical fiction were explored, and most texts studied were an interplay of multiple genres. For example, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is thriller, crime fiction, mystery, Nordic noir, and psychological suspense, while China Miéville's The City and The City is detective fiction and science fiction. I argue that some of the most compelling themes that bind crime fiction work together are the way they showcase society and the fluid meaning of justice. Every work reveals what society’s flaws may have been at the time that it was written as well as how differently justice can be delivered. For this reason, the two works chosen for the following comparative analysis are Memories of Murder (2003), a historical thriller crime fiction film directed by Bong Joon-ho, and A Time to Kill (1989), a legal thriller crime fiction novel written by John Grisham. This essay compares the social and historical representation and the role of justice in these two works and reveals the importance of these themes through the lens of crime fiction.

Firstly, in order to explore the aforementioned motifs, crime fiction as a genre needs to be defined. If anything, the genre is a playground for authors, a clay mold; it has characteristics that authors could employ in their stories. Often, it is actually the diversion from a rigid structure of crime fiction that creates an interesting appeal, for example, the unsolved crime in Memories of Murder. The only rigid feature of this genre is that it is centered around a crime. Thus, crime fiction may or may not have some of the following characteristics: the buildup of suspense, intense experience of the crime, the pursuit of justice, the central protagonist(s)—often rational, intelligent, quirky, and/or distinctly different—, representation of the flaws of society, and an incompetent or unhelpful police/law force. Both Memories of Murder and A Time to Kill center around crime, the crime is very detailed and allows the readers/viewers to experience its intensity, and there is a buildup of suspense: in A Time to Kill, it is in the pursuit of justice, in Memories of Murder, it is as in who-dun-it and the prevention (or lack thereof) of further murders. In both stories, the police are incompetent and unhelpful in restoring justice and the protagonists are evidently smarter than them. These texts are therefore chosen as they represent some important features of the genre.

A Time to Kill and Memories of Murder have a rich and extensive representation of the social and historical contexts of the places they are set in. They are both based on true events. This representation of different places around the same time will be explored in A Time to Kill first, then Memories of Murder.

A Time to Kill is set in 1984. Throughout the novel, there is clear racial inequality. The open use of the derogatory n-word towards African Americans (Grisham) and the attacks of the Ku Klux Klan on those supporting Carl Lee (Grisham) are true characterizations of that time in history. In 1984, there were many protests by African Americans against racial segregation (Boyd) which can clearly be seen in the book. One of the reasons why Carl Lee decided to take matters into his own hands was because there was no faith in the legal system to rightly punish the rapists as they were white men and his daughter was black.  This was also a time when urban crime was on the rise in the US (Murphy). One of the reasons was the ongoing “crack epidemic” (Gershon). Drugs, alcohol, and substance abuse were prominent. Again, the book highlighted this very well. Multiple times throughout the book it was stated that the white men were “doped up” and drunk while raping Tonya. In fact, one of them even said that he did not remember the details of the incident because he was “smoking weed and drinking” (Grisham). Moreover, the law in the US at the time constitutionalized capital punishment (Marcus), and this was accurately featured in the book.

It was largely a male society in the book and it was clear that men had a duty to protect and defend women because the law evidently did not do enough for them. Women were seen as vulnerable and not important in decision-making. Carl Lee had to murder the rapists not only because he was driven by guilt and revenge, it was also because he saw it as his duty to protect his daughter. The father-daughter relationship is also strongly emphasized and, as such, it was a society that condoned Carl Lee’s actions. There is barely any involvement of women in the book. Carl Lee’s wife supported him but there was not much indication whether she knew of all the details or not. Similarly, Jake Brigance’s wife was also always there to support him and give him a softer side. There seemed to be many family values in the book, as Brigance said that his daughter and wife were the most important to him. He cared about their safety and decided to send them away from danger. As for the role of women in work, Ellen Roark only made an entry later in the book. Although she was intelligent, she said she “knew her place” in not being a lawyer because she is a woman in the South, and Judge Noose hates women lawyers.

Similar parallels can be drawn in Memories of Murder. It is set in October 1986 in South Korea when they were shifting from a military dictatorship to a liberal democracy. In that era, there was a shortage of resources, corruption, ineptitude, and more. This is very well reflected in the movie with a shortage of manpower in police, corruption in detectives, e.g. getting a false confession, and protest disruptions. These factors, along with the fact that the government was starting to build equality through equal pay and discrimination ordinances (Paik), were some reasons why the Hwaseong killer chose to kill women and was never caught. Additionally, women characters were often blurred or shown in shadows, like when Detective Gwi would hand other detectives important documents. She was extremely helpful in identifying important clues, e.g., the gloomy letter radio correlation, but she was not given enough credit for it. It was obvious that women were largely objectified from the killings and in the way the men talked about them. This social and historical representation of South Korea in 1986 demonstrated, akin to A Time to Kill, the flaws in humanity.

Thus, it can be seen that both stories have a rich social and historical background. They were written when those crimes actually took place. As Benjamin said (Benjamin), historicism gives the eternal image of the past. The crimes that were committed and the outcome in these stories are deeply related to the society in 1984 and 1986. These works reflect that. Memories of Murder, when watched now, reminds viewers of the living memory of South Korea’s first serial killer. Because of the movie, these memories of murder can never be forgotten. A Time to Kill reminds readers that there was such a time in history when killing was necessary and deemed morally justified by society, and the law recognized that.

Before exploring the meaning of justice, it is important to understand the central protagonist who exhibits certain characteristics and is the main pursuer of justice. In A Time to Kill, that was Jake Brigance, and in Memories of Murder, t it was Detective Park, Cho, and Seo.

Jake Brigance was the one who was able to bring justice to Carl Lee. His objective was not to prove that Carl Lee did not commit the crime but to prove that the crime he committed was at a time when it was imperative. Jake Brigance, as many protagonists in crime fiction are, was intelligent. He was rational and capable of thinking quickly under pressure. He smoked and drank as well, and he had quirky habits such as hard and fast rules where he had to wake up exactly at 5:30 am and be at the coffee shop at 6:00 am. During the case, he is clearly extremely focused on making sure he wins. He does not do it for money. Initially, he thinks that the case will bring him goodwill, but as he gets more involved in the case, he does let his emotions be affected by it too. He never drops the case even though his safety was greatly threatened multiple times.

Similarly, Detective Seo from Memories of Murder was extremely rational. Detective Park is very intuitive, with quirky traits like being able to discern a suspect's innocence by looking into their eyes. Detective Cho relies heavily on brutality and corruption. Detective Seo follows a scientific detective method. His famous catchphrase, "Documents don't lie", is one trait among many that show his rationality and preciseness. However, towards the end of the film when he realizes that the victim was a school girl he had recently met, he loses patience and impulsively tries to get a confession from their latest suspect. It appears as though he loses all hope, even in his detective method, when the DNA report is also inconclusive.

Interestingly, they drank alcohol and smoked cigarettes in both stories and as the stories progressed, all of them had some semblance of an emotional attachment with the case.

Finally, one of the most important characteristics of a crime fiction story is the objective of restoring justice. Sometimes, stories have multiple crimes and thus the serving of justice is relative to the crime. There is an opposition in both stories: was justice served or not?

In A Time to Kill, for the crime of the two men raping Tonya, justice was not served. It can never be served because the object of the crime was not a letter, not a rock, but a human. However, justice was served when the jury ruled Carl Lee not guilty of the murder of the rapists. The latter was more about revenge than justice. As the story progressed, the meaning of justice shifted. The central crime changed from the men raping Tonya to Carl Lee killing the men, the victim changed from Tonya to Carl Lee, and that is why justice, ultimately, was served to Carl Lee, not Tonya. Interestingly, Carl Lee was the one who committed the crime, but the white men were largely not seen as the victims, instead, it was Carl Lee because he was the one who had to face his daughter after not having been able to protect her, so, in some sense, it was his duty to avenge her. He had to kill those two men, and that is how the killings were justified.

On the other hand, in Memories of Murder, justice was never served. The crime remained constant throughout the Hwaseong murders. The victims were dead. The killer was at large, completely unidentified, leaving no real clues for the detectives. They tried their hardest to solve the crime, to find out exactly who did the crime and why they did it. They wanted to find the culprit and lock him away. But they failed. Additionally, Detective Seo, who was always calm, composed, and rational, seemed to have lost all patience in the end. He went after their latest suspect and physically abused him to retrieve some kind of confession. He just wanted the truth, at this point, and it was frustrating that he was not able to bring justice to the dead. Even multiple years after, the burden of not serving justice lies heavy on Detective Park’s mind, and the look in his eyes at the closing scene forces everyone to realize that the story is not over yet because justice was not served. In real life, years later, the true killer confessed to the crime. So, was justice served? I think that justice was not served, not in the movie, and not in reality either.

Both stories, although with seemingly different endings, imply that justice is an illusion. In the former work, justice was served to the father, not the daughter, and nothing will ever bring her innocence back. In the latter, justice was never served because the culprit was never found. He lives his life, while the lives of those lost will never return.

Thus, it can be said that these two works that appear to be incredibly different are intertwined under the umbrella of crime fiction by the themes of social and historical representation and the pursuit of justice. These themes highlight some of the crucial features of crime fiction and allow the consumers of these stories to experience history through crime.