Outsider Law in Literature: Construction and Representation in Death and the Maiden

LITERATURE ALLOWS FOR THE RECOUNTING OF NARRATIVES according to broadly-defined and variously-practiced norms such as character consistency, agential movement, and author-hero relations. In legal settings, claimants, witnesses and lawyers provide evidence, give summaries, or offer background information according to similar norms, but for dearly defined ends: they are trying to (re-)tell coherent narratives in order to arouse sympathy from the adjudicating body. Even judges recall or recount stories in order to legitimize decisions to the parties of the hearing. But the framework within which legal storytelling occurs demands that the parties abide by an additional set of norms elaborated by members of the legal profession over extended periods of time. These norms are codified so they are most well known to the initiated (members of the legal profession); they also reflect, to varying degrees, the norms of the society within which the law is practiced, which means that they generally favor members of the ruling or dominant classes of socie