In defiance of the law: Women and 'justice' in American literature (Anne Hutchinson, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Jacobs, Toni Morrison, Sherley Ann Williams)

Nearly every law mediates between the desire for individual liberty and the perceived necessity for maintaining social order. Literature is a powerful tool to explore jurisprudential issues and to look critically at the American legal system This study analyzes works in American literature to consider the tension between the desire for social control—as evidenced by the law—and the effect on individuals—as depicted in art. The concept of “justice” is considered in each work in which female characters act according to their own code, which is at odds with civil law. In the first context, evolving law in Massachusetts Bay Colony is considered. The examination of Anne Hutchinson and the trials against two Indian women in Catharine Maria Sedgwick's Hope Leslie reveal laws that were enacted on an as-needed basis in the colony to thwart political dissension and to subdue the threat of the Pequot Indians. The second context examines the way federal and state law was used to entrench slavery and to deny African Americans rights enjoyed by other American citizens. The effects of such laws are considered in connection with slave women who violate the law in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Toni Morrison's Beloved, and Sherley Anne Williams' Dessa Rose. The women considered all act according to a core sense of beliefs and values, despite man-made rules of law. Their acts of civil disobedience make a powerful statement about the importance of defying unjust laws, remind readers of the social and legal change that has occurred in the past, and of the necessity to look critically at current law.