A LITERARY SEARCH TO IDENTIFY FACTORS NECESSARY FOR AN INDIVIDUAL SENSE OF JUSTICE: CAPOTE'S 'IN COLD BLOOD' AND SOLZHENITSYN'S 'THE CANCER WARD' (UNITED STATES, SOVIET UNION)

This dissertation is an attempt to determine the essential factors in the development of an individual sense of justice by examining two literary works: Capote's In Cold Blood and Solzhenitsyn's The Cancer Ward. Literature is approached as a discipline that can add insight into the understanding of justice and how it is manifested in an individual. This work argues that the acquisition of a sense of justice has an emotional basis modified by the process of thought.;Next themes in Russian literature and Solzhenitsyn's The Cancer Ward are examined. A secular-religious polarity is noted, which underscores intellectual thought in the nineteenth-century and results in the creation of literary characters searching for identity. Twentieth-century thought, influenced by socialist realism, repudiates traditional Russian values. Through his protagonist, Kostoglotov, who questions Soviet policy and struggles against injustice, Solzhenitsyn dramatizes this loss and posits love as a basis for a just society.;Chapters Four and Five explore the conflict between a concern for individual rights and a need to punish criminals, which appears in earlier American literature and continues in Capote's In Cold Blood. As an objective observer, Capote records the horrible details of murder and the lives of those involved. His views of Hickock and Smith provide evidence for the argument that a sound emotional base is necessary to become a just individual.;The conclusion discusses literature's role in identifying cultural and individual concepts of justice and man's difficulty in achieving a balance between justice and injustice. As recorders of destructive deeds, Solzhenitsyn challenges Soviet thought, and Capote struggles to determine levels of guilt. Both authors verify the thesis that an emotional basis, as channeled by an interplay of emotion and thought, is fundamental to the development of an individual sense of justice.;The first chapter provides a framework for a concept of justice. Opinions by earlier philosophers are considered before moving to John Rawls' "psychological laws" and Hannah Arendt's "thinking attention." Psychological theories by Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg precede an examination of Jerome Kagan's belief that emotions play a crucial role in developing a sense of justice.