Punishment without Crime in Modern Literature

Crime is an act of violation against signified rules, regulations, and laws designed by the government or authorities of particular institutions. Whereas, punishment is suffering, pain, obstructions, poverty or any kind of domination. When a person does any unethical or illegal activity, whether it is social, moral, or psychological, he is condemned to get punished. Ironically, we all are punished living in this capitalistic world where the system itself is the villain. Although getting punished because of wrongdoing is entirely acceptable, it becomes quite disturbing when innocent people get punishment without any crime. Some modern authors including Kafka, Camus, Walker, Miller, Gorky and others have exemplified this circumstance of getting executed without doing any harm as being criminal without crime, in their literary works.

Franz Kakfa in his multi-dimensional and paradoxical text The Trial, carries insights to ponder deeply about the system of the materialistic world and life exposing the reality of punishment that people get without doing any crime. In the novel, 'Joseph k' is the protagonist who gets arrested on his 30th birthday without knowing the reason behind his sudden arrest. He runs for the rest of his life until death for justice, but ultimately fails, and is killed by the name of Law. The allegory is that, the gate of law, the system is made for him but he does not have the permission to enter into the "gate of law" for proper judgement. However, law or justice does not define only a court, rather it includes the system of all the institutes, whether as - school, college, university, corporate offices, business institutes etc. The system is not made for the welfare of the common human beings, rather it is like "Daedalus' Maze", where we all are trapped from every corner as living in a prison bar, where we are accused of many things without knowing. Thus, "Authority" is always mysterious, unseen, and untouched by the ordinary people, where we are the "criminals" without crime and the whole society is the "court".

In this pandemic situation of Covid-19 in 2020, many people lost their jobs, especially the lower class people without any fault. They had worked hard throughout their life but ultimately got punished like "Boxer" (the horse) in Orwell's - Animal Farm, where in spite of being loyal and dedicated, the character gets sold in the butcher shop when he becomes unable to work. Even "Meursault" also gets punishment without crime in Albert Campus' The Outsider. More pathetically, the death of an innocent baby in Camus' The Plague shakes our soul who is punished even before knowing the meaning of "crime", let alone doing it.

In classical tragedies, the villain is individual and identified, which we find in Shakespeare's - Hamlet, Othello, or Julius Caesar etc. However, in modern tragedy, the villain is invisible, hidden, and collective. Where the capitalist system itself is the culprit, commoners have nothing to do except getting punished like "Willy Loman" in Arthur Miller's modern tragedy Death of a Salesman, where the protagonist cherishes "American Dream" which remains unsuccessful and unfulfilled that leads him to die without crime.

The "Bangladesh quota reform movement" in July, 2024 is a perfect example of protesting against injustice to the common people, especially the students who were discriminated against by the law, the movement which later turned into an anti-government revolution Nevertheless, if we look at the lower class people, the rickshaw pullers, the garment workers, the street salesmen, or the coal miners, all of them are the victims of capitalism who are getting punishment each and every day whether by getting charged and hit by the police, losing jobs, increasing rate of daily necessaries, not getting proper health treatment, or dying like dogs. Thus, we cannot figure out the actual villain being just the "victims".

In Maxim Gorky's novel Mother, we find Pavel representing the working class people who suffer throughout their life amid misery and utmost suffering, but ultimately get nothing. Not only the lower class citizens, but also the middle class people feel the pain and get punished, where a father has to think how he would fill the tuition fees for his children, how he would pay the bills of electric, water, gas, and accommodation, or how to manage the entire family for the whole month with a limited budget.

Not only men as "Joseph K.", but also women like "Celie" in Alice Walker's The Color Purple also gets punished throughout the struggle of life without crime, where the central character gets raped several times with no logic. Besides, in Begum Rokeya's utopian text Sultana's Dream, being a victim of the male dominated society, "Sultana" dreams of a feminist utopia.

During the period of the two World Wars, people were going through a huge massacre and devastation, dying like insects without committing misdeeds. The people who suffered and survived the war known as the members of "Lost Generation" became aimless, and hopeless losing everything, which we find in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun also Rises. But what was their crime? Did they want to start this war? The answer is "No". The political leaders including "Hitler", or the "Authority" who ruled and killed the people randomly, remained unchanged who were actually the reason for the punishment of the innocent people. However, we are enchained, if we say anything against the government, our life would be more insecure as we do not have "freedom of speech". Otherwise, "Abrar Fahad", the student of BUET may not be killed because of posting his words about politics on social media in 2019 in Bangladesh.

Surprisingly, not only the human beings, but also the other creatures as birds, fishes, trees and all the elements of nature are getting punishment without crime, because of our injustice against nature by destroying the eco-system, which are causing global warming, melting of polar ice caps, rising of sea level, distinction of so many species including the deaths of Whales and Dolphins in Cox's Bazaar sea beach, even the pandemic situation of 2020's Corona virus is also a result of our harmful attitude towards nature. Therefore, the animals, or plants also symbolise the innocent characters like "Gregor Samsa" who gets transformed into a vermin being a burden in the capitalist society and suffer his entire life without any crime in Kafka's The Metamorphosis.

Joseph, Meursault, Samsa, Boxer, Pavel, Abrar, Celie and all who are mentioned above are individually no one but "we" being punished without knowing the motive. Like the way Joseph K. Ultimately lets himself be killed by the police in the name of Law, we also have to accept the harsh reality, or the punishment without doing any crime. It is like William Blake's "Infant Sorrow", where the child fights against his swaddling bands to get relief, but fails and ultimately sucks upon his mother's breast, that is, accepting the punishment of the authority being confined in the "swaddling bands" of the society and doing what the system actually wants us to do.

The writer teaches English at Central Women's University, Dhaka