Crime and Punishment Lecture PDF

SPEAKER Aggress with y'all. I quit like trying to stay, trying to stay stay in hospital. VA started student. Well I what? Did y'all have a good weekend. Everybody cool surviving it, making it. You were in English 3363. This is crime justice punishment in the, uh, in the novels course, and we are go...

SPEAKER Aggress with y'all. I quit like trying to stay, trying to stay stay in hospital. VA started student. Well I what? Did y'all have a good weekend. Everybody cool surviving it, making it. You were in English 3363. This is crime justice punishment in the, uh, in the novels course, and we are gonna continue on, on, uh, and I have new genes, so I feel like this, and that chair swivels pretty good, doesn't it? It's good. That's good for those of you I didn't meet last time. I'm Doctor Woods. Stick around afterwards. I'll get you a copy of syllabus. One thing I learned is I'm as much as I hate to be. Who looked the camera's pointing at you on by the way, this camera hot. I know that was killed the room right there. It's like, turn that thing away from us. I'll turn it to my new jeans. I think that, I think it should be a fashion show all day. Come on, my wife loves me. She takes good care of me. It's the point of its time, it's time to get a haircut. Really? These are things I think it's because I'm, it's like the absent-minded professor thing, you know, you get that absent-minded professor thing it's like I just don't, I just don't think about things like. My sideburns that get crazy with time, but from your sideburns. That's her job and she does it well. 35 years she's put up with me, the poor woman. I found out last week that I wasn't standing close enough this horrible microphone, so I'm sorry to move away from, I like to be in this. I like to be the center of attention if you hadn't noticed already, I'm gonna have to stand kind of closer over to this, this area. Where's your bus? I was just gonna, I was gonna yell at all three. No, I'm not gonna yell. If y'all sit over here, you can't talk the whole damn time because all I heard in my legs was y'all talking. If you're gonna chat, sit in the middle that's fine. Critter. I wrote Doctor Mulry and I said my entire room full of 30 students, only one student got the reference to Joseph Conrad. So, let me tell him. Let's say it's all him, right? He didn't write me back. He does that. He goes like, he goes, he goes weeks without writing it and then he'll answer a text and I'm like. What's this one from? That seems like a long time ago. Yeah, he's. Do you have his contact info? I don't. He's the one, but he's the reason I remember that. Absolutely, Mr. Kurtz. He did classic. I haven't read Heart of Darkness in a long time. I also haven't read, uh, in my other class I'm doing Kafka's Metamorphosis. We're doing, uh, world literature. I know, right? One day Samson Gregor awoke to find he had been transformed into a giant cockroach. That was a roller coaster. Greatest they do greatest introduction to a to a novel ever. Think of that line. It's so sad if y'all haven't read Metamorphosis, you should read Metamorphosis. It's so sad and it's so glorious. It's so wonderful. It's so perfect. But here's the thing I'm gonna, I'm gonna overshare as I constantly do. I love this. I left this house last week, holy crap, I, I was, I I was all over the place there. It's OK. My med levels are right now. Thank you. I'm, I'm better. I'm not better. Flix I'm I have new jeans. You missed the whole story about my new jeans. We'll have to catch you. Luckily it was caught on tape, so you can watch it later. OK, good. Thank God. I know I was missing that story. In, in, in world literature we're doing, uh, Kafka, which is neither here nor there to y'all Metamorphosis, which is a brilliant story of, of a man who wakes up and he's transformed into a giant cockroach, and he has to navigate the waters of what this cockroach life live that what it's go read Metamorphosis. You should go read. It's wonderful, but I haven't. It's so good. It's so depressing and so dark. It's so good, but I think I can't believe this is true because surely, I mean, I'm 20. This is my other life. I'm probably gonna overshare. I think I'm 22 years sober. Oh, Doctor Woods, you've been sober so long you forgot you're sober. That's when you know it's really annoying like I don't, I quit drinking years ago. But I hadn't, I don't think I've read that since I got into recovery, and that story is a perfect metaphor for recovery. So he's, he's transformed into a giant cockroach and the rest of the family doesn't know what the hell to do with him, and they all like go by the door quietly like what's, what's happening? Is he OK in there? I might have to write a paper. I'm gonna do some, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do what's known as a little literate. I'm sure surely someone's done this already. Someone's going, oh yeah, Franzocas metamorphosis as addiction studies. That would be cool. Somebody do that research for me. What did you find in afterwards, you're not really going to, are you? Yes, I am. I'm gonna do it, guys. I'm gonna send this roll sheet around. Please remember that I need you to sign your full name on there, and please, if you forget, come by and do it. Make it look, we've lost half the we lost half the class. No, that's not true. It's still a huge class and you've read many, many things for class today. We're gonna do. I we're gonna do uh Genesis. It's very rare that I get into religious studies whatsoever. I'm completely unqualified. Addiction study, come on, that's my jam. But you know, I did try very hard not to offend anybody and. Talk about uh the what's known basically as the first crime story in Western literature, Cain and Abel, which you revisited. I might even read it out loud as the time elapsed, I might even read it out loud because that's something I'd like to do, I think. And then uh we'll jump right into Antigone. You Also looked at an ancient code of, of uh uh Babylonian laws known as Hammurabi's code of ethic, which I bet some of you have seen before, probably it's kind of one that everybody always goes to the first time like the first time civilization sat down and went, hey, we should maybe, maybe we should have some rules, guys. This is all working out great, but now it's time to like set up some rules and so I'm actually think I'm gonna save that one until as time allows and taking up take us. We'll get out of here at 4 honey. I'm sorry. Just kidding. Any question and then because I told stories about my blue jeans and didn't do any teaching. I think that uh I need to remind y'all that the, the assigned readings are like I got, I got frantic emails I'm so proud of you. You're just like, listen, no judgment. No 4:30 last night. Hey, what are we supposed to read for class tomorrow? That's my kind of student. My bosses tell me make sure you have a budget ready for you. I'm like, when 2 o'clock on Monday. That's for tomorrow, William, to worry about. I'll have my budget ready. I always hit my deadlines. I'm just like, just like you, I like to work right up to the moment of a deadline. Anyway, if you look on the handout that I gave you this little schedule of events, things that you're supposed to follow along, and then I, uh, I think I sent it to you on. Canvas. Don't y'all prefer canvas email, don't you? You don't, how many of y'all go to like you don't go to Schrier? Where do you look? Outlook, don't. Oh, I was first. No. Oh good, it does automatically. You can't tell the difference. You don't have to go anywhere and click on special extra things or anything. They say, go look at it and y'all read that pretty carefully. That's how I should, that's your preferred way. It was a it was a rainy Sunday and I said, what it's a cold Sunday. What, what else did you do except read Antiquity, and I hope you did that. Anyway, I'll help you, uh, keep up with the assignments. We're gonna move kind of fast and furious, guys. I finished the welcome to the class thing, all the things about the schedule and our, our, uh, policies and all that good stuff, and I think I'm gonna jump right quickly into like a. Bear with me. So like a real teacher for me. Never, doctor. Well it's not you. I'm sure I'll be easily distracted. I wanna do a little background on the course before we jump into uh the Genesis story of Cain and Abel. Um, I might email some of these notes to you, but they're all right there in the magic box. You can jot them down if you want, as always, when people say, will this be on the test, and I say. Everything might be on the test. Like, remember, the jeans story will definitely be on Sammy failed that assignment. I'm sorry, you'll have to go back and find out. Semie's taking all my old blue jeans away. Thank you for workingre Saturday. That was good. Try Saturday. we got it. Admissions were happening. Things were happening. You are in this as we did last time you were on this course for a variety of reasons, but primarily you're in this course, most of you in this course for a criminal justice degree that uh includes a little bit of the humanities along the way. So in a literature course based on um crime, justice and. Punishment to a lesser degree. The question becomes, why, what, what a strength I gave you the philosophical underpinnings last time when I said we really want you guys to have a good background on, on some, uh, humanity stuff. Um, this class is going to be one that navigates a few different you can tell I've gone into my I've gone to my lecture because I think like as we navigate the context that shapes the way the crime. You know, professor, you know, Professor Tong. There's some things we're gonna answer. Some of that's in the syllabus, some of that's just stuff that we ponder as you start to write. You had a moment to, you had a moment to read uh Cain and Abel, and there's a moment in there where you should, you probably went. Why? Why, why did, why did that happen that way? You read Antigone for class today, and you know um that when she stands up to Creon and says, listen to me, there are your laws, and then there are the god's laws. This is not justice, Creon. We want justice. You might pause for a moment and go. Oh, that's still some stuff that we talk about today. In the time that I talked to you last, there's been another flurry of new executive orders and new things are happening and, and, and laws are being struck down and laws are being written and and and some of us will go, what does this mean exactly? So questions as we dive into the semester. These are some that I came up with just to think like I'm gonna answer these and I hope you guys don't mind if you uh well you're, you're kind of captive so here we go. I'll be answering the following questions for myself as we do this. I've done this one a couple of times. Why you and and in no particular order, what does crime literature teach us about crime, uh, or about justice and its limitations when we define justice, and I wanna come up to a good uh definition of justice here in just a minute. When we think about what is justice we have to ask ourselves, well, who is it for and how does it come about and and and who when we talk about justice we're talking about a certain group that gets justice and maybe some that don't get as much justice Antigone is seriously she thinks she's in the right. And as many his her sister goes oh my God, you're making a huge mistake, right? You know the law you know what the law says and Antigone tells this many, um, I don't care. I don't care what he says. I don't care if the law says this. I have to break this law. I have to do the right thing by our brother whose body is rotting out there, OK? Other questions what. Why do people commit crimes? Remember it's not a criminology class. Luckily I'd say it's a literature class, but we're gonna read about some interesting characters who are driven to create uh to commit crimes one way or the other, and the answer to that sometimes it's different for different reasons. And again it's it's not gonna turn into a a a a criminology class. You guys are getting plenty of that and I know what you go study those of you who are in those other classes, um, but literature has literature's job has been for a long time to point out things that, that, uh, people ponder. It is the entire job of the storyteller. The storyteller who says, I think I'll tell you a story, and I think we'll try and find out a message from it, OK? And so the question becomes, well, who are these people again I told you last time we're gonna read some kind of dark, dark stuff some sometimes you're gonna read something and go, ah man, why did that guy do that? What are these crimes? I told you I can't watch this stuff in my house and it's just mm, OK, so, so then we come back to the concept of punishment and the question becomes, well. How do we define punishment? There is, speaking of Franz Kafka, there's a short story called In the Penal Colony. In the penal colony, a prisoner island. And I almost assigned it to you guys and in the moment of weakness I went it's just too dark. I can't they, they, they, the, the reporter goes to and you guys know this one? It's an obscure, it's a very obscure short story, but it's about punishment and justice and the reporter goes to the penal colony and it's got the best record of rehabilitation or you know, this like and then he meets the he meets the the war. Of the prison, he goes, well, how do you account for your success? And he said to me, he says, come on, I'll show you. And he shows one of the prisoners for whatever crime, it's brutal. Oh, whatever crime they've committed, they go into this machine that uses needles to tattoo it on them slowly and painfully, and they do that for it just goes on. It's it just goes on and on and on. And of course the irony is in the game, the, the uh uh uh the, the warden ends up having to be punished. I can't think about it. It's so bad that I I'm like, One day Sam McGregor woke up to find out he had been transformed into a giant cockroach. Like, damn, Kafka, you really went all out with this one, so I couldn't do it. But the question becomes if we're punished, if, if a society says. We have to punish this individual. Then in literature we, we work about questions of, well, what, what punishment is just, what is right? How is it fair? Is it fair? It's easy and and a lot of writers have have argued over what what does that mean by punishment, right? What does what does society tell us the rules are? Some of you are invited some of you, some of you little lawbreakers. What's Doctor Woods. Some of you have knowingly, nobody in this room, certainly not your instructor, have knowingly broken the law at one point in your life, at one point in your life you went, uh, I, I maybe I was. On jury duty one time. Oh good, Doctor Woods story. This should eat up some valuable time. No, I'll be quick. We have so much to cover. I was on jury duty one time, Kirk. I told you I but I'm on my civic duty. I get excited. I want to be on jury duty. I wanna do my part for the city state. I want you all to get excited if you get caught. Anybody who's been on jury duty yet, have they found you yet? You, you were in the party. That's right, I was, well, here's the funny story. I've never served on jury my entire life. I get very, very excited when I go on jury duty, but typically it goes like this. We get to the moment you get the thing, like yeah, yeah, and what do you do? And you Doctor Woods, and I have a PhD. I think what's your field in English? What's your secondary field creative writing? What, what else do you study? And I say rhetoric and composition theory, which is, you know, the freshman composition writing and they hear the word rhetoric and they go, yes, thank you, dismissed. It's like, oh, it's almost like I was, I know your tricks, right? I'm like, oh, I went to, I got advanced degrees. The lawyers, now that's not complete nonsense. I mean they could manipulate me as well as they could manipulate anybody else, but I've never gotten to serve on a jury. And the last time I didn't get to serve on a jury, I was so close. I got called in and you know you sit over there and you get your $10 for the half morning yay, breakfast taco money and then you sit in a big pool and they start asking questions and everybody, you guys know how this works. They got the, the East side gets to ask questions and they get to throw people out. It's like this. You're sitting in a room like this and they just just start assigning people and go OK, and there's great questions. There's there's kind of weird questions. One of them was one of my favorite jury pool question was if I were to ask you what bumper sticker you have on your car right now, please tell me, and somebody will say, I, this or that and thank you, you're dismissed or OK, I want this one on my side, you know, they're just trying to find their jury. They're trying to find the the ones they want. The case was a guy who got a got in trouble for not having a registration sticker, you know, and, and you have to inspection stick. Oh, inspections are gone, yeah, now you just need your registration sticker to drive your little car. You guys all have you look and you always look over and you're like, 00 my God, maybe you don't. I always, this is how the story is going. I always look at money and go, oh my God, am I that thing's been. I can't remember the. You know, my wife has to tell me go get a station you're sick or absentminded professor. So the guy was in trouble. He was standing and he was, he was up for Trump because he, he didn't have inspection and his defense was interesting. He said, and you guys are familiar with some of it and maybe one or 21 or two of you in this room, and I'm not insulting you in the least, he said, I don't believe that you have the right to make me have an inspection sticker back to the lecture state of Texas. You don't have that power over me because Texas is not really a state at all. It was never, he was like a uh. Help me, and I mean, I'm not trying to be a jackass here. I don't think like, like, yeah, like, like a, a, a separatist, a Texas, the, the group that says they seem to, they seem to be out here in the hills, the group that says Texas has no power over me because they're not, they're not an ordained just a sovereign state and yes, thank you, whatever. I thought this guy, this guy's going to jail. I mean it's like it's his argument is that the Republic of Texas has never really truly became a member of the United States of America. God bless Texas. I went, I'm sitting in the jury pool list and I'm like, interesting. I don't think that's gonna go far, but you know, more power to you because you have no right to he because he got to address the, he got to address us and tell them, you know, preliminary stuff or something. I'm not, I don't acknowledge, I don't acknowledge this court. This court is does not exist in my mind. How about them handcuffs? Do those, do those feel real? No. So they finally, oh God, this story is so long. I'm so sorry. This is not even a good story. It's just a rambling story. They finally got around to just laws and who's broken the law when you know and they broke the law. He said a room full. He said, how many of you have ever driven with an expired inspection sticker registration? And I went, I'm up to for a moment. And I looked around and I was like, oh, you lying bastards, you know, everybody else was like this, oh no, there, and they went, thank you, you're dismissed. I was like, Damn it, I wanna be on the jury. And I was, oh, they said, don't do it again, you know, go get your registration assist. I was like, mm, I bet there's other people in this room and. That was one I knowingly violated. I got in my vehicle and I drove. The best part is when you go to buy the, when you go to the, when you go, oh, you guys all do it by mail because you're smart. When you go to the courthouse to do this, and they ask you, you drive with the expired registration sticker uh-huh, I know that's gonna be a $20 fine, you know, extra whatever, $20. Mhm. Are you have you driven the vehicle? No, it's certainly not sitting in your parking lot right now. Anyway, that, and I, it's not, I wanna be part of the system. I don't wanna be a horse's ass about it. I wanna follow the rules. I'm just ADHD and I forget to get my sticker, right? I think there should be. I don't acknowledge your court because I'm ADHD. Does that work? I don't know, um. There have been laws that you have broken. Hell, you broke some laws this weekend. What? What? Maybe, maybe. I don't, don't go into any detail. I don't need to know. Everybody would give me shot. Come on. It's like me and my 10 yeah. Anybody threat to? Yes, it's me. Any anybody break a rule of the law this weekend? Yeah, keep your hand down. Don't tell me. OK, we're recording everything. It's smart of you not to raise your hand. But the question becomes, well, are you doing, are you a lawbreaker because you are, uh, you, you don't believe in the law? Is it a law that you think is unjust? Is it a law that is silly? And you're like, is it a law that is unenforceable, right? There's a lot of that. We get that in, in, uh, prohibition days. They're like, uh, people are gonna drink, so organized crime is gonna fill the gap where we can do it. So then the question becomes what happens when justice conflicts with your own personal morality or cultural traditions? What if a law comes into effect that says. He again uh there's gonna be we're going into some interesting times when people may following the ledger of the law may show up and go, yes, we need to see your documentation we need to say, you know, it's like there's there's a uh a new administration was made this a a an absolute part of their incoming business like we are gonna take care of what we perceive to be people who have broken this law. And there's some people who said that's that's, that's that's not fair it's not right, it's not a good law and they will, they will, you know, the, the classic what we always do is uh what we always do is go, well, you know, there's, there's laws when, when Martin Luther King is sitting in a cell and they say you broke the law, you paraded without a permit. Martin Luther King goes, I did. You're right, guilty. I marched on your streets cause I'm trying to put a stop to segregation, and I would do it again, right? When in Nazi Germany, if you harbored your Jewish neighbor and hit them, you were breaking the law. I mean, the absolute letter of the law, and the question becomes. Well, what if the law is wrong, so we'll see that in some of our readings as well. I don't know what, I don't know exactly what came, wait, I'm sorry. I was gonna say I don't know what the hell Cain did. It was so bad. Well, he murdered his brother. OK, yes, yes, beside that, Frank side, what beside that little thing, his offering is not accepted. The Lord goes, I like yours, I don't like yours. We don't get a lot of detail. We'll do that in just a minute, like. I don't think King should go kill Abel over, but. Where's the justice in that? Come on, we'll talk about that. So these stories and then finally, let's say, uh, this whole idea of is, is, is the, is the reason Franzkopf right Kafka writes about the penal colony is the reason for prison to make you a better person, to rehabilitate you, to get you back in society as quickly and with the coping skills that you need, or is it just to punish you? Is it to keep separate you if you're the lawbreaker from everybody else? Is it to separate you from people who have uh because you've done this act, should you be allowed to be with the rest of us, or do we believe in redemption or do we believe in restorative justice and we'll talk about that some when we see it in, uh, particularly in, in, uh, in Cold Blood. The idea is, can, can we, can we, I mean, do people change? Do you get, do you rehabilitate? These are all the great questions that the philosophers are gonna argue with along the way, right? And say, listen, if we believe in justice and if we believe in, you should be punished. Sure, got it, but. What can we do to, is there, is there any redemption at all? Are we supposed to while you're doing your time, this is, this is the, the classics like, wait a minute, these guys, you can sit in prison and go to college and get a college class and here I am paying for my college and why are they doing this guy a college class? I mean nominal fees or whatever the case like what happens if you're in. Not really. I'm interested. I haven't been, have y'all? What happens if you're in prison filling your days? Would it make sense to help people have the ability not to go back to that place again? And if you do that. I don't know, I don't know where the, I don't know where, um, we'll see how people talk about restoration, you know. If you make a mistake, and we all do, can you be forgiven for it? And it depends on the mistake, I think in a lot of ways people say, well, it depends on the mistake, right? OK, we will also look at big ideas through the lens of literature, literature, because it's good stuff is what we study. People, people, when you're a literature people, people say, I wanna bring you a book. You go to Monday Night fiction, right? Um. Because on a rainy day, what else is there to do? It's the best thing to do. We will do a brief history of crime literature in just a moment and talk about how it captivates us. You guys know that I've mentioned. My wife's fascination with the, with the TV shows that maybe you're watching as well. From ancient myths, which we're gonna start today all the way to uh 21st century, we'll uh we'll look at the evolution of crime literature. Real quick, I want to do since that there's a title in. OK, I wrote it down and I was like, this is so good. I'm gonna write this one down again in my horrible handwriting. If I were to ask you that we mostly we understand this stuff, we understand crime like the name of the class is crime. Punishment, justice, etc. We know what crime is even if we don't agree with the law. We sort of know what the law is, even if we don't agree with the law sometimes we kind of get our head around what, what do you think of when you think of justice? What is a good work? Don't nobody I look don't, don't go to your cell phones. I'm just interested. What's your working definition of justice? Not a rhetorical question. I'll take any answer. What is justice? It's hard to define, isn't it? Philosophers have been give me something. What do you think? Start with something. Emotional or monetary compensation? Compensation justice to ruin when a wrong is done. When a wrong is done, we want some sort of, we want something to be made right, right? What else? It's a hard one, isn't it, please. There we go, once again, we're back to this concept of something, something justice is somebody was wrong. Balance Good, absolutely. Closure closure we get a sense of it's done, it's over, yeah, yeah, I thought that's a good one. That's a good one as well. Here's, here's one that, uh, from now I did, I didn't let you guys look at the, but I went and looked at all, I think this is from Cornell Law School. Those of you going to law school will be debating this and having a great time as one else, right, your first year in law school. Oh, that's scary. You're gonna do great. Go watch the paper chase. It's an old 1970s show. It was so good. Kid goes off at law school, the paper chase. John, John Gielgud is his professor makes him cry in class. It's wonderful. Just as an ethical and philosophical idea that people should be treated impartially, fairly, properly. And reasonly by the law and the representatives of the law, Cornell law that laws are to ensure that that no harm comes to others. That's the reason for law, right? Why do we have laws to begin with? What's the underlying we don't want, we, well, Hammurabi said pretty simple, steal my property. I'm gonna chop your head off. Uh, there you go, right? Hurt hurt my wife. I'm I get to hurt your wife. Whoa, right? Um, laws are in place to keep us. Everybody functioning, right? Functioning together and then the question becomes, well, who, who's lost the word harm is alleged a remedial action is taken. You you guys hit on that remedial action is taken as well. Both the accuser and the accused receive a morally right conscious merit. By their actions, due process. Have you heard the phrase due process before? If you want due process, it means you don't just, you don't just blindly, you know, it's like, well, you're guilty. I just started reading, uh, just for the fun of it to get it to stay up with it. I have so much reading to do this semester, which is great. I started True Grit. Some of y'all jumped in True Grit, and Maddy goes to there and they're hanging the guys that the very first scene is a great public execution, and they go, Oh, we're all gonna go watch the Hanging. OK, let's go watch The Hanging, right? The first guy didn't have anything to say. Next guy, third guy goes on and on. We'll see that scene. The idea is that we want that those who are accused and those who have been wrong to be taken care of, and literature talks about these issues are very deeply humane and sometimes unsettling, right? Fascinating history of the crime literature. It works kind of like this. I'll be quick here because I wanna get to, uh, I wanna at least get to come on, Doctor. What's more. We have early crime narratives start all the way back in sort of ancient texts and myths and religious texts in folklore. I could have chosen a bunch of them, but I chose Cain and Abel because that's one that y'all are familiar with pretty early on. Cain and Abel in the Bible is the earliest is one of the earliest recorded tales of crime, focuses on jealousy, motive. We're always looking for motive, guilt. Divine punishment we'll do that one in just a minute. Great tragedies like Antigone grapple with the consequences of laws clash between individual mortal, uh, morality and society's laws, right? These early stories were usually concerned with, uh, disruption of divine or natural order. When things are not, when things are not right, we want to place them in natural order, right? They frame crime as a deeply moral issue. I should have done Shawshank Redemption. Come on, how can we not be watching Shawshank? That's. One on the list we may have to put an extra one in there. There's Andy Dufre's the perfect character of like he's not guilty. We know he's not guilty and off he goes, right? Into the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, 19 up to the 18th century crime was sort of a human drama. Some of you study Shakespeare with me, you know that we look at plays like Macbeth and Hamlet, which are crime stories. That's the best part. Shakespeare knew what sold tickets. He's like, I gotta fill the globe. We gotta fill the globe on Friday. What's popular right now? Oh, Thomas Kids, a Spanish tragedy. Let's borrow that we. We borrow that heavily and put on our own play and it will be about revenge and it will be about crimes and it will be about things like that. So we have plays like Macbeth and Hamlet, right? In the 18th century we have the rise of the novel, uh, lots of, lots of crime books start people start seeing this as we're gonna do Edgar Allan Poe. Some of y'all are already read that ahead. Edgar Allan Poe comes along in the 19th century and sort of invents the modern day detective story, right? There you go. College Jeopardy. Next time you're on College Jeopardy, invented, you think it's Sherlock Holmes. Everybody thinks Arthur Conan Doyle, right? No. Edgar Allan Poe is the first one to come up with a detective that comes into a closed room and observes things and goes, Oh, look around the room, murders in the room or look, are we gonna read that one, Doctor Woods? Sounds great. Damn it. Why aren't we reading that one? It was a monkey, a giant escape monkey did the killings there. Oh thanks, doctor. It was spoilers. It was an orangutan. Now you wanna read it, right? Go read Murders in the Room board. Uh, we also saw in, um, um, a golden age, one of the 20th century, you get all those wonderful hard-boiled fiction ones. It's like that film noir, the cool black and white movies with the Somebody comes there so like some Philip Marlow and all those cool all those cool detectives, private agents that, um, uh, privatize that, um, um, people come and work with and that was sort of the golden age of detective novels, right up until the 20th century, uh, 21st century all the way into now we're getting to Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men, that hard boiled tradition, right? You're gonna love Sheriff Bell, he's great. And then we start to deconstruct it and turn it on its head and when we go when we lose, and this is the great, this is the great uh when we lose the thread which is wait, these are the bad guys when we watch Godfather and we go, you remember of course that these are the bad guys. When you wear your Scarface shirt, I love that film too. I'm a fan. Come on, out the shit Scarface. You got happy you all can do all the lines from her right now. You watch it, you know it, you love Scarface. He's a bad guy. He's a terrible person, right? Wise guy, right? When we get to Goodfellas, this, this weird thing where we've turned it on his head and you're like, wait, I'm, I'm not supposed to like these guys, then why do I Why do I wanna watch all these gangster movies, right? They're, they're just Joe Pesci in Goodfellas is not a good guy. He's, he's a bad guy. He's gonna shoot spiders, spoiler. He's gonna shoot him for no reason at all. These days they're not, they're not real conflict. One of my favorite, I can't remember which one it was, oh, I can't remember. Joseph Wamba is a is a crime writer, and he wrote, uh, a great, he, he, Joseph Wamba was kind of the birth of the 1970s Serpico kind of, you know, the cool. And he goes, yeah, he was a cop, he was a cop and he was also a writer. Cool job, right? And he goes, you know, everybody on the, in the, in the stories, they always make these guys like out to be G. They're not the typical, the typical guy you're running into, even in organized crime. They're not the smartest ones of all. I think we, we typically run in, they're not the brightest, right? So then we get in the 21 that sort of postmodern sort of we've we've turned crime literature into this genre that has like moral ambiguity and why, why are we pulling for the bad guy? Why you so many people watch Scarface and go that's what I wanna do when I grow up I'm what? No, no, not, not good at all, right? Yeah, because we're mad at the system and Tony Montana does the system, right? He, he's a hard, he's a hardworking scrapper who comes in and takes over the crime psychological depth, right? We see things that are working with, we like to get in the mind. Oh, come on. Silence Lambs. Why are we not watching? I'm just gonna write it all down, damn it, I'm gonna redesign this class. If you've enjoyed Hannibal Lecter and you have enjoyed Hannibal Lecter, I know you have new series as well. Hannibal. I didn't do that one, but maybe, um, the first time, the first time we see Hannibal Lecter come out. Talk to Clarice. Fly away, Starling, fly a fly. Half of you are holding your job because half of you wanna be Clarice Starling. Yay, that's so cool. Talk about a strong badass female role model. I like when people like, no, the crime John is such a macho as Iran the Godfather good but buddy, the good guys, right? Clarissa Starling is. She's badass, right? So good. Um, another great film that for some reason we're not watching. But anyway, if you get a chance, go watch Silence of the Lambs. It's a good one. Guys, I don't, you can follow along on your electronic devices. You can look on your cell phone. First one I'm gonna do, I hope you found all of them. They're under modules, yeah, under supplemental ratings or something like that, additional ratings, yeah, you see all of my readings. The first one we're gonna tackle is the very first, the opening, Cain and Abel, right? Um, And I have questions. I have so many questions for you, but first, a reading. I like Sunday school. I love it. Come on. The story of Cain and Abel. This is from Genesis 4 verses 1 through 16. I'll send the collection plate around afterwards. That's so sacro quit, Doctor Woods. I'm not an ordained, but the terminology. Ordained minister. I have, I can, however, I should not announce this because one of y'all, 23 of y'all are gonna ask me to do it. I can, however, perform marriages and I have because I'm an ordained minister in the American marriages. Society. I know I paid $25 and got a little certificate cause it, as a, you know, you know how it is like, it wasn't even my friends, it was my wife's friends. I said, Will you marry us? And I was like, That's a strange request. From a pagan, for a pagan, I don't know. I don't you you want me to marry them like, yeah, yeah, because they kind of knew me and we had a good time and so I, I performed a, a, a, a marriage and it was a wonderful marriage and that marriage has lasted 10 years and they're very, very happy. I've married 6 couples as an ordained minister from American Ministries marriage upstairs medicine school of air conditioning repair or or whoever the hell has ordained me. I don't know whoever received me. That was good. Uh, thank you. That was good. I think I stole it from The Simpsons. All good lines come from the Simpsons. I was married 6 couples. Three of them have lost. I mean, so if you want, if you want your marriage to last, maybe go man. There we go. I'll be happy to you. Like being in, like being in a garage for the first time someone and when you're in a little rock and roll, when you're in a made up band, right? And someone goes, Hey, you're pretty fine. Would you like to play? And you go, oh me? You want my band? Yes, oh my gosh, that's fun. About the 7th time they ask you and you're not getting paid and you're setting up your own equipment, you're like, this is, this is hard. I don't wanna be in a band at all. That's like being a minister. That's like being an ordained minister from the upstairs schools of, of air conditioner repair. That's, that's what I am. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna read this and try and do it with a straight face. I mean it's not anything I can't do anyway. Here we go, and you guys tell me where the crime is. Here's our questions. What makes the story compelling? Where's the crime? Where's the punishment, and where's the, uh, where's that justice that we're talking about along the way, right? Here we go. Why is this so compelling? What is the motive? What's the act? What's the consequence? And Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and Barca and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord, older brother, Cain's the older brother. I'm saying it's like y'all don't know the story inside. Some of you don't. This, this is from the Bible, kids. This is the Bible story. Here we go. And she again bare his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. I think we're gonna come back to that. That might be important somehow. Some of you could have the tradition. You know the story, right? Pastoral versus agriculture, new way of life versus. I, I'm told it's a metaphor for wonderful things that I, again, I can't, I don't, I don't have the expertise on. But in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought the fruit of the ground and offering unto the Lord, and Abel, OK, so Cain brings his fruit to the ground, and Abel, he also brought the first lings of his flock and of the fat thereof, and the Lord had respected unto Abel to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering, he had not respect. He didn't accept it. And Cain was very wroth, a nice medieval term for anger. He was rough and his Anglo-Saxon. Wrath and his countenance expression, his face fell, and the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? And why is thy confidence fallen? If thou dost well, shalt thou not be accepted, and if thou dost not well, sin lieth at the door. There's some deep stuff happening here that you all are gonna explain to me later, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shall rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel, his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field. came, Buddy, come, come here, come stand over here in this field with me. Got little brother, big brothers, right? Big Brothers worst, come on. That Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and slew him. The first murder in in our recorded in our Western literature, the first time. One human takes another human's life that's heavy, and the Lord said unto Cain. This is also heavy when God goes, hey, where's your brother at? you know and the Lord said unto Cain. Where is Abel thy brother? and he said, I know not. Am I my brother's keeper? I use that line. Did y'all grab that one, use it all the time when you're in charge of your brother, yeah, I know, I know. I used the once you learn that line, it's great. Actually, my big brother used on me. Am I my brother's keeper? because you do my parents be like, Yes, and you're doing a crappy job of it. Yeah, go find him. And he said, What has thou done? This is the Lord says unto him, What has thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. That's beautiful. That's a really poetic line. It's a sad line, but it's incredibly poetic line. And now art thou cursed from the earth which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. Heavy, good stuff. And when thou tills the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto the her strength. A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth, and Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. We're gonna come back that one again too. That's, that's a, that's a heavy line as well. My punishment is greater than I can bear. Some of y'all have felt that sincerely. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth. Eden, or next, I'm sorry, they're already out of Eden, aren't they? They're East of Eden, and from thy face shall I be hid, and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth, and it shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me shall slay me. You've made me, you, you have outlawed me, and everyone will take it upon themselves to slaving, and the Lord has an answer to that as well. And the Lord said unto him, therefore, whosoever slayeth king, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. That means literally generational, generational. Not only will you be punished, your children will be punished, and your children's children will be punished and your children's children are holy cow, I was like that's, that's always. That's always a fear, right? The sins of the Father are passed down to the son. And the Lord set a mark upon kings lest any fighting him should kill him, as in by accident, like as if like, aren't you Cain, aren't you the killer of Abel? I'm gonna take, it's almost, this is a hard one to wrap your head around because the Lord is, is, is. Years ago we saw, have y'all ever seen, uh, Prince of Egypt? Was that the cartoon version? Remember that one? It's so good. When I took, oh good, Tom doesn't work here anymore. I could tell Tommy Woods stories. When I took little Tommy Woods to the movies, Little, and we said, remember the scene of Passover. Remember you're watching the scene and he says the pharaoh says, no, I will not let your people go. And God says, OK, and Moses says, Well, this is gonna, and he kills the every first, every first born, the spirit of the Lord moves through Pharaoh's palace and the land surrounding lands. You guys know the story, and every first born child dies instantly. Death comes to them. You're watching them on Prince if you watch it on Prince of Egypt, the cartoon version, it's people are like. Kid, little kids are, it's pretty well it's grim, right? I'm sitting in the movie theater. I'm with little six year old Tommy Woods, 4-year-old Tommy Woods. I gotta make the story right, huh. And the room is quiet. We're huge room, and the spirit of the Lord is moving through Egypt killing the first born child and the kids are falling out of the crib and I was like, I was like this is pretty. I was like, I hope he's OK. Is this gonna be and it's completely quiet at the Rio 10 movie theater in downtown Kerrville, Texas, the only place to see a good movie, complete silence and my son very loudly says. God is angry. Everybody just got away and I went, went, God is angrier even than mommy. I'm like, no one's angrier than your mother. Don't ever say that again. that this is, this is God is angry. Right? Abel has been killed. The ground is psych. God is angry, and yet in a strange mark of mercy, I'll warn everybody, this is who you are and we'll warn you and, and that way you won't accidentally kill him. And be punished and Cain went out to the present Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. Great James Dean movie East of Eden, my uh a Steinbeck, a Steinbe version. I don't even know where to unpack that. Let me do my 3 lines, then you guys jump in. My 3 lines are. If thou, if thou dost well, shall thou not be accepted. In other words, you need to redeem yourself in some way you need to redeem yourself to me. He's done this incredible act, this, this horrible act. He has, he has punished, he's gonna punish him for the murder of his and rightly so, right? I mean that was what, what's Abel's what Abel do wrong? That little little kiss but little, little brown noser here, God, I brought you the best offering. I don't know. I don't know if he made those noises when he made the offering, but there's some Kane, oh God, I just offended three of you. I'm so sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. There's, there's an underlying assumption that Cain has done something wrong. What has Kane done wrong? In some versions, you'll see like Ellen Pagos is a great biblical scholar who I like a lot. She's a really good writer and she does a big thing on Adam and Eve and she does a lot on Jen and she says there's this underlying assumption that maybe And we might be reading too much into it. Maybe Cain withheld a little bit of it. He like, he didn't give his very best, but the Odyssey and the Iliad, the guys that you guys that went through all the Greek mythology with me. The gods were always like, OK, make your sacrifice, and you're like, well, this is, this is a really good heifer. I'm gonna keep this one, but I'll, I'll give you this crappy one and the gods go, oh, because they know that you're not giving him the best, right? So that's a, that's the underlying assumption. Cain rose up against Abel, his brother and slew him the first murder. Yikes. And then where's that other one I want to talk about? Oh, I like it when Cain. I like it. The, the, the, uh, the, uh, the nerve of Cain to be like he didn't deny. I mean there's no, yeah, I guess, I guess you're good. I guess you know what I did. I guess you saw me do it. The punishment is too great. You're gonna drive me away and then I have to work the earth and the earth is never gonna yield for me and I can't. The punishment is too great. I don't know how, I don't, that's a level of um. It's interesting that he would reply to that. I think at this point he says thank you for not killing. I think the answer is thank you for not. God is angry. Thank you for not killing me right away, right? Abel's offer is accepted. Keynes is not as punishment, he is exiled, and Kane says that doesn't seem fair, and everybody's gonna wanna kill me. And so he puts a mark down upon him. He says, You'll, you'll have this mark you'll, so you'll know there's all these wonderful conflicts going English teacher stuff. English teacher. Life internal conflict. Kaine is clearly struggling with jealousy and wounded pride. External conflict, he's probably, I think in my mind it's a big rock, isn't it? I mean, that's, they didn't have a lot of, a lot of weaponry. Come, come over here. I wanna show you something. Look down there, smashes his head open, right? Kane is complex, pride, envy, family frailty. Abel is the symbol of innocence, a victim of unjust violence, right? Jealousy, the human condition, and then the archetypes. There's these archetypes of. Anything else stand out to you or anything else jump on to you? Anything surprised you about that one? Do you know the story? I mean, I assume everybody kind of was vaguely familiar with the story. It's the first, the reason we, the reason we do is to go, it starts early. It starts early and it goes on. Guys, let's do in the interest of time, I'm gonna jump over to uh our friend, uh, Sophocles who's gonna show us some other great stuff along the way. This is Antigone. Here's my giant in. I'll walk around my giant, it's my giant white I, what am I reading today? Yay, I'm taking me. And I put on my little notes on top. Yay, I'm so organized, guys. I have to be. It's a crippling disease that I have. If I don't, if I don't do it like this. You can look at, you can get your own copy, you can look on the version that we have is, you'll see a bunch of different uh translations, um. And again it's not, it's not a straight world literature class so I don't have to give you a lot of the historical stuff we're looking at it from a point of view of a uh a crime and punishment and, and some justice, OK, um, the question to ask yourself as you dive into Antigone is what is the relationship here between law and justice? I've hinted about this already. I told you already here's Creon who is the king. And y'all know that some of the backstory, maybe some of y'all know the backstory and Oedipus and and the things that made that made that finally the reason that they say they always said the girls keep saying, well, we're cursed, you know, we're cursed because of our father's sins. Um, Oedipus has, has come from has come to Thebes and accidentally married his mother. Game of Thrones. A marry his mother and finally, finally realizes it kills his father has to kill, accidentally kills his father, comes the thief, marries his mother, has children, everything's fine until the gods grow up. It's like you can't, no, no, no, no, no, one of those one of those universal one of those universal taboos, right? Mm, can't do it. And so, uh, this leads us into in, uh, Sophocles Antigone, um. This is a clash between two principal, uh, I, some of the, some of the critics that I looked at, this is interesting. You can see exactly where I, you can see my own bias. Some of the critics I looked at to get ready for this and I always go back, find some good literary criticism and go, oh, some of them saying, saying, well, I mean, in a sense they're both wrong. King Creon is wrong for making a, a law, a hard and fast law that is not, that's gonna leave a body rotting out in the sand. And Antigone is wrong for, for being too, too stubborn and I'm like, she is not wrong. I, right? Like I, I'm trying real hard like at what point is Antigone wrong? I mean, uh, spirit of the law, letter of the law, my inspection sticker is, is expired. I. She does not follow the law, right? She doesn't follow the law and yeah, the law is so horrifying, right? Let's look at, uh, if you can follow along, I don't know if you which which version you have, but the one that I put on, if you can follow along, I'll do probably by lines, uh, it'll be easier than page numbers since you're on electronic land. The very introduction Antigone comes out. And says it's many dear sister, you would have thought that we had suffered enough for the curse of Oedipus upon us, and we have the backstory of Oedipus's story. I cannot imagine any grief that you and I have not gone through and now have they told you of this new decree by King Creon. His many says I've, I've heard nothing. I know that two sisters lost two brothers. Here's the backstory. There's a revolt in the city, right? And there's, uh, it's the famous 7 against the thieves. If you, if you look at it, if you're following, it's, it's under modules, um, Antiquione if you have some trouble, let me know. Uh, 7 against the Thieves is the, is the Game of Game of Thrones. Everything is Game of Thrones. It all goes back, right? Is the revolt against. King's Landing and the city state, right? So one brother stays and fights, right? One brother stays to fight and defend the city. Let me see where, let me see if I can get it to him. Um, Polynesia is driven out and decides to return to assault Thebes. Now remember that Polyneses, the reason he revolts is because they were supposed to take turns as leader, right? Attiia Cleese says, I like being the, the boss. I think I'll just keep it for a while. So it's Polyne's body is left out in the field. This is like terribly important to the story of law and justice, but I mean we should get our, we should get our corpses correct, shouldn't we? Goodness. We need to know which corpses which corpse. Uh, Atiaocles and Polynes are quarreling. Polynesus is driven out, comes back to assault thems. The act of assaulting your homeland, right, the city state is such a such a Unbelievably horrible. Act, the Creon says, OK, we're gonna give a full state burial to Eteocles, who's the hero who died, but we're leaving that body, Polynesia is gonna be left to rot unburied. OK, great drama. OK. All right. Got that right? OK. Antigone says, I have to tell you about this. There's something we must do. And the sister says, What? Uh, line 15 Creon has buried our brother Atocles with all military honors and giving him a soldier's funeral, which makes sense, right? OK, yeah, good job, Creon, very good. But Polynes, who fought just as bravely, stop right there, paused for a moment, law, order, justice, the following the rules. He fought bravely, absolutely, but he was fighting to overthrow the city state and so now the question becomes, and, and I tell you, Sophocles' audience is gonna wrestle with this. They're gonna sit in those of you who went down to a little amphitheater with me here on campus. We have our own little hidden Greek amphitheater. It's really great. It's next to the pavilion. It's like, you know, like, you look around like, yeah, this is pretty much like a Greek amphithey. It's very cool. We sat down there and you, and you said the, the Greek audience would have been watching this in about 400. BCE and going yes that's wrong you shouldn't overthrow the city state but wait, why does he, why did he want to do it to begin with? Was there, was there a great wrong done to him to start? That's where, OK, oh my gosh, Better Call Saul. Why are we not studying Better Call Saul? It's the great, thank you. The 4 of you in the room that are watching Better Call Saul. Be Call Saul is the defense attorney who's always like. I can get you off and here's the line. And you start to go back to the motives and you start to go back to, and this is the thing that makes some of us furious when you see, and you're like, he just got that guy off. He's clearly, oh my gosh, that guy was clearly guilty, but the defense attorney came in. Did what he was supposed to do, right? Sowed a little bit of. I love Saul so much. He's so great, um, um, and got him off and then the rest of us are like, ah, how could that have happened? This is the same kind of argument, the same sort of feeling of like, well, he's right, he's right to give the hero Etiles was a hero, but, but. Polydeis was trying to overthrow the city state. He should be left out to rot line 17. Ones who fought as bravely and died as miserably, and Creon has sworn that no one shall bury him. No one will mourn for him. His body must lie in the fields, a sweet treasure for the birds and the dogs. Those of you have my world literature class, you know, I like to spend a lot of time going, man, they really don't wanna be eating my dogs. And I like the, the last thing Hector says to Achilles, Listen, if you kill me, do you promise to treat my body, you know, don't let the dogs eat my body. Achilles says, Yeah, I don't think I can promise that. I think I'm gonna drag you around for a while and then let the dogs eat your body, right? So, uh, about line 15. As Manny says the, the smart, the, the, it's all brothers and it's all brothers and brothers and sisters and sisters in class today, isn't it? The, the thoughtful sister who follows the law says, uh, what are you thinking about doing? I'm gonna go brother. I'm gonna go bury him. We have to go, we have to go take care of his corpse and the The your older sister who was mean to you and bossy to you, says you have to say do what mom and dad says quit. Am I my sister's keeper today you are, right? She says, don't do it. We'll be in trouble. Think of the danger. Think what Creon will do. What is the stated punishment? I'm gonna not put anybody on the spot here, but maybe I am. Does anybody remember what the stated punishment is if someone buries the body? Yes, stoning by stoning. Whoever carries this body will be publicly stoned. But yeah, I can, if you ever sit around the dorm late at night and play the how do I not wanna go game. I'm, I assume everybody sits around a place that how do I not wait, you know, shark attack probably not cool. Crucifixion, not real high on my leg, bury alive. Oh, we're doing Edgar Allapoe in a little bit. One way I don't want to go is to be stoned. I think that would be not the fun stoned. That might be a good way to go. I don't know. The scary stone where people pick up. Thank you. So you did break the law this weekend. Pick up the heavy rocks and hit me in the head with them until I'm not awake anymore. That doesn't sound pleasant. Now, notice this is gonna change. Creon or. Hard ass that he is, it's like, this is my law and order. This is justice, you will follow my Crow says anybody buries this body, they're gonna be stoned publicly and that means the community as a group, we are gonna come in and punish this individual. Keep that in mind because what what finally happens to Antigone, she doesn't get stoned at all, does she? What does she get? entombed, she gets entombed. She gets punished by in a whole different way and notice when he does it, he says, and give her a little food and give her a little water and then, and then my hands are clean of it, the classic, the, the absolute classic like, OK, we're gonna punish her, but it's not me. I mean, I, we're just locking her alive in a cave where she'll die. That that kind of leads more towards. like the religious practices because he because he's wiping it is clean not not only uh reminds you of some other biblical verses, right? Absolutely. My hands are clean of this not only from. You know, from being judged by the people but being judged by the gods. Exactly right. we exactly right. In Greek mythology, we see a lot of times like, OK, we can't order her dead or her kid dead, but we can lock them in a chest and throw them in the ocean if they, if the ocean kills them, so that's important. That's really important that the punishment is gonna change. Think about punishment as a, as part of the backstory to this class, right? So, uh, long about line 55. Antigone says it straight out, I will bury him, and if I must die, I say that with this crime, which is holy to me, I shall lie down with him in death. boy, she's going in with her eyes wide open. There's a lesson here and again in a in a crime in literature class which is if you know you're going to violate an unjust law, Martin Luther King will tell us this as well. Gandhi will tell us this is law and tell us as well. If you're gonna do it, go in with your eyes wide open and realize we're about to break the law, but we're doing it because we think the law is unjust, we think the law is wrong, and we're gonna do it in such a way as to let everyone know we're doing this. There's a, there's a. The, the, the, the gathering of protests where you go, OK, this, we're gonna do this. And, last, last semester last year was just, just on many college campuses when people said, we are concerned about your endowment which may be paying for Actions in the Middle East that we find deplorable. Therefore, not only are we not going to class, this comes very real in life to some of you. Not only are we not going to class, we're gonna set up our tents in a way that you have to pass through us to get to if you want to get to like at Columbia University, and they said, and the college presidents and the and the deans and the professors like, well, whoa, wait, we're in free aren't you, aren't you in favor of free speech? Yes. Isn't this free speech? Isn't this just a, isn't this just an exposure of like, don't we have the right to peacefully protest? I mean, yes, until the moment someone can't get to class because you have blocked the door, right? This is, this is the greatest, this is the reason we go, OK, here we go. We're we're gonna boycott, we're not going to, we're gonna do it by peaceful means. She says, she says if I have to die I'll die. If I have to go down I'll go down, but I don't care because this law is so not fair. Its Minnie is gonna go, um, we're gonna run out of time. Now we have time. Is Minnie is gonna later come back and go. It was my idea too. I was gonna do it too. I, I, I, I, yeah, I was right there with her and her sister gets mad and Creon goes, Well, good, you're gonna die too. And, and Tie goes, don't, no, I asked you. I gave you the opportunity to come do the right thing. You chose not to do the right thing with me, right? Line about 85, we have our Greek chorus come forward. The chorus is always that group of individuals on the Greek stage that stands forward and explain is the annoying guy in the movie theater next to you explaining to you what you have just watched. See, when he transformed into the wolf man, I, buddy, I got it. I saw it. I was right there with you. The, the chorus is always gonna try to tell us, teach us a lesson. Tell us a nice little thing along the way. And the chorus does a good job of it. The chorus says, here's what's happening, here's the debate, here's what you think you're watching, right? They give you a little background. Line 105, but remember that God hates utterly the brave of bragging tongues, and he gives you actually all because the story is really back to the religious absolutely back to the religious. All the great drama for the beginning started as a religious ceremony, the religious ceremony to tell us how to behave, how to act, how to follow the rules, and so it makes sense that a chorus would come out and go, Remember, if you are a bragger, you will be punished, and Creon's gonna come in. Look at about line 135. Scene 11:35. If you could follow along, I'm sorry, I know there's no page numbers on my version either. Crayon, the king comes in and says, gentlemen, I have the honor to inform you that our ship of state, which recent storms have threatened to destroy. Oh, he sounds like a politician already, doesn't he, has come safely to harbor at last. And now, because our late ruler Oedipus, he died, it was transferred to his son. We know how it ended. Atteocles and Polynesus have killed each other in battle. I am your king. I retain full power of the throne. Don't worry about a thing, guys. I'm still in charge. rulers that have to remind you of that a lot are usually a little bit ner, by the way, in case anyone in case you forgot. Right here buddy, I'm the ruler. I'm in charge and I said the following law I must speak. I must speak honestly. I must make hard decisions. What do our leaders have to do? I have to value friendship and loyalty. I think that Eocles will get full honors. Polynesius will be left out in the sun to rot, and I say this line 170. I say no burial for this man. No man is to touch him or at least pray for him. He shall lie on the plane unburied, and the birds and the scavenging dogs can do with him whatever they like. This is, this is not cool. This is not, I mean, I understand. I mean, the, the gods are very clear on the proper way. To dispose of bodies so bodies can go to the afterlife, so sort of like this this kind of the con concept of not, not really like not really some some. Many different cultures have different versions of the afterlife for the ancient Greeks, it was kind of like, well, there's this whole new place that you go to that you're kind of a you're kind of a former shade of yourself. It's not punch. You're not going there, you're not burning in hell, you're not blessed in heaven. It's just sort of a waiting place you kind of meander around to see each other. It's kind of gray kind of please. Paul Paul is so subjective. Like if I could be for the death penalty if it's if it's emotional because my mom got killed, but if how many degrees away it's like oh I don't agree with the death penalty because. It's weird. It is, it is, and, and the same thing happening here where everybody in the room kind of goes, well, I mean, he did try and revolt against the city state. He was a criminal. The acts he did were were heinous and bad. Maybe his body deserves to rot out there. I'm reading it from Antigone's point. I've read this so many times and I've studied so long that I always go, well, yeah, Antigone is clearly right. I mean, treat the body with let the body be treated right at least. Some of y'all might be like, buddy, not maybe he shouldn't have. It is very and it's, and, and that's such a good point because even Creon. Will change eventually it takes him. Wait, wait, it takes him a long, you're right, Doctor Woods, I didn't get to it yet. It takes him a long time when he finally goes, I feel it it's coming, it's coming upon me line 865. I never seen anybody agonized so long over it. In the meantime, kid's dead. His son's dead, the wife's dead. Everyone's dead. Greek tragedy. Thank you very much. Everybody's sad and he finally says, I, I have to, it's so hard to do it. I've jumped all the way. You don't have to jump ahead. We'll come to it next time if we don't line 875, 873 or so. I must do it. I will do it. I will not fight Destiny. They're like, say it, say it. OK. I'm glad the body got treated properly. If only if you could have gotten there at the beginning, so much more, so many different ways this would have played out, but let's go back to where he's being stubborn. His son got God bless his son comes in kind of runs it and move on him, right? You guys have read this one before. He goes, Oh Dad, you're right. I'm sure you do this to your parents. It makes it, 00, of course, he kind of worked them through. Here's why you're right. And mom and dad are like this, yeah, and then after I went, well a man, you're not agreeing with me at all. You wanna break the law this weekend. You wanna bury the body, right? Line 185, I give no support to any who's who break the law. I will not do it. OK, then we have this kind of comic relief scene. It's almost, you know, the Greeks love a good laugh. This poor century comes up. I gotta tell you some bad news. I really gotta tell you some bad news. I don't wanna tell you some bad news because I know you're gonna punch me. Remember, you know the expression don't kill the messenger. Like, I'm gonna give you some bad news, Creon. Please don't punish me. I don't want to be punished for it. I don't know line 2 about 200. I don't know how to say this. Creon starting to get pissed. Say it. What? What do you want to tell me? Ah, that's a dreadful thing. I don't know how to put Creon says out with it. Well then, the dead man, Polynesus. He jumbles for. He's out there somewhere at the dust and someone, someone, someone buried it. Right, and Creon loses his mind. He goes, I, I made a law. My law was just. I told them what the punishment would be. They'd be stoning and someone still went and buried it. Now, admittedly it's sort of a symbolic ring and taking is good, but she's not gonna be able to take it seriously. She does it. She does a little sprinkle in the wine and throws some dust on it. It's a symbolic burial, but at least now, at least now he can go on, you know, the, the, the, the body can go on, the body can get to heaven or the afterlife, the polynesus can go where he needs to go. He couldn't beforehand. Crazy how important that is. Just crazy, remember when, when, when Hector tells Achilles, uh, let me be, you know, take care of my body properly. And Achilles says, I, I wish I could eat you. I wish I was angry his Achilles is full of rage. He's, but I'm thinking real hard about blinding you and maiming you and desecrate your body. So when you wander around the afterlife, people will say, Who's that old blind fool that just wandering though that's Achilles, the man who thought he killed Hector, right? I'm sorry. I did that backwards. I did it backwards on the exam once. I keep screwing those guys' names up. That's Hector, breaker of horses. Who thought he had killed Achilles. Got it, got it. Look, I'm sundowning. It must be lunchtime. Is it almost? Hang on guys, you're doing good. I'm getting you out of here. Hang in there. Push hard to the end. Oh good, Doctor Woods is sundowning. Man, if I start Sunday at one, I might as well just quit. I was like, come on. Line about 225, the rage is so great that Creon says, I'll tell you what, entry, either you did it yourself or you knew who did it, or somehow you did it. Talk about. Talk about like justice or lack thereof. I think maybe I'm gonna push you and the and the century goes that's, that's not fair, right? That's not, that's not good at all. I, I just told you the bad news. I'm not the one that did it. He goes, All right, well you're gonna go find out who it is, and if you don't, then I'll kill you or I'll punish you. and he says, I'm gonna torture you. It'll be a very unpleasant way to go. I said she's like. Didn't they have to draw lots to see who told him, right? They have like, like nobody wants to go tell them they had to draw lots. I got it. All right. OK, look on about line um 275. The sentry says, I will bring you the man. I would like nothing better than bring you the man, but at any rate, him or not, you have seen the, you have seen the last of me here. At any rate, I'm gone. Beats don't fail me out. Off he runs off to the stage. OK, let's get to the big, uh, OK, some, some good, some. Good talk between Creon and the centuries. Some good talk between they bring the girl forward. They bring Antigone forward, badass once again people are like, oh, I just, I don't think there's enough female hero. Antigone is about as bold as you get. Look on about line 345 or so, um, if you could find that, I think we're in scene 2. This the the sentry comes back and says incredibly enough I found her. It wasn't a guy at all. It was a it was a woman who did this and now we know that she is that she is the one that did it and Creon says, and you line 350 and you Antigone, you with your head hanging, do you confess this thing? And she goes, great response. I do. I deny nothing. There's a little bit of if you have been in trouble, not even like law stuff, it's still stupid stuff. Something happened. Mom and dad stuff when your RA gets a hold of you, I don't know how that works. I don't know if they fuck when your coach looks at you and says there's something very liberating about going. Yes, it was me. I did it da instead of like dancing around like she is unapologetic. She was absolutely I did. And Creon can't believe it. He says the century, you may go, and the century's like, thank goodness. And Creon says, Did you tell me, did you hear my proclamation about this matter? Did you know the law? She doesn't even hesitate. Absolutely it was public. How would I not hear it? You're a loud mouth. All you do is you've been bam, ran off that. Yes, of course we heard the law, Creon. You said the body had to be unburied, and yet you defied the law, and it's he goes, oh, I dared. She's so bad. Laura. 00 yeah, I dared and I did it because it's not God's proclamation. It is that final justice which rules the world and below makes no such laws. I keep coming back to, I guess because we just had Martin Luther King Day, but I'm thinking about that wonderful letter. He has an incredible letter called Letter from Birmingham Jail where Martin Luther King is sitting in jail. Because he didn't, his people had failed to permit parade, whatever nonsense, drunk. The main thing was he was an outside agitator in their mind and they put him in prison. And a group of clergy took out a full page ad that said, here's why Martin Luther King is wrong. He's wrong because he's breaking the law. Segregation is the law of the land. Who are you to come in here? Incredibly, I like it when I teach this and people go like it's ancient history, incredibly like in my life, in my lifetime, you know, the law of the land, segregation. Craziness and Martin Luther King's reply is so perfect. He says there are man-made laws and there are God's laws and men make mistakes. It, it happens right now. The reason I break this law willingly is because. That that is a that is a man-made law. God's law is higher. Antigone and every people are gonna use this for a long time. I mean when Gandhi said to the British, you must leave, you colonizer, you should not be here. And the British said, excuse us, we. We were here. It's like, right, and you're breaking our laws and so you must, you must go colonizer. There's the you guys we're living it right now. You don't have to look too far. You don't have to think too far about is this law like we're back to justice, right? Is this law just? Is it fair? Is it right? Somebody believes it does, otherwise it hadn't gotten there to begin with. It's kind of interesting to think about. Antigone says it was public, of course I knew your law. Antigone said, I dared. Your edict king was strong, but your strength is weakness when it's up against the laws of God. And she says, I know I'm gonna die for this. I know I must die for this. I knew I must die even without your decree. After all, I'm only mortal. It's a great answer, right? Guess what? Nobody gets out. No one gets out alive, right? No, we all know how this ends. We all know how this ends, and at some point you have to go, well, I mean, I believe strongly in this strongly enough in this matter that I will make a stand here and do it. I am only mortal, and if I must die, now is the time for me to die. Right? Surely there is no hardship. There's nothing I can do with evil all about me. Do I think death less than a friend? The death of mine is of no importance, but if I had left my brother lying death unburied, I should have suffered. Now I do not. I'm proud of what I've done here. She says you're smiling at me. Oh, that makes you. Am I a clown to you? Do I amuse you? How am I funny? How am I funny to you? Thank you, good fellas. We'll all watch it together, maybe you see like that. How, how am I funny to you? Oh, Creon, think of me as a fool if you like, but it may well be that a fool convicts me of folly. You might be the fool, right? Creon loses his mind. He's just like, Oh, I can't, and the, and the leader of the, the leader of the chorus, the choral, the choral leader steps out and goes, Boy, she's proud, she's proudful. And this is why I'm sure that literary critic that I read that I strongly disagree with, kind of have to write her a letter. No, I'm just kidding, said. Said, Well, Antigone doesn't she doesn't yield at all. She, I mean really you have to, you have to see the other point of this, the, the other side of the issue like no, there is no Creon, you're not right now and you've never been right and rulers are like this. They say things and they say it loud enough and they've got the force behind them. To To say what they want to say and if we're in fear, most of us in fear will go. I, he said it. He gets pissed and says, bring the sister too, bring as many. I want her equally accused. And Antigone says. wind down here. The Antikone says, I've got the best ending line me. Are you gonna kill me or what? And he goes, um. I'm getting into it and she goes, well, get, get to it tough guy. If you're gonna do it, pull the trigger. Let's anything is better than listening you ramble on about this, right? OK, maybe she is too inflexible. I don't know. I don't know. Remember, ladies, if you're, as my wife likes to point out, if you're a man and you do X, Y and Z, you're strong. If you're a woman. Well, you should really, you should really navigate these waters a little bit better. Oh, it turned into feminist criticism, yeah, gay feminist criticism. They say she's too strident. And taking these two, she's not being very ladylike, is she? You should know your place. Remember that becomes, and we'll pick up with this next time, that becomes the point of contention between between his son and, and, and, and Creon when his son says, I want, I believe she's right, and he goes, You're beat and you're like a woman tell you what to think because the Greeks were horribly missing just and you know I was like, oh, the myth, and this is why. They would go to the theater and watch this. Those of you who did Madea with me know the same thing, wouldn't love Madea when Madea kicks ass and says, mm, no, Jason, I'm right and you're wrong. OK, she goes a little far with the whole killing the children stuff. I'm not advocating this. She goes a little far. When, when she says the audience, the Greek audience didn't know what to do with it. They're like, oh my God, #1, she's an immigrant. Oh, she's from another land. #2, she's probably a witch, right? Number 3, she's. She's not doing what she's supposed to do, which is be real quiet when Jason goes and has another lover, just honey. Honey, I did it for you. I had to take this other woman because I was thinking of you. I think that's a good excuse at all. Guys, we're gonna pause there before we get back to Creon and um uh Antigone. I have a brief out of class assignment for you. Oh, Doctor, it's not only a syllabus. I'm not gonna, Next time we're gonna jump back into this then we're gonna do Hammurabi. I want you guys to think of the following. If you'll, if you'll allow me. I may send this to you, but I'll probably forget it. And then we'll probably start class and you're gonna go, Doctor West, don't you want our Homarabi law thing? And I'm gonna look at you blankly and go, did I sign that? I can't quit making these jokes. You guys seem to play I'm really as, as punchy as I seem to be. Oh brilliant, brilliant. I've got another 15 years of this. I can pull this off for another 15. We didn't get a chance to get to it, but we're gonna read the code of Hammurabi, OK? This, uh, is a group of laws. This is historically accurate. I mean this is a, this is a, this is a leader like Creon they came forward and said, here's the laws for this society, and I'll give you a historical background next time when we meet, um. And you may be familiar with them. You, you are familiar with, when you hear a lot, and it didn't show up here, in fact, if you know your Old Testament. A lot of it sounds familiar, right? Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, things like that. I want you to read the code of Hammurabi. I want you to explore a pick one law. There's like 124 of them. Pick one. Oh, look, this is the, no, read through it. I want you to explore a specific law that intrigues, surprise, or interests you. I wrote that in that game. I'm proud of myself when I write a good sentence. I really like that. Chat GPT wrote the rest of it, but I wrote that. You will analyze this law in historical context in the following. Be ready to share your thoughts with class to encourage a collaborative discussion on justice. Chat GPT wrote that. Normalize chat GPT, kids. Let's normalize it. It's a terrible sentence too. You can tell this is why I'm not scared of the machines where people like, oh my God, the machines are gonna do all. No, cause they suck. They're not very good. It's not really good writing. But anyway, I want you to choose one law. Be ready to talk about it. If I call on you, maybe most of us will get a chance to. I want you to have a brief response, 3 to 5 sentences or so. Which law did you choose? Why did the law interest surprise you or intrigue you? That's Doctor Woods' language. What about this law reveals? What do you think this law reveals about either the life in ancient, uh, Babylon or now? How does it compare to modern laws? Think of how some of them may still be in in effect now. Incredibly some of this, we look at some of these laws and we go. Inspection sticker. I have inspection sticker or you'll cut off my right hand. That seems a bit much, right? And then we will have a richer understanding of this code. Guys, thank you. You did good. You hung in there and we will see you uh on yes question, please. Yeah, it was like real. But then I have to go. Chad GBT wrote some, uh, I'll credit buying and then I'll tell you what. We have to normalize the use of artificial intelligence kids. We must let the machines win. Don't let the machines win. Please. Oh thank you. Oh, I don't know that one, and I know the priest morality that man if he says something and I think if I remember correctly, I think it's like 600 so I think that's. Yep, makes sense excellent. Thank you for that recommendation. I appreciate that very much. Got that one. Love John Grisham. Thank you. No. It's called the Order. Thank you, Doctor. Thank you, great to see you buddy. 19. Nice. And this was a group of neo-Nazis? Yeah, wow, it's really good. I saw the movie. OK, is it a series or a film? It's a film. Excellent. I'm gonna do it. Thank you. Thanks for that recommendation. Green Thanks boy Come on, come on. Right Are you in this class again, ma'am? Do you have this class right now? Oh, I think I'll do a psychology class. How are you? Oh, do you? What do you do during the break? Go eat? Nice. Nice. I'm good, busy but good. very happy to be. I'm glad the semester got going again. I was ready. OK, bye bye now. Yeah. Um. Mhm. But I'm So Yeah. this