E. L. DOCTOROW'S THE BOOK OF DANIEL: TOWARDS A POSTMODERN CONCEPTION OF JUSTICE

Authors : Oya Berk

Pages : 37-48

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Publication Date : 2014-08-16

Article Type : Research

Abstract :    E.L. Doctorow's The Book Of Daniel: Towards A Postmodern  Conception Of Justice Oya BERK    E. L. Doctorow's The Book of Daniel is a fictional account of the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in the early 1950s. Doctorow examines their case in multiple contexts - during the anti-communist hysteria of the McCarthy era, in the context of the New Left radicalism in the late 1960s and lastly in the larger context of the biblical story of the prophet Daniel and his struggle with exile and persecution. Throughout the book, Doctorow employs deconstructive devices which undermine the unity and consistency of the text. The fractured and disjointed narrative which resists completion and which seems to lead nowhere is aptly associated with Doctorow's conception of justice which denotes absence rather than presence and which has strong affinities with the postmodern stance towards justice, especially with Derrida's reading of it in "Force of Law". Like the postmodern conception of justice which is allied with  differance, deferral and impossibility, justice for the Rosenbergs is forever deferred to the future, never to be realized in the present.
Keywords : DOCTOROW'S, BOOK, DANIEL