Gideon’s Trumpet

“Those who had known him, even the men who had arrested him and those who were now his jailers, considered Gideon a perfectly harmless human being, rather likeable, but tossed aside by life.”

Gideon’s character is introduced to the audience but not the clerks of the court. The details of Gideon’s life are left out of his letter in favor of the bare bones of the case. The narrative of the text nevertheless strives to win the audience to his side, to portray the ostensible protagonist as being sympathetic and unlucky rather than a hardened and unsympathetic criminal. Life has tossed him aside and he is a victim of society, rather than a person who has made a victim of others. If Gideon’s quest for justice is to be engaging for the audience, it serves the narrative to ensure that he is a likeable, sympathetic protagonist.

“Its public image seems sometimes to be less that of a court than of an extraordinarily powerful demigod sitting on a remote throne and letting loose constitutional thunderbolts whenever it sees a wrong crying for correction.”

After establishing Gideon’s credentials as a sympathetic figure, the text begins to establish the court as a monumental force that he has to overcome. The depiction of the court’s public perception above speaks to this, depicting the court as Zeus atop Mount Olympus. Such a powerful figure is not likely to have its mind changed by a mere mortal (particularly one who is not a lawyer and who fundamentally misunderstands the legality of his