Sunday, April 15, 2007

Law and Justification in Shakespeare's Time

It's amazing how loose the law and how justice was carried out was back in Shakespeare's time (at least how the play carries out law, so far). For such a sophisticated time period, it seems like there were almost no laws, yet they could still maintain some semblance of order rather than pure chaos.

For example, in the beginning of the play when it is talking about how they have already had two brawls. People could get killed over something as simple as a heated conversation. The only thing preventing the families from getting into more fights with one another was the intervention of the prince and him killing them if they got into another fight.

If our country was run that day today, with no laws or anything, it would be total anarchy. It's actually kind of scary to think of what it would be like to have no laws, no order, nothing staying the hands of malicious people.

I think over the years, our general decency has been kind of worn away. Nowadays we live in a cutthroat society where the strongest prevail and the weakest, or least lucky in many occassions, live a harsh, poor life. I believe that this is why they could survive with little law in the 1500's, but today, it would just be chaos if we had no laws. People have just kind of stopped caring. Back then, they would help a beggar on the streets. Now, people would rather spit on a beggar than help them out.

2 comments:

never_give_up said...

I agree with you on the last part, I think our society has gotten worse and worse as time goes on. Very few people are willing to help people that are in a bad situation, especially if they have to go out of their precious way to do it. People don't realize how easy it is to donate money, or if they don't have that, then donate time at a shelter, or some place. It's easy and makes you feel good knowing that you helped someone. I recommend that if you're having a really bad day, go to a shelter and see just how good you have it, because atleast you have a home and food to eat.

Phasma said...

They didn't have "no laws." Just different laws.