Chapter 19: We go back to Nekhlyudov in the jury-room, finding himself ashamed and believing he is going to be put on trial himself. And, apart from the comedy and parody of the characters, this is how Tolstoy tears apart the legitimacy of the trial and the idea of judgment in general. The wrong character is on trial and the guilty one is the one that is supposed to convict here and, unlike the apparent ignorance of the prosecutor and the distracted nature of the judge, the protagonist in the jury knows and understands this. Obviously the entirety of the novel's plot runs on irony, but the ultimate irony of the sinner judging the one that has been sinned again. This is key to Tolstoy's anarchism as well, as the government, the ultimate oppressor of freedom and author of violence, creates a system of judgment against the ones that are the victims of the system, just as we judge (both metaphorically and politically) the actions of the poor when their actions are the result of the judgment, which creates the perpetual cycle of class violence that is being explored here.
A witness, the one who runs the brothel, speaks in a German accent (of course) that Edmonds turns into heavily accented spelling, a decision we see her make a lot. Looking at Katusha, "He (Nekhlyudov) experienced the same feeling he had when he was out hunting and had to put a wounded bird out of its misery: a mixture of loathing, pity and vexation. The wounded bird struggles in the game-bag: one is disgusted and yet feels pity, and is in a hurry to put an end to its suffering and forget it."
The hunting/animal metaphors, as well as the idea of just trying to forget mistakes or hardships continue. Recognizing these extended metaphors and repeated emphasizes not only help us allow Tolstoy to drive the point home, but it highlights just how forceful he is thematically.
Chapter 20: The trial drags out and they have to look at the evidence and the assistant prosecutor makes the secretary read evidence only because he has the right to demand it. Tolstoy isn't afraid to mix the complex and serious inner feeling of his protagonist with outer humor, something we saw in the death scene of Count Bezukhov, Pierre's father. The humor also compares to the description of Pierre's initiation into the Masons. Nekhlyudov fixates on the description of the dead body and ties it to the rape of Katusha in his memory. This inner morbidity isn't something I really recognize as appearing in any of Tolstoy's other work that I've read, so it is kind of noteworthy and is somewhat psychological, though I think that Tolstoy wants to emphasize the metaphor and be blunt with the comparison and message that Nekhlyudov's rape of Katusha is like the death of the man (and, if Katusha were guilty of the murder, which he does not really appear she is, Nekhlyudov's actions lead to the man's death).
Chapter 21: The judge hopes the prosecutor would hurry, "hoping that he too, being human, might want to smoke and have some dinner himself, and therefore show a little mercy to the rest of them. But the assistant prosecutor had no mercy either for himself or them. Besides being very stupid by nature the assistant prosecutor had had the misfortune to finish high-school with a gold medal...which made him exceedingly self-assured and conceited (to which his success with the ladies contributed still further), and in consequence he was quite monumentally stupid."
This is Tolstoy at his most viscous, and also I think, his best, the writer that refers to military decorations as ribbons unfit for dressed up little girls. On a personal level, perhaps mainly based on generational biases, I find most complaints about the trophies and honors young people receive to be misguided and think self-esteem is an important combatant against self-doubt, but Tolstoy does bring up an important pedagogical point about rewarding or encouraging those that do not deserve it or do not do anything worthwhile. While encouraging and thinking about self-esteem is important, "stupid" behavior and outlooks have to be corrected, or else, when trying to encourage young people, you may encourage their negative traits, thus exaggerating them. There is also a classist point that I think we can make here is that those with status, but no real talent or intelligence, are often encouraged to believe that they do have something valuable because they have that status they are born with. There are countless examples that we don't need to add here.
With emphasis on his gold-laced uniform, he speaks for over an hour. "The assistant prosecutor spoke at great length, trying on the one hand to remember all the clever things he had thought of and, on the other -this was most important - not to stop for a moment...All the latest catchphrases then in vogue in his set, everything that then was and still is accepted as the last word in scientific wisdom was included in his speech - heredity and congenital criminality, and Lombroso and Tarde, evolution and the struggle for existence, hypnotism and hypnotic suggest, Charcot and decadence."
Just like the disposition in War and Peace I've referenced several times in the posts on Resurrection, Tolstoy loves to parody those that love to talk and say things that appear to be important but are ultimately meaningless (perhaps ironically considering the vast amount of writing Tolstoy did and how one of the biggest complaints readers have against him is his pontification). And, this is Tolstoy showcasing his "anti-scientific", which is a way he hasn't aged quite correctly, even though what he critiques was technically wrong anyway (including the German method of warfare, 19th century doctors, and the thinkers above). As "anti-scientific" religious people of today often complain, Tolstoy's main problems with "science" (it is worth noting that he doesn't really mean geology, biology, or physics, and often means "philosophy" that is in vogue that masquerades as science) are certainty and transitoriness, or the combination of the two. Those who march under the authority of science often use the word as an ultimate and all-encompassing authority, even using "science" outside of the bounds of what most scientists are comfortable with (some modern public figures come to mind but don't necessarily need to be mentioned here). This certainty or absolutism of course doesn't mesh with how science or philosophy really works, since knowledge changes and ideas and evidence leads people in many different ways over many different time periods. What many religious critics fail to see about science is that the transitoriness is not a bug but a feature of science, and Tolstoy, at his most dogmatic, makes this mistake, but we can also make the mistake of mistaking Tolstoy's criticisms of medicine and science of his time as applicable or descriptive of medicine and science in our time.
The hereditary criminality is discussed in the context of Katusha, who is literate, speaks French, but illegitimate (Edmonds uses "orphan", which seems less strong than Maude). Tolstoy completely rejects the idea that people are born criminal or that criminality is passed from generations, instead blaming social conditions, and following the "blank slate" or "noble savage" view of humanity, rejecting "original sin".
Maslova's counsel "tried to indulge in a little eloquence, describing how Maslova had been led into a life of debauchery by a man who had gone unpunished while she had had to bear the whole brunt of her fall but this excursion into the domain of psychology was so unsuccessful that everybody felt uncomfortable. When he meandered on about the cruelty of men and the helplessness of women the president, wishing to help him out, requested him to keep closer to the points of the case."
When someone tries to point out the way that women are mistreated in society and that these circumstances can lead to criminality or, at the very least, an outcast from what is "desirable", the court rejects it completely, claiming that it isn't relevant to the case. And this is one of the ultimate failures of judgment and the court system as whole. Its focus on "relevance" rejects contextualizing the society the event takes place and thus cannot properly put the actions in a way that makes any sense, making alienation and conviction possible, which is a pure rejection of fairness.
Maslova is compared to a hunted animal, Tolstoy's favorite metaphor, only crying and not talking while Nekhlyudov feels an overpowering sense of fear.
Chapter 22: Even though the president is ready to leave, he cannot stop himself from droning on to the jury before they decide on their verdict. Everything that has already been said is repeated again. "It seemed there could be nothing left to say. But the president could not let go of his right to speak - it gave him such pleasure to listen to the inspiring tones of his own voice". The repetition of theme throughout the court scenes drive the point home, destroying all credibility of everything that is being said.
Nekhlyudov "felt like a puppy when its master seizes it by the neck and rubs its nose in the mess it has made...appreciating the baseness of what he had done felt the mighty hand of the Master; but he still did not realize the significance of what he had done, or recognize the Master's hand".
This is a big difference we see in Resurrection from War and Peace is the explicit references to the way God is the one driving history. In War and Peace, the force that directs history is much more abstract and matches 19th century post-Hegelian philosophy, where we can insert God as the director of history, but are more encouraged to do so by general Will. Here in Resurrection, that doubt or ambiguity is removed. It is God that drives history and the circumstances the characters find themselves in (this is very helpful from a plot point, as the absurd coincidence of Nekhlyudov being on this jury can be hand-waved as "God willed it"), though in his typical convoluted compatibilist fashion, the characters still have the ability to choose their actions (in fact, the flashback of Nekhlyudov's actions, though we see how social circumstances have encouraged his decisions, are completely meaningless, and appallingly frightening, if he does not have free will, and even more of a free will than the end of The Kingdom of God is Within You can give him).
Chapter 23: The jury is described as "looking ashamed somehow and not knowing what to do with their hands...The unnaturalness and falseness of their situation which to a greater or less degree they had all been conscious of" Even though Nekhlyudov doesn't, just like the characters of War and Peace, doesn't understand the significance of his actions, the jury is conscious that what they are doing is insincere and lacks authenticity, the grave Tolstoy sin.
The jury messes up the verdict, accidentally leaving out the clause "but without intent to take life".
"Rabelais tells of a lawyer to whom people had come about a lawsuit who after quoting all sorts of laws and reading twenty pages of meaningless judicial Latin, invited the contending parties to throw dice: odds or even. If an even number turned up, the plaintiff was right; if odd - it was the defendant it was much the same in this case." Because so much had been said and so little of it had meant anything, the jury is no better than rolling dice because there is no way to possibly sort through all the necessary information. I really think Tolstoy saw the dangers of a bureaucracy that transcends the average or even the educated person in complexity, and as our society continues to become more and more complicated, the further the average person, not to mention the ones that are continually crushed by the system, falls behind and the further humanity falls from justice (which is why Tolstoy values simplicity and authenticity more than anything).
The president realizes that the verdict is "absurd" but is unable to get the other judges to cancel the judgement because one of them is concerned of what the papers will say to them. Again, we see how public opinion, or in this case, the conservative manipulation of public opinion, affecting the way the characters see their actions (this is huge in War and Peace, as the court drives so much of the military strategy of Russia, despite the protestations of Kutuzov).
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