Geoffrey Robertson - Conflicting perspectives Essay

Composers manipulate composition and language to persuade audiences and provide insight into alternatives viewpoints as conflicting perspectives are fundamental to our human desire to raise questions about sensitive or controversial issues. In Geoffrey Robertson’s, “The Justice Game”, his own attitudes and beliefs towards issues such as the censorship of pornography as well as the nature and fairness of the legal system is represented. In the chapters “the Trials of Oz” and “Roman’s in Britain” our human desire to raise questions is evoked through the conflicting perspectives presented through the conservatives and Robertson’s. We are positioned to agree with his perspective through his use of selective anecdotes and witty language such as puns that are incorporated to mock the conflicting perspective. The fiction novel, “Rosy Is My Relative” by Gerald Durrell, also explores the easily manipulable nature of the legal system, positioning a conservative English prosecutor against a witty defence counsel. It does so in a satirical manner, and uses humorous character stereotypes to persuade the responder to support the protagonist’s case.
In both, “The Trials of Oz” and “Romans in Britain”, Robertson presents the responder with the overzealous nature of conservatives in politics and law in their prosecution of pornography, the censorship he feels threatens the human rights of the defendants. He does this by representing the judge Justice Argyle as prejudice and out of touch with the time. This is shown by his careful selection of anecdotal evidence including the Judge’s motto, “We just don’t do this kind of thing in Birmingham”. Through this we understand Robertson’s attempt to show the narrow-mindedness of the judge in this way. He mocks him through his description of the judges verdict on the Oz Case with the metaphor “with the relief of a man making a bowel movement after weeks of constipation”, which effectively conveys both the judges perspective on the Oz