He Who Fights Monsters
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He Who Fights Monsters
“He who fights monsters must see to it that in the process he himself does not become a monster.” Friedrich Nietzsche raises a crucial point: in a search for justice, how can one assure that one will not be consumed by one’s cause? The novel The Round House by Louise Erdrich focuses on Joe Coutts’s quest for justice and on how narrowly he avoids Nietzsche’s prophesied fate. Since the tribe Joe belongs to has no authority to prosecute Linden, the man who rapes his mother, he takes matters into his own hands, investigating evidence and possible subjects, and eventually killing him. But in a system where crime is rampant and criminals have impunity, the lines between justice and desperation become blurred. Joe’s misunderstanding of justice leads him to pursue vengeance in the name of fairness, prevents him from successfully achieving his goals, and nearly turns him into the very monster he fights. His journey through fear, hate, revenge, and finally, self-realization drives the story and informs the concept that retribution leads only to more suffering, not to a solution.
Joe’s self-deception that vengeance and justice are equivalent, when in fact the two are entirely disparate concepts, leads him to pursue retribution instead of closure. This is evidenced when he states “As we were driving home I realized that my deceits were of no consequence as I was dedicated to a purpose which I’d named in my mind not vengeance but justice” (260). The key words here are “which I’d named in my mind” - they indicate that Joe’s purpose is not actually justice, just a semblance of it. Furthermore, Joe indicates when he switches “Sins Crying Out to
Heaven for Vengeance” for “Sins Crying Out to Heaven for Justice” (250) that the two concepts are interchangeable in his mind. But they aren’t the same. Justice is about making amends, and vengeance is about making someone else suffer. Perhaps more importantly, justice is freedom. Joe
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He Who Fights Monsters
“He who fights monsters must see to it that in the process he himself does not become a monster.” Friedrich Nietzsche raises a crucial point: in a search for justice, how can one assure that one will not be consumed by one’s cause? The novel The Round House by Louise Erdrich focuses on Joe Coutts’s quest for justice and on how narrowly he avoids Nietzsche’s prophesied fate. Since the tribe Joe belongs to has no authority to prosecute Linden, the man who rapes his mother, he takes matters into his own hands, investigating evidence and possible subjects, and eventually killing him. But in a system where crime is rampant and criminals have impunity, the lines between justice and desperation become blurred. Joe’s misunderstanding of justice leads him to pursue vengeance in the name of fairness, prevents him from successfully achieving his goals, and nearly turns him into the very monster he fights. His journey through fear, hate, revenge, and finally, self-realization drives the story and informs the concept that retribution leads only to more suffering, not to a solution.
Joe’s self-deception that vengeance and justice are equivalent, when in fact the two are entirely disparate concepts, leads him to pursue retribution instead of closure. This is evidenced when he states “As we were driving home I realized that my deceits were of no consequence as I was dedicated to a purpose which I’d named in my mind not vengeance but justice” (260). The key words here are “which I’d named in my mind” - they indicate that Joe’s purpose is not actually justice, just a semblance of it. Furthermore, Joe indicates when he switches “Sins Crying Out to
Heaven for Vengeance” for “Sins Crying Out to Heaven for Justice” (250) that the two concepts are interchangeable in his mind. But they aren’t the same. Justice is about making amends, and vengeance is about making someone else suffer. Perhaps more importantly, justice is freedom. Joe
2