Image via Wikipedia"My dear Wife,
Mr. Davies will tell you what's happening here tonight. He's a good man and has done everything he can for me. I suppose there are some other good men here, too, only they don't seem to realize what they're doing. They're the ones I feel sorry for. 'Cause it'll be over for me in a little while, but they'll have to go on remembering for the rest of their lives. A man just naturally can't take the law into his own hands and hang people without hurtin' everybody in the world, 'cause then he's just not breaking one law but all laws. Law is a lot more than words you put in a book, or judges or lawyers or sheriffs you hire to carry it out. It's everything people ever have found out about justice and what's right and wrong. It's the very conscience of humanity. There can't be any such thing as civilization unless people have a conscience, because if people touch God anywhere, where is it except through their conscience? And what is anybody's conscience except a little piece of the conscience of all men that ever lived? I guess that's all I've got to say except kiss the babies for me and God bless you.
Your husband, Donald."
The movie is a classic. It doesn't have much of long story, but has a single thought. The conflict of right, why it is always that those who support right is in minority and in doubt. Why is that people realize that they are wrong only later? More importantly, why is it that people do not take it into their conscience that their deeds were wrong, but rather goes about their life.
Henry Fonda delivers a good work as the confused man. But it was Anthony Quinn who captured my imagination. There are other distinguishing factors between a city man and outland man, brought out by dialogues and monologues, which make you think that law has made a lesser man.
I have believed in all that is written in this letter, even before I had seen it being read in the movie, with all the passion and eloquence by Henry Fonda, pictured with all beauty and rawness, something which I imagine will be in Lord of Flies. My work is in legal domain. My colleagues are versed in various aspects of Law. My legal knowledge is limited. I know that it is almost same as it is in engineering, beyond Newton or Faraday, I can't remember anything, and these two - barely.
What makes me love it is the belief that Man made Law and not vice versa. There is nothing which should stop man from living in a 'law'-less society. It should not, for I cannot say with confidence, be a chaos. Even in chaos, there shall be order.
I have had debates/discussions with a friend of mine, who believes law is above everything. He is right, to an extent. Beyond that, life is ultimate. Rather, Man is ultimate. This is not a platform for debate, nor discussion. I am putting a piece of work, extracted from a beautiful movie, not to support my views, but to put forth what somebody else had thought on the same lines.
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