영어로 읽는 고전 _ 엘리너 게이츠의 기드온의 정의
엘리너 게이츠의 《기드온의 정의》는 20세기 초에 쓰인 소설이다. 이 책은 캘리포니아주 만자니타라는 작은 마을의 치안 판사 기드온 카를 중심으로, 그가 법적 문제와 개인적 관계를 헤쳐나가는 과정을 그린다. 주요 주제로는 정의, 야망, 그리고 인간관계의 복잡성이 있으며, 특히 기드온, 앨리샤, 호머라는 인물들에 초점을 맞춘다.서사의 도입부는 기드온의 법정을 생생하게 묘사하며, 물리적 공간과 그가 짊어진 책임의 무게를 함께 강조한다. 그가 재판을 준비하고 있을 때, 그에게 애정을 품은 듯한 소녀 앨리샤가 호머에 대한 걱정을 안고 들어온다. 호머는 기드온이 키우다시피 한 청년이다. 앨리샤가 호머가 도박을 하고 곤경에 처할 수 있다는 소문을 전하자, 판사의 보호 본능이 발동한다. 이 도입부는 주요 인물들과 그들의 관계를 확립할 뿐만 아니라, 이야기가 전개되면서 기드온의 정의감과 인간적 유대를 시험할 갈등이 다가오고 있음을 암시한다.
Classics Read in English _ The justice of Gideon by Eleanor Gates
In the sun-baked town of Manzanita, California, one man holds the scales of justice?and they are heavier than they appear. Eleanor Gates's The Justice of Gideon introduces us to Gideon Carr, a Justice of the Peace whose courtroom is both his kingdom and his cage.
Gideon dispenses law with a steady hand, but his heart is far less certain. There is Alicia, whose visits brighten his somber days and stir feelings he dares not name. And there is Homer, a young man Gideon has raised almost as his own, now rumored to be slipping into gambling and trouble. When Alicia arrives one morning bearing whispers of Homer's misdeeds, the judge finds himself caught between duty and devotion.
Gates sets the stage for a story where justice is never simply black and white. What happens when the law demands one thing and love demands another? In Manzanita, Gideon Carr will have to decide?not just for his town, but for himself.
Among the contents
THE place of Justice in the little town of Manzanita was a low, square, cloth-and-papered room, bare save for the Judge’s unpainted pine desk and armchair; the two other chairs, wooden-seated and worn, that stood just in front of the desk, and were reserved at trials for the constable and his prisoner; the four long benches directly behind these; and the squat, round-barreled stove which, though it was midsummer in the little Northern California town, still held its place in the centre of the room, its four legs spraddled out as if it were determined to defy removal from its shallow sawdust box. There was but one spot of brightness in the whole dingy place. Back of the Judge’s desk, draped against the fly-specked wall in careful folds, gleamed the red, white and blue of the Flag.
The colours brought the Judge into sharp relief. The courtroom being deserted, his coat was off, and hung near by him on a nail under his black, slouch hat; and he was seated on the small of his back, his long legs crossed and stretched out into the unrailed prisoner’s dock, his elbows planted upon the arms of his chair, and his hands pressed against his temples, so that they shielded his eyes.
