Literary Allusion and Trial Technique Print
Wednesday, 15 April 2009 21:14

 OR "USING BOOKS AND MOVIES TO GET YOUR POINT ACROSS"

 
It is often said in my field that trials are all about history.  If you cannot handle dwelling on the past, or you do not relish examining it, then you had better avoid a trial.
 
At the same time, most respected trial attorneys will tell you that trial preparation is all about the "story".  The story must be coherent, plausible, conflict in clear ways with your opponent's, but most important---interesting. 
 
We all seem to agree that history and "story" are important to the art.  Why then don't we use the literary device of allusion at trial? 
 
Allusion is a high art form.  It involves subtlely mimicking a famous story in history, literature, film or other art.  An allusion allows the audience to understand a difficult concept or plot by relating it to an already familiar story.  It also gives your audience something that they all secretly long for: predictability.    
 
Like it or not, a predictable story is a more believable story.  The farther you stray from the familiar path, the more people you lose along the way.
 
 Now, the biggest hurdle you face to effectively use an allusion lies with your audience.  You must know your audience to pick an allusion.  They must have a commonality of experience to grasp it.  If you are alluding to a story that is unfamiliar to your audience, then your allusion will be completely ineffective.
 
For example, most college students at one point or another have read Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities.  I have personally read it three times, and not by choice.  If you draw an allusion to some part of A Tale of Two Cities, and half your audience has only less than a high school education, you have probably lost them.  It is not so much a matter of intelligence as it is assuring yourself of common experience.  Better that you use an allusion to a nursery rhyme or a fable (e.g. the Boy Who Cried Wolf, the Ugly Duckling, Little Miss Muffet, Three Blind Mice, Robin Hood)...a story that is repeated time and again, a story that is universal.
 
It is not the plot so much as the moral underlying the plot in nursery rhymes, fairytales and fables that give them their universality.  Cultures around the world teach the same morals with slightly different, and eerily similar stories.  Draw on that to overcome the diversity of experience in your audience.
 
I tend to draw on literary allusions because I like reading.  I realize though that there is more room in a trial for allusion to films.  In today's world, it is likely that more people have seen the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, than have read the book on which the movie is based.  And the movies go much farther in making the outlandish seem realistic to a jury or judge.  You can say, "That's a great story, but that's not how things happen in real life."  But good luck convincing a jury of it.  To some extent, we really do believe everything we see on the screen.  It's just as possible that truth is stranger than fiction.
Last Updated ( Saturday, 18 April 2009 18:53 )