ABSTRACT
The characterization of modern life as “absurd” is found throughout a body of literature produced and/or influenced by existentialist philosophy. Prisons illustrate an absurd environment that smothers the psyche and the will to act meaningfully, by conventional standards. Between 1980 and 1986, J. Thomas found in his study of 3,350 prisoner petitions filed in Illinois that nearly three quarters of all litigants filed only one suit, but accounted for only half of all litigation. All quotes of prisoners are verbatim, taken from transcribed interviews in Illinois maximum-security prisons between 1982 and 1987. State prisoners have increasingly turned to federal courts in attempts to resolve private troubles in public forums. Litigation is seen not as rebellion, but as abuse of the courts by those already “proven” to be antisocial. “Frivolousness,” however, is embedded in a variety of social meanings and is not value-neutral.
