ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on literary situations where the law fails to provide justice, which can only be procured outside the rule of law. Legal education and the legal profession assume and in a basic respect for and trust in law, no matter how imperfect. The preamble to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms stresses that Canada is founded upon the principle of the rule of law. Works of literature radically overinvest in and overvalue the individual acting alone outside the law. Works of literature are full of sympathetic outlaws. Sometimes this sympathy is justified by the harsh and unfair treatment these outlaws have been subjected to by the law; at other times literary texts root for spunky outlaws despite their highly questionable actions. In the preface to Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, Hugo condemns law and custom that oppress the poor as well as women and children, pitting justice against such law and custom.
