John Galsworthy' s Justice- Character list, theme. About the Author

1. Justice
- John Galsworthy
Author Introduction
Born: 14 August 1867, Kingston upon Thames, United
Kingdom
` Died: 31 January 1933, Hampstead, United Kingdom
Plays: Strife, The Skin Game, The First and the
Last, Escape, Windows
Movies: That Forsyte Woman, A Summer Story, The Skin
Game, MORE…

2. About the Work
• Justice was a 1910 crime play by the British writer John Galsworthy. It
was part of a campaign to improve conditions in British prisons.
• Winston Churchill attended an early performance of the play at
the Duke of York's Theatre in London.
Adaptation:
• In 1917 the play was adapted into a silent film Justice directed by Maurice
Elvey. It was adapted into Hindi as Nyaya by Premchand.
• The 31 October 1948 broadcast of the NBC University Theater, which adapted
literary works for radio as part of a collegiate home-study course in
partnership with the University of Louisville, presented a radio adaptation of
the play which starred Nigel Bruce.

3. Character of the Play
• James How, solicitor
• Walter How, solicitor
• Robert Cokeson, their managing clerk
• William Falder, their junior clerk
• Sweedle, their office-boy
• Wister, a detective
• Cowley, a cashier
• Mr. Justice Floyd, a judge
• Harold Cleaver, an old advocate
• Hector Frome, a young advocate

4. • Captain Danson, VC, a prison governor
• The Rev Hugh Miller, a prison chaplain
• Edward Clement, a prison doctor
• Wooder, a chief warder
• Money, convict
• Clifton, convict
• O’ Cleary, convict
• Ruth Honey will, a woman
• a number of barristers, solicitors, spectators, ushers, reporters, ,
warders and prisoners

5. Justice as a Tragedy
Justice: A Tragedy in Four Acts
John Galsworthy (1867–1933)
Justice: Tragedy in Four Acts, by John Galsworthy (1910). William Falder, a young clerk in a solicitor’s office is in
love with a woman, who is being cruelly treated by her husband. In an ill-balanced moment he commits forgery
in order to find money to rescue her from her husband’s brutality. He is discovered as he is on the point of
sailing with her to South America. At his trial his counsel pleads guilty for him, but asks the jury to believe that
the prisoner acted under great emotional stress, and adds, “men like the prisoner are daily destroyed under
our law for want of that human insight, which sees them as they are, patients, and not criminals.” The judge
sums up against this plea, and the prisoner is sentenced to three years’ penal servitude. On his release, he is
unable to keep employment that had been found for him, as his fellow-employees learned about his past. “He
seems (he tells someone who knew him) to be struggling against a thing that is all around him.” His old
employers offer to take him back again on condition that he gives up the company of the woman for love of
whom he had committed forgery. He refuses, and his employers relent, but at that moment a detective enters
to arrest him because for four weeks he has failed to report himself. He throws himself out of a window and is
killed. This play made so great an impression on the public mind that certain important reforms in prison
administration in England are directly to be traced to its influence.