Must We Conform To The Law?

Originally posted on May 5, 2005

When I was in college, I took a course on philosophies in movies. This essay is based on the famous movie with Paul Newman in it called "Cool Hand Luke", released back in 1967. This movie gave me a new perceptive on an aspect of life that I never had thought of. The movie was directed by Stuart Rosenberg. I don't know if you are aware of this, but Stuart Rosenberg also directed a lame horror flick back in the late 70s called The Amityville Horror. Both by the same person, who would had thought? He must had been pretty desperate for a directing gig or something!

Just to remind you, if you want to publish this essay on your website or for something else, please ask for my permission first. Go ahead and read the essay!

Must We Conform To The Law?

Must we conform to the law? Do we have to be a bunch of do-gooders in order to stay out of the slammers? Is it really possible to break laws and not pay the consequences? What would people say about it? We are free to make choices, but should we think twice before we commit an act for which we’ll suffer the consequences? I will be taking examples from the film, Cool Hand Luke starring Paul Newman in the role of Lucas ‘Cool Hand” Jackson.

The meaning of conform is to be obedient or to be in agreement with a certain thing such as rules, laws, opinions, anything that can be disagreed with. But the topic here is to argue with if we should be obedient to the laws or not. The concepts of conforming to the laws are when you obey them to prevent yourself from doing the so-called wrong things and pay the consequences for it.

In the film, Cool Hand Luke , Luke (Lucas Jackson) clearly does not take conforming to the law too well. He took a turn for the worse after the death of his mother and being put into the box for a week. But more will be discussed on the topic. The tagline of the movie states, “The man… and the motion picture that simply do not conform.” I certainly can see it since this movie does it so well. In the beginning, you see Luke chopping off the parking meters’ heads and that led to being sent off to jail or a correctional facility. The movie has a very southern theme to it especially when you see the jail, which looked more like a farmyard to me. At first, Luke is managing to conform to the rules in the jail; He was still a troublemaker in some ways but nothing serious to be concerned about. One very noticeable element of the movie is that it’s heavy with biblical symbolism. The other prisoners see him (Luke) as Jesus Christ in a way, and the audience easily feels it. For some reason, Jesus was clearly against the old testaments, and Luke demonstrated it very well. George Kennedy who played Dragline, a friend of Luke’s in the jail, stands out in the movie, and adds more to Paul Newman’s character through their friendship. He was Luke’s chum, and Luke’s character is so powerful that it influenced the other prisoners to actually have hope for themselves in their lives. Like I said, there is a touch of Jesus to Luke and I can’t imagine how they could had topped this one. Not everybody can turn out to be what God intended. Later in the film, Luke had received the news that his mother had passed away. He turned away from the table and went to his bed. He picked up the banjo and sung for the first time. The role of the warden was played by Martin Strother. Most people would view him as the anti-hero like he was intended to be. The captain found Luke’s free-spirited characteristics a threat to everybody at the jail since he believed that it could encouraged the prisoners to commit more crimes such as escaping from the prison. But the warden and other guards cannot be outwitted because in the end they still get Luke back to where he belongs. The captain was right about the punishment because it was what he wanted. The guards were hard on Luke, but since they were at a correctional facility, the punishment had to be harsh. This may be the reason why our crime rates are increasing because people are not being punished harshly enough, like the way they were before. Luke did a total of three attempted escapes, and they were all failed attempts since he got caught. At the end of second escape, he was warned that if he tried a third attempt. He may not see the any more daylight in his life since they would execute him. All this for a sentence of couple years of serving time and he could not wait to finish the time? In the end, he came to meet his death since he failed to conform to the law. All of these began with chopping off the parking meters’ heads, resulting in a punishment for destroying city property. Once you commit the crime, you suffer the consequences is what they’re trying to tell you. Paul Newman’s character is memorable and doesn’t fail to suck you into his free-spirited life keeping a smile on your face the whole time. Luke may have partially won because he was a free-spirited person and changed the lives of the prisoners because hope was revived in them. But the officers won in the end since he failed to conform to the law and death was the result.

Corporal punishment is long gone since it’s outlawed by many places. The prisoners are overprotected today; they are treated like the kings. Same goes for the schools, children used to suffer the consequences for disobeying the rules in the classrooms. Students used to fear the teachers, but today it’s the opposite. Teachers are defenseless against the students because words mean nothing to the students, at least to many. Basically, I see the same thing happening at prisons. The criminals keep committing the same crime over and over because nothing is hard enough on them. Perhaps it is the time we bring back corporal punishment into the prisons to make them suffer the consequences because doing time isn’t changing them at all. A lot of people are opposed to corporal punishment since it is inhumane in their eyes, but they have to realize that the crimes these people commit are inhumane because of what it does to the victims. Even destroying propertiy can be viewed as inhumane because people own these properties and if something happen to these properties; they will suffer the pain from the damages or losses.

Conforming the law is the way to keep your life in order. If you do the crime, you suffer the consequences. The message cannot be made any simpler than this. People have to think twice before doing something that could result in a punishment to suffer the consequences. If somebody can’t conform to the law, they’re bound to become a jailbird their whole life without learning anything at all. Is it really worth conforming to the law, maybe it isn’t to you. But to me, it is worth my life since I don’t want to make an enclosed cell my home. I’d rather have a home where I can see the sun, the grass, the birds, and children playing outside and a big comfy bed. Remember this, people are free to make choices, but they will suffer the consequences.

Written by Paul Moreau

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Copyright 2003 Paul Moreau. All rights reserved.