Abstract:
This thesis takes a critical look at Albert Camus’ The Stranger and Joseph Heller’s
Catch-22 as two works in a new proposed subgenre of literature: the absurd legal novel.
The Stranger’s court system relies on an instinctual, subjective judgment of Meursault’s
character in order to judge him and condemn him to death, while Catch-22’s military
bureaucracy traps its airmen in cruel, meaningless cycles through verbal trickery and
coercion. Both are both flawed institutions whose absurd practices are little more than
dangerous exercises in power over others. The last chapter of this thesis examines real
world instances of absurdity in law, such as qualified immunity and immigration law, and
uses the absurd legal novel as a basis to theorize why these absurd policies exist in a legal
system ostensibly based on order and rationality. Ultimately, the absurd legal novel can
teach readers how to think critically about the nature of power: who holds it, how they
use it, who it is used against, and perhaps most importantly, how it maintains itself.
