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Conflicting
Narratives of Crime
and Punishment
Edited by
Martina Althoff
Bernd Dollinger
Holger Schmidt
Conflicting Narratives of Crime and Punishment
Martina Althoff · Bernd Dollinger ·
Holger Schmidt
Editors
Conflicting
Narratives of Crime
and Punishment
Editors
Martina Althoff Bernd Dollinger
Department of Criminal Law Department of Education & Psychology
& Criminology University of Siegen
University of Groningen Siegen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Groningen, The Netherlands
Holger Schmidt
Department of Social Education,
Adult Education and Early Childhood
Education (ISEP)
TU Dortmund University
Dortmund, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
ISBN 978-3-030-47235-1 ISBN 978-3-030-47236-8 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47236-8
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
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Contents
1 Fighting for the “Right” Narrative: Introduction

to Conflicting Narratives of Crime and Punishment 1
Martina Althoff, Bernd Dollinger and Holger Schmidt
Section I Foundation
2 Counter-Narratives of Crime and Punishment 23

Michael Bamberg and Zachary Wipff
3 Small Stories Research and Narrative Criminology:

‘Plotting’ an Alliance 43
Alex Georgakopoulou
4 Public Narratives of Crime and Criminal Justice:

Connecting ‘Small’ and ‘Big’ Stories to Make Public
Narratives Visible 63
Martina Y. Feilzer
v
vi Contents
Section II Popular and Everyday Narrations of Crime

and Punishment
5 Crime and Narration: The Creation of (In)Security

in Everyday Life 87
Katharina Eisch-Angus
6 Popular and Visual Narratives of Punishment

in Museum Settings 113
Hannah Thurston
7 Conflicting Counternarratives of Crime and Justice

in US Superhero Comics 139
Daniel Stein
8 Sympathies and Scandals: (Counter-)Narratives

of Criminality and Policing in Inter-war Britain 161
John Carter Wood
Section III Crime Narratives in Social and Criminal Justice
9 ‘Let’s Put Human Rights Right’: (Counter) Narratives

About Human Rights in the UK Popular Press 183
Lieve Gies
10 Files as Prototypical Master Narratives 201

Mechthild Bereswill, Henrike Buhr
and Patrik Müller-Behme
11 Practical Narratives in the Criminal Law Process:

The Suspect’s Statement 219
Martha Komter
Contents vii
Section IV Media Outrages and Narrations of Gender,

Crime and Migration
12 Competing Narratives in the Nexus

of Migration-Crime-Gender 239
Maria De Angelis
13 Stories of Gender and Migration, Crime

and Security: Between Outrage and Denial 259
Martina Althoff
Index 279
Notes on Contributors
Martina Althoff is an Associate Professor of Criminology at

the University of Groningen, Department of Criminal Law and
Criminology. Focus of her research is the political and social reactions
to criminality, societal effects of the criminal justice system, gendered
aspects of crime and Feminist Criminology. She published various arti-
cles, book chapters and academic books in English, Dutch and German.
Michael Bamberg received his M.Phil. from the University of York
(Linguistics) and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley (Psychology). Previous to his
appointment as Professor of Psychology at Clark University (USA), he
held teaching positions in Sociology (FU Berlin), in Linguistics at the
University of York (UK), and Foreign Languages at Tongji University
(Shanghai) and Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (Guangzhou),
as well as Universität Saarbrücken (Germany). For 2020, he is on a
Fulbright Distinguished Chair Scholarship with the Adam Mickiewicz
University in Poznan, Poland. His scholarly interests are in narrative,
identity and qualitative methodology.
ix
x Notes on Contributors
Mechthild Bereswill is a Professor for Sociology at Kassel University,

Department of Human Sciences, Institute of Social Policy and Social
Welfare. Her fields of research include gender studies, social problems
and social control, qualitative methodologies.
Henrike Buhr is a research assistant at Kassel University, Department
of Human Sciences, Institute of Social Policy and Social Welfare. Fields
of research include Qualitative Research, Biography Studies, Social
Problems and Social Control.
Maria De Angelis is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Leeds Beckett
University, UK. She holds a Ph.D. in her specialist area of human
trafficking, and her research examines intersectionality across crim-
inal, immigration and social policy. She is on the board of CIRN—
the Centre for International Research on Narrative at St. Thomas’
University, Canada—and is an active member of the Women Crime
and Criminal Justice Network (British Society of Criminology). Her
current project is one of impact and involves transforming wom-
en’s narratives published in Social Policy and Society (2019) into an
audio-photo-art exhibition for display in city-wide public spaces.
Bernd Dollinger is a Professor of Social Pedagogy at the University of
Siegen, Germany, Department of Pedagogy & Psychology. His fields of
research are youth crime, history and theory of social pedagogy, welfare
policy. His recent publication includes Dollinger, B. (2020): Changing
Narratives of Youth Crime: From Social Causes to Threats to the Social.
London: Routledge.
Katharina Eisch-Angus is a Professor at the Institute of Cultural
Anthropology and European Ethnology of the University of Graz,
Austria. Major research interests are in the fields of contemporary
everyday cultures, from the anthropology of borders and difference to
processes of securitization and subjectivation, as expressed in collec-
tive memory or everyday narration. A methodological emphasis is on
multi-perspective ethnographic, semiotic and ethno-psychoanalytic
approaches. Recent publications include Absurde Angst. Narrationen
der Sicherheitsgesellschaft [Absurd Anxiety. Narrations of the Society
of Security], Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2019; Der Alltag der (Un)
Notes on Contributors xi
sicherheit. Ethnographisch-kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf die

Sicherheitsgesellschaft [The Everyday of (In)Security. Perspectives of
Ethnography and Cultural].
Martina Y. Feilzer is Professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice
at Bangor University. Her research focuses on public perceptions of
criminal justice at local, national and European levels; the relationship
between the media and public opinion of criminal justice; questions of
legitimacy, trust in justice and penal policy; and comparative and his-
torical criminal justice research. She is Co-Director of WISERD (Wales
Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data) at Bangor and
Co-Director of the Welsh Centre for Crime and Social Justice.
Alex Georgakopoulou is Professor of Discourse Analysis & Socio
linguistics, King’s College London. She has developed small stories
research, a paradigm for examining the role of everyday life stories in
the (re)formation of social relations and identity politics. She has (co)
authored several books that include Analyzing Narrative (with Anna De
Fina, 2012, Cambridge University Press) & ‘Quantified Storytelling:
A Narrative Analysis of Metrics and Algorithms’ (With Stefan Iversen
and Carsten Stage, Palgrave, forthcoming). Her latest study of small
stories has been carried out within the ERC project ‘Life-writing of the
moment: The sharing and updating self on social media’ (www.ego-
media.org).
Lieve Gies is an Associate Professor in the School of Media,
Communication and Sociology at the University of Leicester. Her
research focuses on human rights in the media and media representa-
tions of the law more generally.
Martha Komter is ‘research fellow’ at The Netherlands Institute for
de Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR). She has published
widely on various aspects of language use in the criminal process, espe-
cially on interaction in the courtroom and in the police interrogating
room. Her research materials include audio and video recordings of
authentic police interrogations and trials. The analyses of the courtroom
materials have been published as: ‘Dilemma’s in the Courtroom. A Study
of Trials of Violent Crime in the Netherlands.’ Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence
xii Notes on Contributors
Erlbaum Associates, 1998. She has supervised and carried out the
research programme ‘Intertextuality in judicial settings’, with a focus on
the interrelations between talk and written documents in police inter-
rogations and criminal trials. This has resulted in the book The Suspect’s
Statement: Talk and Text in the Criminal Process, Cambridge University
Press, 2019.
Patrik Müller-Behme is a research assistant at Kassel University,
Department of Human Sciences, Institute of Social Policy and Social
Welfare. His fields of research are social problems and social control,
qualitative research and discourse analysis.
Holger Schmidt is Assistant Professor at the TU Dortmund
University. His research interests are deviance and (youth-)crime, pris-
ons, processes of social differentiation and inequalities, biographical
and—small surprise—narrative research.
Daniel Stein is Professor of North American Literary and Cultural
Studies at the University of Siegen, Germany. He is the author of
Music Is My Life: Louis Armstrong, Autobiography, and American Jazz
(University of Michigan Press, 2012) and, most recently, co-editor
of Nineteenth-Century Serial Narrative in Transnational Perspective,
1830s–1860s (Palgrave, 2019).
Hannah Thurston is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the
University of Brighton. Her research interests include punishment in
the USA and the American cultural identity; qualitative and interpre-
tative methodologies with a focus on narrative analysis; and the use of
museums as research sites. More specifically though, her recent research
has focused on the ‘Lone Star State’ and its reputation for harsh pun-
ishment. To this end, she has analysed the myths and memories which
underpin the Texan self-identity and considered these in relation to the
narratives at work in Texan punishment museums. She continues to
explore how cultural memories of crime and justice draw on—and feed
back into—wider scripts and stories of collective identity.
Zachary Wipff received his B.A. in psychology from Clark University
with highest honours. In his senior thesis, Activity & Passivity, he for-
mulated a narrative theory of psychological agency. He is currently
Notes on Contributors xiii
working in his local community and is seeking to continue his educa-

tion through pursuing a graduate degree in psychology. His academic
interests include narrative, identity, consciousness and philosophical
metaphysics.
John Carter Wood is a researcher at the Leibniz Institute of European
History in Mainz, Germany. His research has addressed the topics of
crime, violence, policing, media, gender, intellectual history and reli-
gion. His most recent book is This Is Your Hour: Christian Intellectuals
in Britain and the Crisis of Europe 1937–1949 (Manchester University
Press, 2019).
List of Figures
Fig. 4.1 Column “should we be afraid of being attacked

by strangers?” (Source: The Oxford Times, 8 October 2004) 73
Fig. 5.1 “UK and US given case file on ‘nerve agent made
in Russian Lab’” (Source: The Guardian, April 6, 2018) 92
Fig. 5.2 Front page imagery “Honey trap girl sends message
to setup murder. Sentenced to death by text”
(Source: Metro, July 9, 2009) 106
Fig. 5.3 Cover “Draussen wird geschossen! München, 22. Juli
2016. Wie eine Stadt in Panik verfällt” (Source: Der Spiegel,
September 17, 2016) 108
Fig. 6.1 The Electric Chair: Texas Prison Museum 117
Fig. 6.2 Poster “Riding the thunderbolt”: Texas Prison Museum 118
Fig. 6.3 Poster “Anatomy of an Execution”: Texas Prison Museum 120
Fig. 6.4 Photographic exhibit: Texas Prison Museum 125
Fig. 6.5 Photographic exhibit: Texas Prison Museum 126
Fig. 6.6 Cabinets filled with inmate arts and crafts: Texas Prison
Museum 129
xv
xvi List of Figures
Museum 129
Museum 130
Museum 130
1
Fighting for the “Right” Narrative:
Introduction to Conflicting Narratives
of Crime and Punishment
Martina Althoff, Bernd Dollinger
and Holger Schmidt
Introduction
Narratives are a constitutive part of the talk of crime. Whenever an
event is interpreted as “crime” and reactions to it are determined, sto-
ries are established. Events are described, responsibilities ascribed,
M. Althoff (*)
Department of Criminal Law & Criminology,
University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
e-mail: m.althoff@rug.nl
B. Dollinger
Department of Education & Psychology,
University of Siegen, Siegen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
e-mail: bernd.dollinger@uni-siegen.de
H. Schmidt
Department of Social Education, Adult Education
and Early Childhood Education (ISEP), TU Dortmund University,
Dortmund, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
e-mail: holger3.schmidt@tu-dortmund.de
© The Author(s) 2020 1
M. Althoff et al. (eds.), Conflicting Narratives of Crime and Punishment,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47236-8_1
2
M. Althoff et al.
justifications sought, alternative interpretations evaluated, etc. In

other words, crime is contested by devising and rejecting narratives.
Narratives are linguistic and cultural patterns of the construction of
crime that organise the production of crime. By “patterns” we mean
that narratives do not simply exist. They are established and negotiated
in social and institutional processes. Some narratives can be established
in these processes in the longer term, others will be forgotten or wither.
This is a conflictual process. But what exactly it means to link narratives
and conflicts in the context of criminality and punishment has hardly
been examined in detail so far, and this is what this volume seeks to
illuminate.
Narratives
Our starting point is the observation that for a narrative understand-
ing of crime it is necessary to consider conflicts or questions of hegem-
ony and subversion to a greater extent than has hitherto been the case.
In order to explain this more closely in the following, we first describe
our view on narratives, then we go into more detail on conflicts or
rather the question of what can or should be regarded as hegemonic or
subversive.
So what do we understand by narratives? First, it should be noted
that there is little consensus on this term (Ryan 2008a). Narratives are
understood very differently. Nevertheless, key points that are often asso-
ciated with narratives can be stated, such as that they are a special form
of linguistic (or textual) communication. To place narratives (or stories,
as used synonymously here) at the centre of analysis follows a linguistic
turn that does not merely see communication as a representation of a
non-verbal reality, but ascribes a particular intrinsic value to narratives
(Nash 1990). The currently growing interest of criminologists in stories
and storytelling goes back to the assumption that narratives create a spe-
cific form of crime reality: they are to be taken seriously because they
constitute crime as such or at least make it communicable without sim-
ply depicting it (Presser 2009). Accordingly, crime is not spoken about,
but crime is spoken. There may be “objective” events, e.g. physical actions
1 Fighting for the “Right” Narrative …
3
that lead to the injury of one person by another. However, such events
only become “violence” or “crime” if they are related in a special way.
This relation concerns form and content:
In formal terms, certain conditions must be met for crime to be nar-
rated. Events must be given a certain form so that they can be narra-
tively understood and represented as crime. With reference to narrative
theories (e.g. Bruner 1991; De Fina and Georgakopoulou 2012; Ewick
and Silbey 1995; Polletta et al. 2011) we emphasise three formal
aspects: relationally connected participants, activities, and characteris-
tics; a relatively high communicative value, and a temporal sequence.
Firstly, narratives of crime provide relationally connected partici-
pants including peculiarities attributed to them such as responsibility,
motives, and actions (Dollinger 2020): perpetrators harm others, vic-
tims suffer, policemen investigate. Offenders bear responsibility, victims
do not. Offenders have a motive, victims usually do not. Without such
actors, activities and characteristics, one can hardly speak of “crime”
(Watson 1976). Secondly, narratives mark an event with these partici-
pants and attributes as something special, because the event is worth tell-
ing. Narratives assign events a value of “tellability” (Ryan 2008b): minor
events are not told, but dealt with as routine or they are—at most—
reported, but not related to as a story; if there is a story for an event, it
has to be of interest to a more or less large circle of people. Something
has happened that is worth becoming the subject of a story. Criminality
often has a particularly high tellability; in media and politics, crime is a
recurring theme (e.g. Greer 2005; Simon 2007; Surette 2011). Thirdly,
as a narrative, an event is given the form of a temporal course (Labov
and Waletzky 1967). If no change over time becomes apparent, it would
not make sense to speak of a story; it is the most important formal
characteristic for identifying narratives. Narratives imply movement or
change, whereby in the case of crime the time-bound actions of people
(sometimes of organisations or institutions) are communicated: some-
thing is stolen; someone is murdered, deceived, injured, lied to, aborted,
betrayed, and much more. What these very different forms of action
have in common is the assumption of a temporal sequence. The situ-
ation before the narrated event is different from the situation after the
4
M. Althoff et al.
event, because, in the meantime, according to the narrative, an offence

has occurred.
In addition to formal features, crime narratives can be identified by
their content. The formal roles, activities and characteristics of the par-
ticipants mentioned can vary in their content depending on the respec-
tive story. Sometimes it is assumed that there is a given set of narratives
with specific roles. According to this view, the limited cultural spec-
trum of possibilities to tell stories can only be varied by individual nar-
ratives, while the core stories themselves are fixed. In relation to crime
and especially to perpetrators, Youngs and Canter (2012) mention four
possible narrative roles of a perpetrator: as a powerful revenger who
fights against external resistance; as a tragic hero struggling with fate;
as an actor driven by external circumstances and alienated from other
persons; as a powerful and professional actor. Other scholars reject
the idea of a limited, culturally predetermined set of narratives. They
instead derive from the assumption that narratives are situation- and
context-dependent constructions which therefore need to be recon-

structed from the respective interactions of a narrative process (c.f. De
Fina and Georgakopoulou 2012; Sacks 1995). The focus here is on how
people are indicating to each other that they are telling a story, which,
furthermore, has a specific meaning for them. Depending on the con-
text of a narration, different contents are negotiated, whereby in the
case of “crime” the violation of criminal law norms always becomes a
topic. For this reason, the relevant stories usually contain (at least) per-
petrators and victims as well as a related, temporally aligned actions of
these two role holders. The evaluation of this action—or non-action, if
applicable—is usually unambiguous: crime is something forbidden, i.e.
the narrated actions are evaluated negatively. The pejorative meaning
can be modified in individual cases, for example if crime is understood
as a kind of resistance, as fun or emotional stimulation (e.g. Ferrell
et al. 2015; Katz 1988). Nevertheless, this ascription only varies the
underlying narrative scheme, according to which crime itself is to be
assessed negatively. Crime narratives therefore do not have any arbitrary
content—and yet crime can be told in very different ways (Dollinger
2020). What is meant by “crime” varies greatly according to historical
5
and cultural conditions. Moreover, there are often different versions of

an event at a certain place at a certain time.
In view of these differences and (possible) conflicts, the credibility
of stories must be justified and negotiated (Nünning 2015). Whoever
speaks of crime is confronted with the task of convincing others of a
certain course of action, of assigning roles (of perpetrators, victims,
witnesses, etc.), of attributing responsibilities, etc. This can take place
in “small” informal publics, such as in an everyday conversation, or in
highly formalised contexts such as a court hearing. In any case, what
“really” happened must be told credibly and plausibly. Alternative ways
of telling an event must be delegitimised so that a particular story can
be credible. Stories of crime have a special characteristic compared to
many other stories: although crime is often the subject of controversy
and there are numerous narratives of crime and punishment, there are
still instances—despite all the contradictions and contingencies of relat-
ing crime—that make ultimate decisions about which narratives are
“right” (Barrera 2019). Criminal justice has the authority to determine
which actions can be identified as crime and should be sanctioned.
Judges act as decision-makers on the truth of narratives, even if they are
controversial and although it is clear that people in court present their
story with special interests because they want to influence a trial in their
favour (Komter 1998).
The cultural embedding of crime stories deserves special mention in
this context. Narratives of crime never stand alone; there are no purely
individual stories, just as little as there is a “private language” that can
only be understood by one person (Wittgenstein 1953/2010). Crime is
a social construction and a cultural event, and even a judge can only
speak law within a certain culture and legal system. In democracies, the
jurisdiction—albeit within the framework of a separation of powers—
must be linked to a publicly monitored and legitimised rule of law and
to criminal policy guidelines. In this sense, a judgement only makes
sense because it is embedded in institutional and cultural contexts. The
dependence on contexts also applies to narratives of individual “per-
petrators” or “victims”. These narratives refer to cultural backgrounds
which make the narratives understandable, be it by friends, a judge, a
social pedagogue or someone else. Narrators employ categories and
6
M. Althoff et al.
semantics that are accessible to others and that can be used by them to
explore and evaluate the meaning of a crime story. And besides institu-
tional and individual narratives, the dependence on context is also true
in the case of public or collective narratives, i.e. crime stories that are,
for example, told by the media who cannot (arbitrarily) reinvent new
stories. Instead, media agents compile the material available to them
(Althoff 2018). The very different contexts of storytelling make it pos-
sible to assume conflicts or at least a high potential for disagreement,
as there are manifold situations and institutional or everyday contexts
in which crime is discussed. Whoever tells a crime story has to direct it
towards the respective contexts and the relevant audiences so that it is,
and can be, perceived as a “convincing story”. It is precisely because nar-
ratives aim to persuade and to negate alternative ways of telling an event
that conflicts are of central importance for a narrative analysis of crime.
Counter-Narratives and Hegemony

In the realm of conflicting narratives, we are—in the words of narra-
tive theory and research—dealing with dominant or master narratives
as well as counter-narratives. Power relations turn out to be analytically
valuable when it comes to differentiate among these concepts: accord-
ing to Ewick and Silbey (1995), narratives are socially organised phe-
nomena that can only be communicated meaningfully within the
framework of historically specific cultural contexts. Narratives are irrev-
ocably linked to the production of meanings and the power relations
expressed in this specific production. Stories are therefore not told by
chance, their contents are determined by social norms and conventions,
and this also applies to how and why stories are told. Similarly, Andrews
(2004) and Bamberg (2004) stress that the hegemonic character of mas-
ter narratives results from the fact that they structure social reality as
“pre-existent sociocultural forms of interpretation” (Bamberg 2004, p.
360). They establish actions and events as routine, thus giving them the
appearance of normality and naturalness, “with the consequence that
the more we as subjects become engaged in these routines, the more we
become subjected to them” (Bamberg 2004, p. 360). At the same time,
7
master narratives provide orientation in everyday action, without which

subjects would not be able to act.
According to Ewick and Silbey (1995), the hegemonic character of
some narratives also results from their ability to function as a mecha-
nism of social control. Hegemonic narratives have the potential to
occupy consciousness and reproduce social inequalities and power rela-
tions without this becoming particularly visible. An important aspect
here is that hegemonic narratives exclude alternative narratives. The
contingency of narratives is made invisible: “The events seem to speak
for themselves; the tale appears to tell itself ” (Ewick and Silbey 1995,
p. 213). Hegemonic narratives seem to express what is self-evident; they
make their connection to particular contexts and perspectives unrecog-
nisable. Subversive narratives, on the other hand, make this connection
transparent: subversive narratives are narratives that show that narratives
are bound to special contexts and power relations, that they are not only
solely individual, but that people always live and act in special social
contexts. Where hegemonic narratives conceal their linkage to context,
subversive narratives show that in legal communication, for example, a
purely individual attribution of responsibility and guilt is inadequate,
since people are always socially embedded. Subversive narratives thus
make visible what hegemonic narratives suppress; subversive narratives
“break the silence” (Ewick and Silbey 1995, p. 220).
The relationship between hegemonic and subversive narratives should
not be thought of as dichotomous, but as more complex (Bamberg
2004). Often subversion does not consist of simply telling the oppo-
site of what is predominant, but of using individual pieces of established
narratives and changing them, placing them in new contexts, equipping
them with new meanings, and so on. Hegemonic views are constantly
readjusted, partially modified, and oftentimes subversively undermined.
As Laclau and Mouffe (1985) explain, hegemony is not rigid. It encom-
passes different demands and articulations, which are made equiva-
lent in a certain way. Differences and contradictions, however, always
remain. A special feature of a hegemony is that it encompasses differ-
ences and can thus be flexible. Hegemony can permit subversion which
it “organises” and uses for adaptation. Without subversion there would
be no hegemony.
8
M. Althoff et al.
But of course hegemonies can actually be hollowed out. Associated

with the concept of counter-narratives is the notion that personal stories
“resort to and corroborate, but also resist and subvert, socio-culturally
dominant master narratives” (Bamberg 2008, p. 288). Irrespective
of this analytical aspect, the aim of critically questioning current nar-
ratives and their social functions (e.g. maintaining the power of the
narrators) and thus denaturalising them follows an emancipatory
agenda. According to Delgado (1989, p. 2414f ), counter-narratives
have the potential that they “open new windows into reality, showing
us that there are possibilities for life other than the ones we live […].
Counterstories can quicken and engage conscience”.
In order to exploit this potential, entirely new stories about an event
in question do not always have to be told. It can be more promising for
narrators to connect to existing master narratives. In this sense Bamberg
(2004, p. 363) states that “there are always certain aspects of dom-
inant stories that are left intact, while others are reshaped and recon-
figured. Speakers never totally step outside the dominating framework
of the master narrative, but always remain somewhat complicit and
work with components and parts of the existent frame ‘from within’”.1
Accordingly, the sentence formulated above—according to which there
would be no hegemony without subversion—can be reversed: subver-
sion presupposes hegemony, and in most cases, subversion should con-
tain at least parts of hegemonic narratives (Hannken-Illjes 2012). Apart
from exceptions, hegemonic and subversive narratives are usually not
entirely contrary to each other, but are more or less integrated. It is
therefore not easy to decide when subversion actually goes so far as to
1A good example can be found in the context of prisons: In this setting, a “conversion story”
(Järvinen 2000) can be regarded as a hegemonic expectation that prisoners are facing. According
to this narrative figure, an—institutionally accepted—life story implies an (apparently) inevita-
ble decline in which the “remorseful” narrator has hit “rock bottom” but now is “ready to better
him- or herself ”. This narrative is sometimes opposed by stories told by prisoners that may follow
a similar plot, but in which the narrators prove to be “headstrong” and far more self-determined
actors than the rather limited narrative rules of the prison would usually enable them to be: They
reject the institutional expectations and the associated subject positions for themselves; the narra-
tors thus “saddle up” on hegemonic narratives, but rewrite them individually (cf. Schmidt 2016,
p. 73).
9
undermine and counteract hegemony, especially in view of—as Polletta

(2006) points out—the often existing ambiguity of narratives. In order
to establish that a narrative is, for example, hegemonic or a counter-nar-
rative (or other), value judgements are required that should be made
transparent.
Reflexivity and Normativity

As suggested at the outset of this chapter, narrating crime and punish-
ment is a persuasive activity; the same applies to the scientific exami-
nation of crime. The question of which version of an event is more
“convincing” and “credible” than another can be relevant for research.
In criminalistics (or forensics) and also in parts of criminology it is
regarded as an important task to decide which representation of an
event is “true”. Yet, for narratively oriented criminologies, on the other
hand, this analytical stance appears somewhat difficult (Sandberg 2010).
Distinctions such as those between “true” and “false” or “believable” and
“exaggerated” stories are not primarily descriptive, but make normative
decisions. Those who say that one narrative is more “credible” or “more
realistic” than another attribute a higher value to it and devalue other
versions of narratives. Such attributions prove to be difficult for narra-
tive criminologies, since they are based on specific evaluative standards
and assumptions on the part of the researchers, which must be sub-
stantiated.2 If one acknowledges that narratives are contingent, then
they are to be recognised for themselves, i.e. in the form and with the
content that was actually told. Even an “exaggerated” or “unauthentic”
story—according to whatever standards—is a social reality and can be
taken seriously in itself (Presser 2009). Narratives often change accord-
ing to the context in which they are told; even in the course of a sin-
gle research interview, narratives can contradict themselves or change
2We refer here to Max Weber (1904) and the controversy around his demand for “objectivity”
and about the possibility or necessity of making normative judgements in research. The dispute
continues to this day. We deliberately do not reconstruct it, but merely refer to aspects that are
significant for a narratively oriented criminology.
10
M. Althoff et al.
(e.g. Brookman 2015; Sandberg 2010). It is not (always) necessary

in research to decide which version of a story is “right”, but one can
reconstruct that there are discrepancies within individual narratives
and between narratives. They can be very revealing because they tell us
something about the narrators and their contexts.
Narratives are often flexible and contradictory. They adapt to the
contexts in which they are produced. This might be considered prob-
lematic because, as mentioned before, research itself is a highly complex
context in which narratives are generated. Thus, for example, research
interviews do not simply depict the stories of “perpetrators”, but rather
evoke and shape them (Presser 2008). A different research question,
a different time and space of interviews, a different interviewing per-
son, etc. can lead to different stories. Such contextual conditions must
always be carefully considered when collecting and analysing data
(Slembrouck 2015).
Against this backdrop calls for reflexivity of research, understood as
“monitoring and reflecting on all aspects of a research project” (Jupp
2006, p. 344), appear reasonable. In recent years, demands for reflex-
ivity have taken off in many disciplines. They are based on the insight
that there is a cultural trace to every research activity. The knowledge
about a research “object” is produced by a multitude of decisions in a
field-, situation- and actor-specific way. The more or less openly formu-
lated hope to pursue this cultural trace, to make it transparent and thus
to arrive at other and possibly “more substantial” insights, is connected
with the claim to reflexive research. Reflexively conducted research is
thus recognised as a privileged access to “truth” or “appropriateness” of
findings.
However, the boom in demands for reflexivity (c.f. Armstrong
et al. 2016; Lumsden and Winter 2014) has not led to a clear con-
cept. Reflexivity is understood and interpreted very differently (Lynch
2000; Riessman 2015). The reference to reflexivity is therefore in dan-
ger of functioning as a mere label: those who claim to carry out reflex-
ive research sometimes want to assert certain ideas of “correct” research
against other positions. The assertion of reflexivity thus may turn out to
be nothing more than a strategy. In order to counter this risk, we think
it is necessary to state and justify exactly how reflexivity is understood
11
and implemented in the context of concrete investigations—a demand

that is of central importance, especially for narrative-oriented criminol-
ogists. They themselves ultimately deliver stories that are aimed at being
“convincing” and “authentic”.
Instead of making general demands for reflexivity, it is therefore more
sensible to ask the following concrete questions: What is hegemonic
for whom and why? How is this expressed? What justifies speaking of a
counter-narrative? In which everyday or institutional contexts are indi-
vidual narratives considered hegemonic or subversive? And—if such an
assessment should be made—for what good reasons is a subversive or
hegemonic status assessed positively or negatively?
Important points of reference for such questions are criminal pol-
icy and the criminal justice system. These are institutions that “decide”
on the hegemony of individual narratives. What is defined as crime
in criminal policy and what individual judges define as crime is, qua
official definition, crime and thus a hegemonic narrative. But contex-
tual ties are still important. What a judge determines to be criminal,
for example, can be normal for young people in their surroundings. The
passing on of secret information can be an act of treason for a politi-
cian, for others it may be regarded as a democratic duty and legitimate
resistance to state surveillance. Abortion can be criminal in one case,
and permitted in another. These and other examples show that crimi-
nology can by no means simply follow what politicians and actors in the
criminal justice system determine. Criminality is ultimately a question
of continuing debates and accordingly historically and culturally var-
iable—a well-known insight of critical criminology (c.f. Reiner 2016,
15–16). Even in a given society it can be disputed at a particular point
in time whether a crime narrative is hegemonic or not, for example if
something is forbidden, but considered normal by large parts of the
population. Deciding what is hegemonic and what is not can therefore
be tricky—especially in criminology. For example, when criminologists
speak out in favour of giving a voice to “subalterns” (Spivak), this has
to be particularly justified because it is a genuinely normative demand.
While most criminologists would agree on the fact that right-wing
extremism, for example, should be excluded and scandalised other mat-
ters such as abortion and drug use may be more difficult to assess. So
12
M. Althoff et al.
this point remains complicated, and this is exactly where the following
contributions come into play.
Structure and Content

This leads us to the structure of this book. Besides the introduction, the
volume consists of four sections and twelve chapters. The first section is
composed of foundational texts written by three authors on the concept
of counter-narratives, on the relationship between small stories research
and narrative criminology, and on the concept of public narratives. The
second section deals with the topic Popular and everyday narrations of
Crime and Punishment. In four chapters different subtopics are dis-
cussed: the interdependence of public and everyday stories of crime and
(in)security, (counter)narratives of crime and punishment in museums,
(counter)narratives in US-American superhero comics, and conflict-
ing narratives of crime and policing in newspapers in inter-war Britain.
The third section concerns Crime Narratives in Social and Criminal
Justice and includes three chapters which scrutinise narratives and
counter-narratives and their societal effects in very different contexts.
The first chapter of this section is on (counter)narratives in European
newspaper coverage of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The following contributions explore (counter)narratives in case files
from residential care in West Germany and in police reports of interro-
gations. The fourth and last section of this volume is entitled Media out-
rages and narrations of gender, crime and migration. Both authors of this
section draw from a gender perspective on the intersection of stories of
migration and crime using different topics, viz. human trafficking and
sexual violence.
Michael Bamberg and Zachary Wipff deal with the conceptualis-
ation of counter-narratives. Counter-narratives irritate background
assumptions that support alternative narratives. Analyses must address
the concrete contextual conditions of narratives, without which
counter-narratives cannot be understood as such. Predicated on the
“narrative practice approach”, they demonstrate how master- and
counter-narratives relate to each other and refer to specific contexts.
13
To illustrate their focus, they compare closing arguments of a defence

lawyer and a district attorney in a murder case and reconstruct over-
laps and differences, which result in different kinds of stories. In this
way, they make it clear that crime stories contain special structures of
expectation, for example, for a perpetrator as the protagonist of a story
who actively violates common values without comprehensible reason.
Counter-narratives contrast such attributions from a defensive position.
With these references, the authors illustrate the particular usefulness of
their analysis for a narrative-oriented criminology, which they call upon
to take the contexts of narratives seriously.
In her chapter, Alexandra Georgakopoulou deals with a further facet
of (counter-)narratives that have so far been neglected in criminology.
She shows that small stories—understood as fleeting stories, emergent
in everyday-life environments—play a significant role in the context of
crime, since the people involved are at risk of stigmatisation and some-
times far-reaching consequences. All the more so since in many cir-
cumstances it is not always possible for them to generate unified and
coherent narratives (‘big stories’). In her contribution Alexandra first
introduces the main rational and methods of the small stories approach.
Then, using examples from her own research, she opens up the possi-
bilities for a narratively minded criminology. It becomes clear that the
analysis of small stories can be a fruitful perspective for criminology—
especially in times of social media, where fragmented and multi-vocal
narratives are the rule rather than the exception.
In the final chapter of the foundation Martina Feilzer explores the
concept of public narratives of crime and punishment to make it empir-
ically accessible for measuring its influence and its significance for pub-
lic opinion, e.g. punitive attitudes or public trust in criminal justice.
The contribution is of conceptual nature, discussing the different lev-
els at which stories of crime and criminal justice as “cultural products”
are narrated and cross different narrative levels. Public narratives can be
part of a range of discourses and can be storied collectively and individ-
ually. The assumption debated here is that public narratives are creating
public knowledge and shaping public opinion on crime and justice. To
illustrate this, the author discusses the results of an experiment in which
she wrote columns on crime and punishment in a local newspaper and
14
M. Althoff et al.
surveyed readers’ knowledge before and after publication. Her findings

show that in order to measure public opinion criminology needs the
concept of public narratives to understand how society makes sense of
crime and justice.
Katharina Eisch-Angus analyses everyday narratives on security and
crime at the interface with public discourses. On the basis of her own
ethnographic surveys in England and Germany, she explores how public
discourses are processed in everyday life. People experience themselves
and their surroundings as safe or unsafe by referring to public debates
and ascribing special meanings to them in everyday life. The emer-
gent stories fluctuate between fiction and factuality and they combine
national or international events with elements of biography and life in
the community. Historically established cultural semantics, which are
updated in relation to new events, flow into this attribution of meaning.
The result is not a mere adaptation of public stories, but rather particu-
lar context-specific narratives of everyday life which have the potential
to contrast political and public discourses.
Museums are another site of conflicting narratives. Although they
play a major role in how events are remembered and how societies
understand themselves, they have hardly been studied in criminology.
Hannah Thurston changes this by addressing the question of how muse-
ums as storied spaces shape opinions and produce cultural meanings of
crime and punishment. She discusses the results of a museum ethnog-
raphy she undertook in the Lone Star State of Texas. In her thorough
analysis, she illuminates the complex interplay between dominant narra-
tives of harsh punishment and diverse, more subtle counter-stories, such
as those critical of the death penalty, which raise awareness of the conse-
quences of Texan toughness for the social environment.
Comics can affect public attitudes about crime and justice. Using
Batman as an example, Daniel Stein examines the intersection of mas-
ter narratives and counter-narratives in superhero comics and its con-
troversial reception (in (online) reviews, articles and blogs). Generally,
Batman’s devotion to justice goes beyond his devotion to law in the
name of serving the people and is embodying a socially responsible
vigilantism. Taking the example of Batman #44 “A Simple Case” and
its story about police brutality, it shows narrative ambiguity by being
15
a counter-narrative to the master narrative of Batman as a vigilante

warrior. The author shows how in the controversial reception of the
counter-narrative the authorising of mass murder takes place; it includes
the risk of a racist vigilantism and the threatening of social order instead
of protecting it.
John Carter Wood takes a historical perspective in his contribution by
focusing on (counter-)narratives in newspapers in inter-war Britain. As
the leading medium for the creation of crime narratives at that time,
newspapers had an immense influence on what was negotiated as crime
and how it was dealt with: here too, the question of the legitimacy of
the (state) responses to crime is central. Using two newspapers of the
late 1920s as examples, Wood traces voices that narratively legitimise
the death penalty, but also those that appeal to the empathy of the
reader by offering accounts of the psychological and social backgrounds
of the crimes in question. The resulting sympathy for the condemned
raises political debates, as does the scandalisation of harsh police inter-
rogation, which is also being discussed. Thus, on the one hand, the
transformative potential of (counter-)narratives is indicated, and on
the other hand, it becomes clear that the topic is quite complex, since
numerous ambivalences arise and the line between “hegemonic” and
“subversive” is continually shifting.
Martha Komter reconstructs through conversation analysis how
the police produce reports of interrogations. The reports do not sim-
ply reflect what the suspects said. Depending on the situational con-
ditions of the interrogations, police officers make protocols that they
co-constitute and that generate a particular form of reality. The pro-
tocols incorporate statements of the respondents in different forms,
depending on the preferred protocol styles and the number of interro-
gators involved. The protocols are prepared with a view to their usabil-
ity in law enforcement processes, so that they are part of the process
in which master narratives are actively and gradually developed. The
statements of the respondents, on the other hand, are counter-narratives
in that they depend on their individual preconditions and are linked to
different goals, which does not necessarily mean that they are resistant
to the master narratives.
16
M. Althoff et al.
Mechthild Bereswill, Henrike Buhr and Patrik Müller-Behme explore

personal-related files from residential care institutions in West Germany
from the 1950s to 1970s. Case files are understood as powerful arte-
facts which motivate particular actions within the institutions that work
with or create those files. Drawing on own research and on the basis of
a selected individual case file the extent to which individual case files can
be analysed as narratives is examined here. The study shows that case files
contain a prototypical master narrative to establish a “deviant subject”:
even though case files include bureaucratically regulated actions and inter-
actions, they leave room to negotiate social order and social control with-
out affecting the institutional power. The conclusion is that case files can
be understood as rather fragmented master narratives which are able to
include counter-narratives coming from outside the bureaucratic process.
Lieve Gies demonstrates in her contribution that counter-narratives
can be powerful even when they are directed against widely accepted
moral standards, in this case the recognition of human rights stand-
ards. She attributes the status of a master narrative to human rights
and analyses how this narrative is criticised, using press reports in Great
Britain as an example. While counter-narratives are often attributed a
progressive quality, this analysis reveals a different tendency. The nar-
ratives directed against conventions on human rights are combined
with criticism of social policy and positions that are critical of minori-
ties, which can hardly be considered progressive. As pointed out in this
introduction and by other authors in this book, she notes that master-
and counter-narratives are often not clearly distinguishable, that they
refer to each other and are anchored in contexts that must be taken into
account in any analysis. In this way, conventions on human rights can
also be given the status of counter-narratives, although they are delegiti-
mised in the press reports as mainstream worthy of criticism.
In her chapter Maria de Angelis turns to the topic of crimmigration—
the conflation of migration control with criminal justice control. With
reference to current discourses and on the basis of her own research, she
elaborates which public narratives are predominant in current UK poli-
tics and how they manifest empirically on an individual level by persons
without fully provable rights to enter and remain in the UK. These sto-
ries “from below” highlight the complex interplay between migration,
17
crime and gender and illustrate how our ways of seeing the “right” or
the “wrong” sort of migrant are steered by narratives.
Finally, Martina Althoff explores society’s storytelling concerning
New Years’ Eve 2015 in Cologne (Germany) which has attracted a great
deal of national and international attention. The case, a typical exam-
ple of crimmigration—understood as the intersection of migration and
crime—shows how the policymaking process is steeped in narratives
and how those narratives create certain realities about migration. Two
master narratives can be differed here: the securitisation narrative by
constructing the migrant as the other; in this narrative, migration comes
along with constructions of crime, insecurity and danger. The sexualis-
ation narrative is constructing sexual violence and sexism as problems of
the other and coming from outside the society. The interweaving of the
two master narratives attributes sexual violence exclusively to refugees,
reinforcing the idea of migration as a security problem and excluding
counter-narratives of everyday sexual violence in Western society.
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Section I
Foundation
2
Counter-Narratives of Crime
and Punishment
Michael Bamberg and Zachary Wipff
Counter-narratives have come to occupy the center of many discussions

regarding analytic work with narratives as related to power and social
change. In this chapter, we continue this debate by first clarifying theoret-
ical ambiguity surrounding these constructs, and proceed by exemplifying
how the narrative practice approach may be utilized for empirical work
with master and counter-narratives, then delineating insights which emerge
through such analysis pertinent to (narrative) criminology.
Before divulging into a theoretical discussion of master and
counter-narratives, we must first provide the theoretical background of
our orientation, beginning with Searle’s concept of ‘the background.’
Terms like master narratives and dominant discourses imply the neces-
sity of a background or horizon against which human sense-making
becomes possible, rendering narratives comprehensible. While some
M. Bamberg (*) · Z. Wipff

Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA
e-mail: mbamberg@clarku.edu
Z. Wipff
e-mail: ZWipff@clarku.edu
© The Author(s) 2020 23
M. Althoff et al. (eds.), Conflicting Narratives of Crime and Punishment,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47236-8_2
24
M. Bamberg and Z. Wipff
refer to ‘the background’ in reference to a culturally instantiated col-

lective consciousness (Durkheim 1915) or social mind (Chriss 2006),
Searle (2010) utilized the term background in reference to a horizon
that is ‘deeper’ and more universally shared by human beings. Rather
than referring to a system of socioculturally instantiated practices, Searle
defines background as a set of abilities, capacities, tendencies, and dis-
positions which are deeply ingrained and continue to ‘go without say-
ing,’ such as the human ability to walk upright, or making sense of
ourselves as possessing an anterior and posterior in the form of a physi-
cal body (Searle 1994).
Searle contrasts this deep background with a collective cultural hori-
zon providing social routines and practices. It is this social background
which we credit as constituting ‘agency constellations,’ supplying her-
meneutic types for individual and institutional sense-making strategies
(Bamberg 2005, pp. 9–10). These constellations allude to story lines or
narrative threads with an essential temporal contour, and additionally
suggest prototypical character ‘types.’ For example, one such prototype
may be defined as ‘the criminal’—a narrative which we will interrogate
in a later section.
We have posited that in addition to Searle’s respective deep and
cultural backgrounds exists an immediate horizon, or local back-

ground—a set of background assumptions which come to existence
in the speaker’s embodied engagement in situated contexts through
which meaning microgenetically emerges. The assumptions provided
by (i) the deep background, to the assumptions of one’s (ii) cultural,
and (iii) a situated, immediate background, form a continuum of prac-
tices which may be more deeply or shallowly ingrained. For example,
as we contemplated in a recent publication, ‘critical considerations
of language habits that reflect gender or racial biases may lead to a
change in language practices with more ease than assumptions that are
much harder to reflect and reconsider—such as how our understand-
ing of spatial dimensions is based off of our human up-right posture
and forward-movement and visual field, or how our understanding
of temporal dimensions is based on our understanding of spatial rela-
tions’ (Bamberg and Wipff 2020, p. 65). Therefore, any engagement in
the embodied act of storytelling necessitates narrators to continuously
2 Counter-Narratives of Crime and Punishment
25
navigate between maintaining faith and supporting extant background

assumptions on the one hand, and testing, rescripting, and conflicting
with—potentially even countering—said background assumptions on
the other. Therefore, being complicit and countering master narratives
are two sides of the same coin, and are always at play simultaneously
in narrative practices, across varying contexts. As we shall demonstrate,
empirical work through this analytic lens has the potential to explicate
how master and counter-narratives support, conflict with, and interact
in local storytelling environments.
With these concepts established, we can illuminate more clearly the
relationship between master and counter-narratives. The term ‘master
narrative’ has been extensively discussed across many fields of inquiry.
Typically, master narratives are understood in two differing ways: (i)
providing a horizon of background assumptions against which human
sense-making is enabled (as discussed above); or (ii) as normative, sub-
jugating, and oppressive. While one can interpret dominant discourses
as enabling meaning production, they do, in another sense, restrict
through ruling out and silencing other divergent narratives. From this
perspective, the term ‘counter-narrative’ acquires a unique and more
potent force, countering oppressive hegemonic norms imposed through
a discourse.
Therefore, counter-narratives may be understood in two corre-
sponding manners: (i) as a bid to interrogate the assumptions which
enable our sense-making, or (ii) as an attempt to delegitimize, erode,
or even change discourses which are perceived as oppressive. In either
case, counter-narratives are distinguished by an intention, ‘to trans-
form background assumptions which typically support a master
narrative’ (Bamberg and Wipff 2020, p. 66). However, which nar-
ratives ‘master’ and which ‘counter’ remains situationally dependent
on the organization of social, cultural, and political power within the
local interactive context. Therefore, we must be cautious when uni-
versally labeling any narrative as occupying either of these positions.
Fortunately, counter-narratives are distinguished by a number of attrib-
utes which aid in their identification.
Counter-narratives commonly make intertextual references invoking
another narrative. They are fundamentally reactionary, a vis-à-vis which
26
follows similar lines of facts, but at some point diverging from them,
often in a manner unexpected or counterintuitive. To illustrate briefly,
in the transcript that we shall analyze below in more detail, the defense
lawyer characterizes Henry Sutter as ‘a law-abiding citizen’ (line 8). This
is slightly rescripted, but in alignment, by the district attorney, who
refers to the same person as ‘a good man, who tried to spare his wife’s
pain’ (lines 34–35). However, a few seconds later, he counters these (his
own) constructions of Mr. Sutter: ‘but he committed a murder’ (line
40). Thus, the district attorney undermines any potential assumptions
in support of a narrative of empathy, concern (see also Wood, this vol-
ume), and ‘an ethics of care’ (Gilligan 1982, 1987). Before returning to
these narratives below, we will briefly discuss associated forms of narra-
tives, like ‘conflicting’ and ‘alternative.’
As defined earlier in this chapter, counter-narratives are primarily
distinguished through their illocutionary force undermining assump-
tions of another narrative, as well as typically following, but slightly
diverging from, thematically similar narratives. However, storytellers
often stray from narratives with no (conscious) intention to interrogate
such assumptions. When this illocutionary force is absent, these nar-
ratives diverge, but do not threaten, and are perhaps most accurately
considered alternative narratives. These narratives conflict with other
narratives by offering different accounts of the same period of time, sit-
uation, institution, or individual. For example, as we argued elsewhere
(Bamberg and Wipff 2020), marital practices of ‘falling-in-love’ and
‘arranged marriages’ offer alternative, conflicting accounts of the marital
ritual, but are typically not mobilized as illocutionary bids to delegiti-
mize the other.
The fact that master and counter-narratives are distinguished through
an illocutionary force inextricably linked to context creates the unique
problem for how to approach them empirically, necessitating analytic
methodologies which privilege contextual embeddedness as a cen-
tral feature—in contrast to traditional methodological approaches
which focus on the content of narratives as textual products. The nar-
rative practice approach (Bamberg 2020) diverges from these tra-
ditional methods by recognizing narrators’ situated embodiment as
27
indispensable to a thoroughly critical analysis. Rather than assuming

narratives grant transparent access to a narrator’s ‘interiority’, the narra-
tive practice approach asks the question ‘why this story here-and-now?’,
conceptualizing narratives as brought off in collaborative contexts.
Following from this, this approach recognizes that narratives are not
static and uniform, but rather often rife with contradictions, emerging
in and through contexts as a dynamic interactive process, and varying
from one situation to another. This necessitates a shift from stories as
textual products as the unit of analysis to the particular context of the
storytelling act. Therefore, the narrative practice approach investigates
how speakers interactively position each other and themselves within
their local environment, particularly in terms of three related position-
ing strategies.
Firstly, we examine how storytellers position a sense of who they
are in relation to their audience. Through habitual narrative practices,
storytellers mark themselves off as same or different from others. This
gradual navigation process takes places microgenetically through both
significant and seemingly menial interactions, and tellers practice this
navigation from early on through stories about both self and others. An
additional dimension of identity navigation may be termed ‘agency’,
referring to individuals’ potency (or lack thereof ), morality, and capac-
ities for action. While some approaches ontologise agency as a capacity
individuals have, we propose that agency is better theorized as a space in
which speakers navigate two directions of fit: one from world-to-person,
the other from person-to-world. This dimension of identity navigation
may bear particular relevance to presentations of selves or institutions
as responsible, as typically in claims to achievements and success, versus
claiming inculpability in accidents, loss, or misconduct. Thirdly, within
these processes of navigating one’s difference vis-à-vis others and one’s
agency, narrators can either privilege their constancy, claiming that they
are the same as in the past, or present themselves as having undergone
gradual or rapid change.
These navigation processes ‘materialise,’ so to speak, in how nar-
rators create their characters in a storyworld and place them in a tem-
poral contour of change (or non-change). Moreover, through the
28
manipulation of story-characters in the storyworld, and by positioning

themselves as storytellers vis-à-vis others in a communicative context,
speakers bring off a sense of who they are vis-à-vis dominant master
narratives. It is this intricate analytic approach that we will illustrate in
the following before returning to disentangle what counts as counter, as
alternative, and as master narratives.
Master or Counter?—Two Conflicting

Constructions of the Same Event
In the following, we will take the reader through the closing arguments
(also called ‘closing statements’) in a murder trial (Bochco 1990) in
which an elder male (Henry Sutter—henceforth HS) is implicated of
having caused his wife’s (Moira Sutter—henceforth MS) death. The
fact that he had caused his wife’s death is not contested. However, the
defense lawyer (DL) and district attorney (DA) construct two different
characters in their narratives1 that led up to the death. And it is these
two constructions that are of interest for our attempt to disentangle
and illustrate what counts as counter, alternative, and master (or sim-
ply conflicting) narratives, following up on the way we started differ-
entiating between them in the previous section. In our work with both
transcripts, we will follow the type of narrative analysis laid out in
more detail in Bamberg (2020). First, we segment the two turns into
their thematic sequence, then we identify and begin to analyze (for-
mal) story elements, and finally enter a fuller analysis of the positions
taken up by DL and DA, who both try to make their stories compel-
ling and convincing—and in the course of this taking positions vis-à-
vis dominant (master) narratives. We need to keep in mind here that at
the center of the analysis are the stories of two institutionally positioned
key-players—one engaging in defending the accused, the other in pros-
ecuting him, on behest of the institutions that gave them the power to
1The reasons for why we refer to these statements or arguments as narratives are laid out in more
detail in Bamberg and Wipff (2020), and touched upon in our opening paragraphs.
29
represent them. Although they speak on behalf of someone else, i.e.,

they concoct third-person narratives, it is them who have to come across
in their statements as authentic and credible,2 because in and through
their actions they bring off their own institutional identities as well as
legitimize the power of the institutions they represent.
Defense Lawyer
Thematic Segments
Lines 1–7: DL used to act in the institutional role of DA, prosecuting

‘mercy-killers.’ Back then she argued the way the jury will hear in the
DA’s closing argument. As such, she can be heard as inoculating the
presentation of the case he is going to make next. Simultaneously, she
orients her audience that her case here and now is different. This brief
aside seemingly has nothing to do with ‘the case’ itself. However, it
provides a line of reasoning for her continuity-discontinuity position-
ing strategy in terms of her change in what her line of reasoning used
to be.
Lines 8–25: HS’s wife’s death is presented as a result from witnessing
his wife’s mental deterioration over a prolonged time period, leading
up to and culminating in his action, causing the death of his wife—
related here as ending her pain, and preserving her dignity.
Lines 8–15b: HS is characterized as ‘a law-abiding citizen ’—and as such
he would qualify as predictable and trustworthy, but he acted ‘crazy ’
(‘not-in-his-right-mind’—and as such ‘out-of-character’).
Lines 16–25: HS’s communal/societal responsibilities were momentarily
(in a moment of recognizing his wife’s full deterioration) displaced,
resulting in actions that fall into the category of care taking activities
ending pain and preserving dignity.
2Third-person stories, i.e., stories that thematize the actions of others, typically are precluded
from narrative research, because they arguably don’t give insight into first-person experiences.
However, as we have argued repeatedly, third-person narratives are as worthy of positioning and
identity analysis as are first-person stories. Courtroom narratives are a good example.
30
Lines 26–31: In her ‘closing argument’ DL appeals to jury to choose

between feeling that the category ‘criminal ’ applies versus knowing
otherwise, and she pleas for otherwise.
Story
As is typical in these kinds of closing arguments, there only are story frag-
ments. First, in lines 8 and 10, the protagonist (Henry Sutter) is placed
in a temporal setting (that morning). Second, the actual story consists of
only two intentional actions: (i) lines 22/3: he acted (to end pain), and
(ii) lines 24/5: he acted (to preserve her dignity)—where both descriptions
refer to the same event, i.e., the action that caused the death of his wife.
There is mention of another character in this ‘small story’ (Moira Sutter),
who is positioned as having been attacked by something else: a disease
that has been ‘eating away’ her brain. Both HS and MS are positioned as
a loving couple, and HS as ‘carer.’ It should be noted that the actual story
line is mini-minimal and could be summarized as: That morning HS acted
to cause MS’s death, consisting of a setting and one action clause. However,
the reason this story is told is to paint a picture of motives and persuasion
that goes way beyond the depiction of what happened.
Positioning
Both characters in the story have first names and share their last (family)
name, i.e., they are categorized as married and positioned as loving each
other. HS is devoted to his wife, self-sacrificing and suffering having to
witness her decay. The DL is constructing these two characters in order to
position herself as empathetic to both characters. She is trying to accom-
plish this by unfolding a character development that culminated in HS’s
act, thereby bringing off a story line that is consequential and persuasive,
resulting in an act characterized as liberating and rescuing a cherished
person—his wife. In addition to her use of verbal means, the DL also tries
to accomplish this in the way she performs her account—her use of rhe-
torical devices, her tone of voice, and her facial expression and gaze. Her
bodily performance, in line with being highly careful in her selection of acts
31
from the possible range of events she could have chosen and depicted in her
narrative, marks her (the DL’s) overall position as extremely empathetic—
arguably resulting in that she ‘knows’ that HS is not a criminal.
Consequently, the illocutionary force of this third-person story for her audi-
ence is to align with her affective stance, i.e., to be empathetic with her (the
DL) as a proxy for HS, the protagonist of the story. In terms of a master
narrative, the DL calls for what has been termed ‘an ethics of care’ (Gilligan
1982, 1987) that she is representing in her story about HS (Table 2.1).
Table 2.1 Transcripts of the CLOSING ARGUMENTS (LA-LAW) (husband caused

his wife to die)
Defense lawyer: District attorney:
(1) not that long ago, as a DA, I (32) pheew < breath outlet>
was prosecuting mercy-killers
(2) and I still remember (.) the (33) I didn’t want to prosecute this one
dialogue
(3) we cannot let people take the (34) he’s a good man
law into their own hands
(4) we cannot individuals let ignore (35) who tried to spare his wife’s pain
the law
(5) we’ll become a state of anarchy (36) and he did
(6) the law must be upheld (37) what he did
(7) no exceptions (2s) (38) because he loved her
(8) now Henry Sutter IS a law-abid- (39) just like Ms van Owen said
ing citizen
(9) he is not insane (40) but he committed a murder
(10) but that morning (.) he wasn’t (41) he knowingly reflectively put a gun
in his right mind either to her temple
(11) for seven years Alzheimer’s (42) and blew her head off
disease had been eating away
at Moira Sutter’s brain
(12) it had gotten to the point (43) now they‘ve offered up a defense of
diminished actuality
(13) where she didn’t even know (44) but all the psychiatric evidence as
who she was well as his own testimony make
clear
(14) and she would only suffer more (45) that his mental faculties were in
complete working order
(15a) and that fact made the person (46) however much you may FEEL for
him
(15b) it made him crazy (47) we have a job to do here
(16) who loved her more than (48) a person cannot act unilaterally
anybody
(continued)
32
Table 2.1 (continued)

Defense lawyer: District attorney:
(17) h e wasn’t thinking about soci- (49) to end another person’s life
etal policy
(18) h e wasn’t thinking about legis- (50) and THAT’s (.) what Mr. Sutter did
lative intent or criminal status
(19) he was looking at his wife (51) she didn’t asked to die
(20) t he person he had spent his (52) she didn’t ask to be killed
entire adult life with
(21) the person he cherished (53) there is no evidence whatsoever
(22) he saw her pain (54) that she wanted to stop living
(23) and he acted to end it (55) HE (.) made that decision (.) all by
himself
(24) he saw her dignity (56) HE decided
(25) and he acted to preserve it (57) that another person was unworthy
of life
(26) n
ow if you feel that Henry (58) so he killed her
Sutter is a criminal
(27) who should be punished (59) now we have two choices
(28) then find him guilty (60) either we permit that
(29) but if you know otherwise (61) or we don’t
(30) then please find otherwise (62) and our society has chosen not to
permit that
(31) thank you (63) our laws say
(64) that people cannot go around
(65) deciding
(66) who shall live
(67) and who shall die
(68) and that means
(69) that this man committed a crime
(70) and no matter how much compas-
sion we ALL may FEEL for him
(71) you cannot ignore that simple fact
The full episode of LA Law (Bochco 1990, The Last Gasp ) is available for p
ublic
viewing at https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6l9xcw; the smaller take out
referred to here is available at https://wordpress.clarku.edu/mbamberg/recent-
publications - including a full transcript
District Attorney
Thematic Segments
Lines 32–42: The DA opens in the same way as the DL, i.e.,
with a personal aside about himself, positioning himself as
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
cry ‘Oh!’ and saw her fall back on the cushions of the ottoman, I was
so thunderstruck that for the first moment I couldn’t have uttered one
word if you had paid me for it. I was going to throw some water over
her when that man Rahas said: ‘She is not fainting; I have cast her
down into a land of dreams.’ And I said: ‘Then, Mr. Rahas, you will
please to cast her up again.’ And when he looked at me, and saw
the expression of my face,” finished Mrs. Ellis triumphantly, “why he
did so.”
“And what did you dream?” Lauriston asked the girl.
“When the eyes of Rahas grew larger and larger they seemed to
fade away and to leave a great light. And standing up against the
light was my mother, with her own sweet smile upon her face and
her grand bearing. (My mother is like an empress in her walk, in her
movements, Mr. Lauriston.) And she put out her hand towards me
and I thought she said ‘Stay.’ And then, before I could speak to her
she faded away, and I felt a weight at my heart, and tried to sigh, and
could not. And then a blank came, and next I heard the voice of
Mammy Ellis, and I opened my eyes and saw her and Rahas.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Lauriston, who was by no means ready to
acknowledge that another man had an influence, mesmeric or
otherwise, over the girl he loved, “perhaps you really did see a figure
that you took for that of your mother.”
Nouna laughed scornfully at the notion. “As if I could mistake her! I
heard her voice, I saw her smile. It was my mother.”
Lauriston turned to Mrs. Ellis. “Was there no possibility of any one
entering the room and leaving it quickly without your seeing her?”
“Oh no,” said she at once. “Besides, Nouna fell with her head
buried among the cushions, and her eyes were closed the whole
time.”
“Nouna,” said Lauriston abruptly, after a pause, “you must not
speak to that man again. The whole proceeding was a most
disgraceful piece of trickery, such as no girl ought to be subjected to.
Mrs. Ellis, I am writing to-night to the Countess di Valdestillas, to ask
her to permit my engagement with her daughter. Now that you know
the interest I take in her, you will forgive my urging you to be careful
that she obeys my earnest wish in this. I shall not wait for a letter to
inform her that her daughter is not in a safe home: I shall go to-
morrow to the Countess’s solicitors, learn her address, and
telegraph. And now I will say good-night, and I hope, Mrs. Ellis, you
will forgive me this second nocturnal visit.”
He shook hands with both ladies, and disregarding Nouna’s
undisguised anxiety to accompany him to the door, asked the elder
lady if he could speak with her a few moments alone. With as much
jealous indignation as if Mrs. Ellis had been eighteen and beautiful,
Nouna flung herself into her American chair in a passion of tears as
they left the room.
Lauriston opened his subject in a very low voice as soon as he
and the governess were outside the door.
“You will need no assurance from me, madam,” he began, “of the
perfect loyalty of my motives, now you know that I intend to marry
Nouna. But you will not be surprised at my anxiety to know
something more about the family to which she belongs. As a matter
of fact I have not even heard her surname. Have you any objection
to tell me what you know?”
“Not the least,” answered Mrs. Ellis, with perfect openness. “Her
name is Nouna Weston. Her father I never knew, as he died when
she was a little child. Her mother, now the Condesa di Valdestillas, is
my ideal of a perfect gentlewoman. She is religious, perhaps a little
bigoted even, very beautiful, and she has that distinction of manner
which is more uncommon than beauty, to my idea. She is very
generous and impulsive, and dotes upon her daughter. The Count, to
whom she is devoted, I have only seen once; he accompanied his
wife on a visit to the school. He is a small, thin, rather sallow
gentleman, with very courteous manners, who gives one the idea of
being rather selfish and domineering. The Countess dresses very
quietly, almost perhaps what some people would call dowdily, as you
know our Englishwomen of high rank so often do. But she must be
well off, I think, for I know the principal of the school used to say she
wished the parents of her other pupils were all as punctual in their
payments as the Countess; and I must say, though she doesn’t allow
much pocket-money to Nouna, yet her treatment of me is most
generous. It is really good-natured of me to wish the child happily
married, for the income of an officer’s widow who has no friends at
court is by no means magnificent, as I dare say you know.”
Nothing could be more satisfactory than this, as far as it went, and
the authority was unimpeachable; Mrs. Ellis being one of those
simple, honest, unimaginative creatures who can neither invent a
story nor tell an improbable one so as to make it appear probable.
But of course the narrative offered no explanation of the puzzling
events of the evening.
“And you believe the Countess to be still abroad?” he asked.
“Oh yes, if she were in England she would have been to see her
daughter. She only pays flying visits to this country for that purpose.”
“Oh yes.” He could not get out of his head the idea that the woman
of whom he had caught a glimpse at the window, whose dress
Nouna had seen in the inner room down stairs, and who had
certainly listened to their conversation on the landing, was Nouna’s
mother. But what on earth, if Mrs. Ellis’s account were true, should
she be doing paying secret visits to the house where her daughter
was staying, and conspiring with a man of real or pretended
mesmeric powers to play tricks on her?
It was very puzzling, but no suggestion Mrs. Ellis could offer was
likely to throw light on the subject. He however asked her one or two
more questions.
“Are there any ladies in this house besides yourselves? Or have
you noticed any lady-visitors to the other inmates?”
“There is an old Frenchwoman who gives music lessons who has
a room on the top-floor; but I have never seen any other ladies go in
or out,” said Mrs. Ellis, rather surprised by the questions.
“And the gentlemen down stairs, Rahas and Fanah, are not
married?”
“I have never heard that they were, and I’m sure I hope Mr. Rahas
would never have the conscience to make up to Nouna if he had
another wife in his own country. I have always set my face against
that, and have kept Madame di Valdestillas informed of his
pretensions. For I’ve heard of these Mahometan gentlemen, that
when they take a fancy to a European wife, they send all their other
wives away, and have them back again within a month. So that I
really feel quite thankful to you for appearing and sending all
thoughts of Rahas out of the girl’s flighty head.”
“She never appeared to care for this black fellow, did she?” asked
Lauriston jealously.
“Well, no, not in that way. Though she’s a born coquette, Mr.
Lauriston, I must warn you, and the man who marries her need have
Job’s virtues as well as his own.”
“But she has a good heart,” urged Lauriston, who felt that there
was a measure of truth in the lady’s warning.
“Oh yes, her heart’s good enough. The only thing is that it must be
for ever shifting its place. However, she may grow more like her
mother in time.”
“Good-night, Mrs. Ellis, it is very good of you to be so patient with
me and my questions,” said Lauriston, feeling that he was in no
present need of further discouragement.
And he left her and ran down stairs. At the front door he was met
by Rahas, who came with bland, unprepossessing smiles and
courteous gestures, from his own apartments, to bid his guest good-
night. Lauriston, who could scarcely treat him civilly since Nouna’s
story of the trick he had played on her, was suddenly struck with an
idea. He turned to the young merchant in a more conciliatory
manner.
“By the by,” he said, “in your interesting account of your strange
powers, which you attribute to the planets and I vaguely call
mesmeric, you did not tell me one thing: can you call up in the mind
of a person over whom you have that influence the image of
anything with which that person is acquainted, or can you only raise
the images which are familiar to yourself? In other words: is the
picture you wish to present so strongly present to your own mind that
by the mere force of will you can transfer it to the mind of another? or
can you make the other mind work independently of yours?”
“I cannot do that,” said Rahas, shaking his head. “I think I can
explain my effect by saying that by the exercise of my will I deaden
the forces of the mind I am at work upon, and leave it like the wet
cloth before a magic lantern ready to receive any picture I may
choose to throw upon it.”
“That is very interesting. I understand perfectly,” said Lauriston
heartily.
And after an exchange of lip-courtesies concerning their
enjoyment of each other’s society, Lauriston took his leave and
started on his way back to Hounslow.
One thing was quite clear to him now. Rahas, on his own showing,
had seen Nouna’s mother at some time or other, or he would not
have been able to call up her image in her daughter’s mind. Was
there some mysterious understanding between her and Rahas, who
had, however, come in Nouna’s path by the merest accident?
George Lauriston’s romantic love had certainly all the stimulus of
mystery, and this stimulus was rendered considerably stronger by a
discovery he made, walking quickly through Hyde Park, on his way
to Victoria Station. He had been followed by a woman.
Just before he reached the gates at Hyde Park Corner he glanced
back along the path and noticed a figure he had seen once or twice
on his way. He made one quick step back towards her; but the
woman, who was not very near, disappeared at once among the
trees.
“I think I’ve had about adventures enough for one evening,” said
he to himself as he went through the gates instead of pursuing her. “I
can find out what I must know through the lawyer to-morrow.”
But when he left the train at Hounslow Barracks, he was almost
sure that, among the alighting crowd of passengers, he saw the
woman again.
CHAPTER VIII.
Next day, in the cruel but wholesome light of the morning,
Lauriston took a grand review of all the circumstances of his short
acquaintance with Nouna, and felt a growing conviction that he had
made an astonishingly complete fool of himself. He had been foolish
to visit the girl a second time, when he knew the effect her
picturesque beauty and wayward charm had had on a first interview.
He had been worse than foolish, he had been selfish, wicked, to
make that wild confession, that abrupt offer of marriage to good little
Ella, when he felt himself too weak to struggle unaided with the
passion that possessed him. He had crowned his folly last night,
when he pledged himself to marriage with a little wild girl, of
somewhat mysterious parentage, passionate, capricious, in all
probability madly extravagant, whom he hardly knew, whom he
scarcely trusted, and who was certainly as deficient in every quality
which goes to the making of the typical wife for an English
gentleman as it is possible for a girl to be. And yet, in spite of all this,
Lauriston felt no faintest pang of regret; amazement, disgust with
himself undoubtedly, but of repentance no trace.
For the tide of a first passionate love in a young, vigorous nature is
strong enough to tear up scruples by the roots, to bear along
prejudices in its waters like straws, to wash away the old landmarks
in an onrush which is all fierce triumph and tempestuous joy.
To Lauriston, who had been accustomed, from a lofty standpoint of
ambition and devotion to duty, to look down upon love as a gentle
pastime which would amuse and occupy him when the first pangs of
his hungry desire for distinction should be satisfied, the sudden
revelation of some of its keen delights was an experience full of
novel excitement and charm. True at least to one principle while so
much was suffered to go by the board, he did not for one moment
waver in his resolution to marry Nouna. No staid English girl, whose
mild passions would not develop until years after she had attained a
full measure of self-control and self-restraint, would ever have for
him the charm and the fascination of this little barbarian. Who
pleased him best, and no other he would possess.
Having resolved therefore with open eyes upon doing a rash and
hazardous thing, he gave a touch of heroism to his folly by setting
about it as promptly and thoroughly as if it had been a wise one. As
soon as parade was over he started for Lincoln’s Inn, determined to
find out what he could from the lawyers concerning Nouna’s
relations, and to write at once to her mother for the consent which he
guessed would be readily accorded.
Messrs. Smith and Angelo, solicitors, had old-fashioned offices on
a first floor, and there was a reassuring air of steady-going
respectability about their whole surroundings, from the grim bare
orderliness of their outer office to the cut of the coat of the middle-
aged head clerk who courteously asked Lauriston which of the
partners he wished to see. On learning that the visitor had no choice,
the head clerk’s opinion of him seemed to go down a little, and he
said, with the air of a man who is not going to cast his pearls before
swine—
“Then perhaps you had better see Mr. Smith.”
The visitor’s name having been taken in to Mr. Smith, Lauriston
heard it repeated in a happy, caressing voice, as if the
announcement had been that of an old friend; and the next moment
he was bowed into the presence of a tall, genial, jolly-looking man of
about five-and-thirty, with black eyes, curly black hair, and a beautiful
smile, who rose, came forward a step, shook his hand, and pressed
him to take a chair with a warmth and good-humour which seemed
to cast quite a radiance over the tiers of deed-boxes that lined the
walls, with their victims’ names inscribed on them in neat white
letters.
“Well, I suppose it is nothing very serious that you want us to do
for you,” said the lawyer, glancing from the card to his visitor’s
handsome face, and mentally deciding that there was a woman in it.
“It is very serious,” said Lauriston. “It is about a lady.”
The lawyer’s smile became broader than ever, and his attitude a
shade more confidential.
“Her name,” continued Lauriston, “is Nouna Weston.”
Mr. Smith’s manner instantly changed; he drew himself up in his
chair, and touched a hand-bell.
“I think, Mr. Lauriston,” he said, with the smile very much reduced,
“that you had better see Mr. Angelo.” He told the boy who entered at
this point to request Mr. Angelo to spare him a few minutes, and
turned again to his visitor. “You see,” he said, “Miss Weston’s
mother, the Countess di Valdestillas, is one of our oldest clients, so
that to any business connected with her we like to give the entire
collective wisdom of the firm.”
At that moment a side-door, the upper part of which was of ground
glass, opened, and an old gentleman, of rather impressive
appearance and manner, came slowly in. He was of the middle
height, slight and spare, with a face and head strikingly like those of
the great Duke of Wellington, a resemblance which his old-fashioned
built-up collar and stock proved to be carefully cultivated. He carried
a gold-rimmed double eyeglass, which he constantly rubbed, during
which process his grey short-sighted eyes would travel steadily
round, seeing nothing but the subject which occupied his mind,
helping to put the barrier of a stately reticence between him and his
client. He bowed to Lauriston, with the air of a man who was entitled
to be offended by this intrusion, but who would graciously consent to
listen to a reasonable excuse; and Mr. Smith, with great deference,
placed a chair for the great man, waited till he was seated, and
explained the object of the young officer’s visit.
“This gentleman, Mr. Angelo, has come to speak to us on some
matter concerning Miss Nouna Weston.”
The old lawyer stopped for a moment in the action of rubbing his
glasses, and then bowed his head slowly. The younger partner
glanced at Lauriston as a sign for him to speak.
“I am here, sir, to-day,” began the young officer, feeling his
confidence rise in this atmosphere of steady, reassuring, middle-
class respectability, “as a suitor for the hand of Miss Nouna Weston.
I have been referred by her guardian, Mrs. Ellis, to you, as I am told
that it is only through you that I can communicate with her mother. I
am anxious to make my wishes known to that lady with as little delay
as possible.”
Mr. Angelo put on his glasses and gave the young fellow a
straight, piercing look. Mr. Smith, who seemed to be swallowed up,
smile and all, in the more imposing presence of his partner,
examined the features, not of his visitor, but of Mr. Angelo.
“You have not known the young lady long, I understand?” said the
elder lawyer, in a mellow though somewhat feeble voice. “When Mrs.
Ellis was last here she made no mention of you as, we being partly
guardians to the young lady, she would certainly have done had you
already appeared in the capacity of suitor.”
“I have not known her three weeks,” said the young man, blushing;
“but if you know how she’s living, in a lodging-house full of other
people, where anybody can meet her on the stairs, you can’t wonder
I want to have a claim over her, so that I can get her into a better
home.”
“Then I understand—you see, Mr. Lauriston, I speak as a person
of some authority in this matter—you have a home for her to which
you wish to take her as quickly as possible.”
“I am sorry to say I have not, sir. I am only a lieutenant now in the
—th Hussars.”
Mr. Angelo gave him a sudden, keen look. “Lord Florencecourt’s
regiment!” he said, as if struck by the circumstance.
Lauriston scarcely noticed the interruption. “Yes,” continued he,
“with scarcely anything but my pay. But I hope to get my step next
year, or the year after at latest, when I could marry at once.”
“Pray do not think me impertinent; this is to me a matter of
business, and must be discussed plainly. Miss Weston has some
extravagant notions, and may have given you the idea that her
mother would continue to be indulgent should she marry. It is right to
inform you that this is not the case. The Countess’s income has
suffered during the recent depression in rents, and—”
“I should never marry unless I could keep my wife,” interrupted
Lauriston abruptly. “I have been offered work on two military papers
whenever I care to take it up, so that I shall not only be able to save,
but to pay for Nouna’s maintenance and education in some good
school on the understanding that she is to marry me on leaving it.
Anything that you or the Countess can wish to know about my family
—”
The old lawyer raised his hand slowly. “—is easily known. You are
a relation, I suppose, of the late Captain Lauriston of the — Dragoon
Guards?”
“I am his son.”
“Ah! Your great-uncle, Sir Gordon Lauriston, was a client of my
father’s. You wish, I understand, to communicate with Madame di
Valdestillas? Any letter that you leave in our care will be forwarded at
once to her.”
These words re-awoke Lauriston’s remembrance of the
mysterious lady who had followed him to his quarters the night
before.
“As Madame di Valdestillas is now in England,” he said quietly,
“why should I not have her address?”
The old lawyer remained as unmoved as a mummy by this
dashing stroke, but a sudden movement on the part of the less
sophisticated Mr. Smith did not escape the young man’s notice.
“If she is in England—which is very possible, as her movements
are as uncertain as the winds—she has only just arrived, as we have
not yet seen her. But if you will write to her under cover to me, I can
promise you the letter will soon be delivered to her, as her first visit
on coming to England is always to us.”
“But she was at her daughter’s house last night!”
“Indeed! Then why did you not speak to her yourself?”
Lauriston was disconcerted. The manner and voice of the old
lawyer expressed such bland surprise, that he began to think he had
discovered a mare’s nest, and answered in a far less bold tone.
“I saw a lady whom I believed to be the Countess. I may have
been mistaken—”
“You must have been mistaken,” said the lawyer imperturbably.
“The Countess di Valdestillas is not a person whose individuality
admits of doubt. I will write to her, inform her of your visit, tell her that
you would prefer to communicate directly with her, and ask her if she
will authorise us to give you her address. We are forced to take this
course, as, the Countess’s business affairs being all in our hands,
we are empowered to sift all her correspondence from England, that
nothing but what is of real importance should come to her hands.
The Countess has a dash of Eastern blood, like her daughter, and is,
well, shall I say—not madly energetic.”
There was nothing for Lauriston to do but to acquiesce in this
arrangement and to take his leave, scarcely yet knowing whether he
was satisfied or dissatisfied with his interview. As he passed out,
however, condescended to by the senior, made much of by the junior
partner as before, a clerk took in a telegram to the former. Lauriston
had hardly gone two steps from the door of the outer office, when he
heard the soft voice of the old gentleman calling to him from the door
of his private room. He turned back, and with some appearance of
mystery, and a rather less condescending tone than before, Mr.
Angelo ushered him in, and offered him a chair before uttering a
word.
“I thought I should like to say a few words to you in my private
capacity, Mr. Lauriston,” said he, when he had softly closed the door.
“As a lawyer, speaking in the presence of my partner, as a member
of the firm, I may have seemed to you somewhat dry and
unsympathetic; as a man, believe me, I should be glad to further an
alliance between a member of such an honourable family as yours,
and a young lady in whose welfare I take an interest.”
Lauriston bowed in acknowledgment, with the conviction that it
was the telegram he had just received which had produced such a
softening effect on Mr. Angelo. He hastened to take advantage of it.
“You are very kind, sir. I love Nouna with all my heart, and my
dearest wish is to make her my wife. But I should be glad if you
would answer one question. The answer you give will make no
difference to my course of action; but it is right and necessary that I
should understand Nouna’s position. Am I right in supposing, as
circumstances suggest, that Madame di Valdestillas had a secret in
her past life, that—Nouna’s father was not her husband?”
Mr. Angelo’s eyes wandered round the room in a reflective
manner.
“May I ask what leads you to this supposition?”
“The strange way in which she has been brought up, spoilt and yet
neglected, the daughter of a woman of rank allowed to live in a
lodging-house with a paid companion; it is not the usual education of
a lady, English or foreign.”
“You are right. The circumstances are strange. You are an officer,
the son of a man of known honour. You will of course regard any
communication I make to you on this subject as strictly and inviolably
secret.”
“I hope you have no doubt of that.”
“I have not. You understand that the information I am about to give
you, you are bound in honour never to use, you are to regard as
never having been heard?”
“I understand that perfectly.”
“Well then, Nouna is the legitimately born daughter of an English
gentleman. That, I think, is all you wish to know.”
As his tone said very decidedly that this was all he meant to tell,
Lauriston professed his entire contentment, and once more took his
leave. Upon the whole he was not dissatisfied with the result of his
visit to the lawyers. Nothing he had heard there was inconsistent
with what he had already been told about the Condesa di
Valdestillas, and he began to think that the romantic circumstances
in which he had met Nouna had perhaps inclined him to make
mountains of mystery out of molehills of eccentricity. The only thing
which now seemed to baffle all attempts at explanation was the
remarkable way in which Mr. Angelo had made the simple statement
concerning Nouna’s birth. As, however, it was impossible to learn the
reason of this, Lauriston gave up trying to guess it, and assured of
the prosperity of his suit, fell into a lover’s dream, picturing to himself
the joys of moulding this passionate pliable young creature, under
the influence of his love, into an ideal wife, good as an English
woman, fascinating as a French one, free from the
narrowmindedness of the one and the frivolity of the other, and with
a passionate warmth of feeling unknown to either. But as he recalled
the grace of her movements, the delicate beauty of her face and
form, her cooing voice and caressing gestures, the intoxication of his
passion grew stronger than his efforts of reason and imagination.
Why should he not marry her now, as she wished, as he longed to
do? He could then educate her himself, guard her, as no
schoolmistress, or guardian other than a husband could do, from all
influences that were not noble, and pure, and good; whatever she
might have done in imagination, in reality she had not lived in
anything more like a palace than that one room, used for a few
weeks, avowedly fitted up as a show-room, and furnished with
treasures that were only borrowed. True, if he married her now, she
would have to live in London lodgings still, and without the
alleviations afforded by painted ceilings and silk-hung walls. But he
would find for her head a softer pillow than any embroidered
cushion, and soothe her with a lullaby sweeter than the sound of any
fountain that ever flowed.
And then in the midst of this fine frenzy, dull common sense put in
a word, and showed him the reverse side of the medal; a young
husband with ambition checked, and study made impossible by
growing debt and premature responsibility; a young wife ill-dressed,
ill-amused, with no companions of her own sex, perhaps a mother
before she had left off being a child, her warm nature chilled by
poverty and disappointment, her love for her husband changing into
contempt or hatred. No, it was not to be thought of. He must find her
a home where he could see her constantly, and keep her under the
influence of his own thoughts, and of his own love, until the day
when he could bring her to a little home such as an English lady of
simple tastes could be happy in.
With an inspiration born of these thoughts, he remembered with a
shock that he might have come westward third class on the
underground, instead of in the well-appointed Forder hansom which
he had chosen so carefully. He thrust up his umbrella, told the driver
to stop, jumped out, paid him, and continued on foot from Chancery
Lane, along Fleet Street, till he came to the office of a military paper
the editor of whom, with the friendliness of editors to such writers as
are not dependent upon writing, had asked him to contribute certain
articles on a subject in which Lauriston was well-known to be
proficient. He had sufficient acumen to let the editor think, when he
expressed his readiness to undertake the work at once, that his
object was fame rather than coin; and having settled by what date
the first instalment was to be ready, and ignored the matter of terms
with a handsome indifference he did not feel, Lauriston left the office
and returned to the West End on foot.
He dined that evening at his club with a couple of friends one of
whom gave a rather startling turn to his beatific thoughts by an
allusion to Clarence Massey’s mad infatuation for some girl whom he
had “picked up in a curiosity shop somewhere in the slums.”
Lauriston made no comment, and did not betray by a look that the
remark had an interest for him. The little Irishman had taken care not
to indulge in his ravings over his unknown beauty in the presence of
the comrade whom he had tricked. But the words of Rahas, on the
preceding evening, had given Lauriston a clue to his own visit to 36
Mary Street, and this startling reference to Massey’s share in the
matter strengthened his resolution to give that amorous and artful
young gentleman a lesson.
Lauriston went home early, with the fixed intention of settling up
this matter with as little delay as possible, and on arriving at his
quarters he found his intention strengthened and the means of
carrying it out provided, in a very unexpected manner.
As he was going up the stairs to his rooms, he was met by his
soldier-servant, who told him that a lady had been waiting to see him
for the last two hours. Lauriston hurried on in great excitement.
Neither Nouna nor Mrs. Ellis knew his address, his sisters were in
Scotland, and he had not, like some of his comrades, a circle of
lively and easy-mannered feminine acquaintances. His thoughts flew
directly to the woman who had followed him home the night before:
perhaps the mystery was going to be solved after all; perhaps he
should indeed see Nouna’s mother.
Before he reached his rooms he heard voices; a few steps more
and he could distinguish that of Clarence Massey; arrived at the door
of the sitting-room, the soft tones of Nouna herself struck his ears.
“No,” she was saying, “I shall not kiss you; Mr. Lauriston would be
very angry with you for asking me.”
“Bless you, you little beauty, no, he wouldn’t. He’d be delighted to
know you were enjoying yourself,” answered Massey confidently.
Lauriston threw open the door just as Massey, who had been
sitting on a stool a few paces from the sofa where Nouna half-sat,
half-reclined, sprang up and seized the hand with which she was
wearily supporting her head.
Nouna jumped up, clapping her hands with joy like a child, and ran
towards Lauriston, who, livid, wet, and trembling, did not even look at
her, but striding across to Massey without a word, lifted him up in his
arms with the sullen fury of an enraged bear, and carrying him to the
door, which he opened with a kick, flung him pell-mell, anyhow, like a
heap of soiled clothes against the wall, as far along the corridor as
he could throw him. Then slamming the door to work off the remains
of his rage, he turned to the frightened girl, who had fallen on her
knees and was clinging about his feet.
CHAPTER IX.
When George Lauriston, having relieved his feelings by his
summary treatment of Massey and closed the door upon the young
Irishman’s groans and voluble remonstrances, turned his attention to
Nouna, he was seized with remorse at having given such free rein to
his anger, when he saw what a strong effect it had upon the girl. She
persisted in crouching on the ground at his feet like a dog that has
been whipped, and when he stooped down and laid his hands upon
her, gently telling her to get up and speak to him, she only
murmured, “Don’t hurt me. I haven’t done anything wrong,” and tied
herself up with extraordinary suppleness into a sort of knot, which
George surveyed helplessly, not knowing well how to handle this
extraordinary phenomenon. At last it occurred to him that this
exaggerated fear could be nothing but one of her elfish tricks, and he
began to laugh uneasily in the hope that this would afford a key to
the situation.
On hearing his puzzled “Ha, ha!” Nouna did indeed uncurl herself
and look up at him; but it was with a timid and bewildered
expression. He, however, seizing his opportunity, swooped down,
passed his arms under her, and lifting her bodily from the floor,
carried her over to the sofa, placed her upon it, and sat down beside
her.
“And now, little one, tell me what is the matter with you, and why
and how you came here.”
Instead of answering, she looked at him steadily, with a solemn
and penetrating expression. Angry as he still felt, anxious as he was
to know the reason of her unexpected coming, her appearance was
so comical that George could not help smiling as he looked at her.
She wore again the shot silk frock in which he had seen her on his
second visit to Mary Street; a deep, purple embroidered fez made a
Romeo-like covering for her short and curly dark hair; while a sop
thrown to conventionality in the shape of a small black-beaded
mantle only brought into greater prominence the eccentricity it was
meant to disguise. She had either forgotten or not thought it
necessary to exchange her open-work pink silk stockings and
embroidered scarlet morocco slippers for foot-gear less startling and
picturesque; her gloves, if she had worn any, she had long ago
thrown aside, and George could not help acknowledging, as he
looked at her, that it would need an intelligence stronger than poor
Massey’s to discover in this remarkable guise the carefully brought-
up young English lady whom alone his code taught him to respect.
As this thought came into his mind, George’s expression changed,
and grew gloomy and sad. The young girl was still watching him
narrowly.
“Are you often—so?” she asked, with a pause before the last
word, and a mysterious emphasis upon it.
“What do you mean, Nouna?”
“So full of anger that your face grows all white and grey, and your
mouth like a straight line, and you look as if you would kill the person
that offends you.”
And she shuddered and drew away from him again. George took
one of her hands very gently in his.
“No, Nouna, I am very seldom angry like that. It is only when any
one does something which seems to me very wrong.”
“Oh.” This explanation did not seem so re-assuring to the young
lady as it ought to have been. “You were listening at the door all the
time then?” she said, after a pause, not so much in fear as in timid
respect.
“No,” said he vehemently, growing hot at the suggestion.
“Gentlemen don’t listen at doors.”
“Don’t they?” said she incredulously. “Why not?”
“It is mean, sneaking, bad form altogether.”
“Is it? Then how do you find out things? Ah, you would pay a
servant, perhaps, to do all that for you?”
George grew scarlet and drew his hands away from her, half in
indignation, half in horror.
“Nouna!” he exclaimed, “where on earth did you pick up these
awful ideas? To pay a servant to play the spy is the most rascally
thing a man could do! A man who did it would deserve to be kicked.”
“Would he? Then what would he do if he thought his wife deceived
him? Wouldn’t he mind?”
George sprang up to his feet, and took a few turns about the room.
He was appalled by this fearful perversion of mind, by this terrible
candour, and he thought with a shudder of Rahas’ statement that the
women of the East have no souls. How should he set to work to
make her see things with his eyes? He glanced at her, and saw that
she had changed her attitude; curling her feet up under her, and
leaning her head on her hand, she sat quite still, nothing moving but
her eyes, watching him. He came back, knelt before her, and looked
into her face.
“In England, Nouna,” he said very gently, “when a man wants a
wife, he chooses a girl whom he believes to be so good, so true, so
noble that he couldn’t possibly think she would do anything that
wasn’t right. And he loves her with all his heart, and never thinks of
anybody but her, and spends all his time trying to make her happy.
So he never thinks about such a dreadful thing as her deceiving him,
because, you see, she couldn’t, unless she was very wicked, treat a
man badly when he was so good to her.”
“Then what Sundran says is all wrong.”
“Who is Sundran?”
“My servant, my ayah. She says that Englishmen love other
women besides their wife, who is only like the chief wife in our
country, and that Englishwomen are not so good as Indian ladies,
because they are not shut up.”
“Sundran must be sent away. She tells you falsehoods,” said
George indignantly.
“She shall not be sent away,” retorted Nouna, flashing out at once
into passion. “She loves me. It is she who tells me of the land where
I was born, who sings me my Indian songs, and tells me the tales of
my own country. She shall not go.”
George did not press the point, though he made an inward vow to
remove this most noxious influence as soon as he had authority over
the wayward creature before him.
“And doesn’t some one else love you, Nouna?” he asked
reproachfully, looking into her flashing eyes; “some one whom you
are treating very cruelly this evening?”
The appeal melted her at once, or rather it turned the passion of
anger into a passion of affection. She threw her arms round his neck
and fervently kissed his mouth, nestling her red lips under his
moustache, and scratching his left ear fearfully with the beadwork on
her mantle.
“I am not cruel, I love you,” she said earnestly. “I came here to-
night because I could not live without seeing you again; only I will not
marry you; I have made up my mind to that.”
“But why, Nouna, why?” asked poor George in consternation.
“We are not of the same race; we should not be happy; Rahas is
right. If I made you angry, you would look as you did to-night, and
you would kill me.”
“But, Nouna, I am not a savage; I don’t get angry over little things.
And I should never be angry with you.”
“I don’t know. You say you would not have me watched, you would
trust me. Well, I would rather be watched, then I should feel safe. But
if I always did just as I felt, I should some day make you angry, I
know. I am not like your English girls—the girls at the school, who
always know what they are going to do. Something comes up
here,”—and she put her hands over her heart—“and then it mounts
up there,”—joining her fingers over her head—“and says, ‘Nouna,
love; Nouna, hate; Nouna, be sweet and gentle;’ or ‘Nouna, be proud
and distant.’ And I go just as the little voice guides. Well, that is not
English!”
“You are impulsive, darling, that’s all. If you love me truly, the little
voice will always tell you to do what I wish.”
“Will it? But I am afraid. I tell you I would rather kill myself than
have you look at me as you looked at the little curly-haired man to-
night. Why did you hate him so?”
“When I came in he was trying to kiss you.”
“But I would not have let him.”
“No, of course not. That is because you are good and true to me,
whom you love.”
“Is it? I did not know it was that. I only knew that he was small and
ugly, and I did not like him.”
“No; you must not like any man but me.”
“Ah, then you had better shut me up.”
“Well, so I will, my darling. I will shut you up in my heart so close
that you shall have no eyes for any one but me.”
And with a great impulse of tenderness for the little dark-eyed
thing who was drinking in new impressions of life and morals with so
much solemn perplexity, he flung his arm round her and buried his
head in the folds of her dress.
“You will scratch your beautiful face,” said she solicitously,
removing the beaded mantle, and ruffling up his hair with light
fingers. “How can Rahas say you are not handsome? You are like
Brahma himself when he rides in his sun-chariot!” she said with loyal
intention if with confused lore.
The name of Rahas, used thus for the second time, roused
George from the intoxicating oblivion of outside things into which this
unexpected interview with the girl he loved had thrown him.
“Rahas!” he repeated, raising his head sharply. “You haven’t seen
him again to-day?”
“Now you are going to be angry,” exclaimed the girl shrinking.
“No, my darling, I am not,” said George in a most gentle tone. “But
if I am to watch over and protect you, I must keep you out of the way
of men like Rahas. When did you see him? What did he say to you?”
“Well, I saw him this evening, just before I came here. Mrs. Ellis
and I had just finished dinner. I had been very quiet and good all day,
writing a long letter to mamma, telling her how handsome you were,
and how I would never look with love on the face of any other man, if
only she would give me her permission to love you. And I was tired
of sitting still, and the air was hot, and Mammy Ellis was sleepy. So I
opened the door, and she said there was a draught, and I must shut
it. And I could not bear the heat, so I did shut it, with myself outside.
And I went into the next room—the one where I had pulled down the
hangings; and I was so lonely and sad and weary that I was sorry I
had pulled them down, and I began to cry and tried to nail up the
long trails of silk to the wall again; and when I found I could not, I sat
down and cried again; and then I looked up and I saw Rahas in the
room watching me like a tiger. And I sprang up; but he came to me
with his eyes shining, and fell at my feet and told me a lot of strange
things that I forget.”

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Conflicting Narratives of Crime and Punishment 1St Ed Edition Martina Althoff Full Chapter

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Conflicting Narratives of Crime and

Punishment 1st ed. Edition Martina

ISBN 978-3-030-47235-1 ISBN 978-3-030-47236-8 (eBook)

Cover credit: Pinghung Chen/EyeEm

1 Fighting for the “Right” Narrative: Introduction

2 Counter-Narratives of Crime and Punishment 23

3 Small Stories Research and Narrative Criminology:

4 Public Narratives of Crime and Criminal Justice:

Section II Popular and Everyday Narrations of Crime

5 Crime and Narration: The Creation of (In)Security

6 Popular and Visual Narratives of Punishment

7 Conflicting Counternarratives of Crime and Justice

8 Sympathies and Scandals: (Counter-)Narratives

Section III Crime Narratives in Social and Criminal Justice

9 ‘Let’s Put Human Rights Right’: (Counter) Narratives

10 Files as Prototypical Master Narratives 201

11 Practical Narratives in the Criminal Law Process:

Section IV Media Outrages and Narrations of Gender,

12 Competing Narratives in the Nexus

13 Stories of Gender and Migration, Crime

Martina Althoff is an Associate Professor of Criminology at

Mechthild Bereswill is a Professor for Sociology at Kassel University,

sicherheit. Ethnographisch-kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf die

working in his local community and is seeking to continue his educa-

Fig. 4.1 Column “should we be afraid of being attacked

justifications sought, alternative interpretations evaluated, etc. In

event, because, in the meantime, according to the narrative, an offence

and cultural conditions. Moreover, there are often different versions of

Counter-Narratives and Hegemony

master narratives provide orientation in everyday action, without which

But of course hegemonies can actually be hollowed out. Associated

undermine and counteract hegemony, especially in view of—as Polletta

Reflexivity and Normativity

(e.g. Brookman 2015; Sandberg 2010). It is not (always) necessary

and implemented in the context of concrete investigations—a demand

Structure and Content

To illustrate their focus, they compare closing arguments of a defence

surveyed readers’ knowledge before and after publication. Her findings

a counter-narrative to the master narrative of Batman as a vigilante

Mechthild Bereswill, Henrike Buhr and Patrik Müller-Behme explore

Barrera, D. J. S. (2019). Narrative criminal justice. International Journal of

Lynch, M. (2000). Against reflexivity as an academic virtue and source of priv-

Counter-narratives have come to occupy the center of many ­discussions

M. Bamberg (*) · Z. Wipff

refer to ‘the background’ in reference to a culturally instantiated col-

navigate between maintaining faith and supporting extant background

indispensable to a thoroughly critical analysis. Rather than assuming

manipulation of story-characters in the storyworld, and by positioning

Master or Counter?—Two Conflicting

represent them. Although they speak on behalf of someone else, i.e.,

Lines 1–7: DL used to act in the institutional role of DA, prosecuting

Lines 26–31: In her ‘closing argument’ DL appeals to jury to choose

Table 2.1 Transcripts of the CLOSING ARGUMENTS (LA-LAW) (husband caused

Table 2.1 (continued)

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Section II Popular and Everyday Narrations of Crime

Section IV Media Outrages and Narrations of Gender,

Counter-narratives have come to occupy the center of many discussions