42 pages • 1 hour read
Anthony LewisGideon’s Trumpet
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1964A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Clarence Gideon
Clarence Earl Gideon is the title character. Gideon is a complex figure. Though he is rarely actually present in the narrative, his influence looms over proceedings. It is his determination and sense of injustice that motivates the plot, driving the case relentlessly toward the Supreme Court. Once his name is fixed to legal documents, there is a sense that his force of personality disappears—the professionals take over the legal process and he has very little to do with it. As such, Gideon exists very much in abstract form. His situation is one that is discussed in dry, objective terms in the Court. Gideon takes on a role as the embodiment of the matter being debated, rather than a character in his own right.
Occasionally, however, Gideon is permitted to speak on his own terms. The best example of this is the autobiographical letter that he sends to Fortas. This is reprinted in the text, with the idiosyncratic spelling errors and grammatical mistakes left in place. This presents Gideon as something markedly different to the character that inhabits the legal abstract. On paper, he is a dangerous felon who robbed a pool hall. In person (or at least when speaking through his own words), however, Gideon comes across as a warm, tragic figure. He is broken down and beaten by life on every occasion. He wants nothing more than to be with his children and to have a steady, uneventful life. He is marred by his circumstances and his character flaws. Growing up the shadow of the Great Depression, he has struggled to find a trade. He has been married numerous times and has an addiction to gambling and alcohol. He is grateful, sincere, and determined. He thanks Fortas for eloquently conveying the sense of injustice he has felt his entire life. Gideon is a sympathetic figure.
The Epilogue provides a final look at Gideon’s life. Victorious, his case is retried and his is found not guilty. Gideon’s victory becomes a victory not just for himself, but for similarly marginalized people around the country.
Abe Fortas
Abe Fortas is, in many ways, the opposite of Clarence Gideon. For all of Gideon’s miseries and failures, Fortas has known nothing but success. A rich and powerful lawyer, he is a friend to Presidents and the first person companies call when they want to know how the law can help them make more money. He is a partner in a law firm and sits on several boards. Added to this, he has argued cases in front of the Supreme Court before. He is the ideal man to voice the opinion of the legal world, the opinion that Gideon himself could not voice. Rich, successful, and well-regarded, he becomes a counterpoint to Gideon’s destitute misfortune and injustice.
Fortas is not just a one-dimensional character in the narrative. For all of his success, he recognizes that he is indebted to the law. He feels the need to pay back this debt. When he gets the call to represent Gideon, he does not hesitate. He pours his time and resources into the case because he sees it as a means of correcting injustice in the nation. If Gideon is the product of the failures of contemporary American society, then Fortas is, in many ways, its idealized man: rich, successful, honorable, and determined to give back to his country. This sense of paying back a debt and becoming a societal exemplar means that Fortas has little growth or progression in the text. He is successful at the beginning and he is successful at the end. However, he still leaves a legacy. His name is written into the history book, an important figure in a landmark case that will forever be associated with Fortas’s skills as a lawyer.
Not only does Fortas win; he wins a unanimous victory. The practical reality of this is minor but it is a vindication for Fortas’s abilities. Despite this personal success, Fortas demonstrates a sympathetic amount of humility. He understands the resonance of the case to which he has been assigned and knows that victory in the Supreme Court would not just be helping a client or writing his name into the history books. Rather, it helps to correct an injustice that affects thousands of Americans and will be important for generations to come. One of Fortas’s most important qualities, then, is that he recognizes his role in the context of history. He steers the case toward the important and vital resolution, noting that he is merely the steward of the forces of history. This humility is one of Fortas’s defining traits.
Justice Black and Justice Frankfurter
The characters of Black and Frankfurter do not function as traditional characters. In a book filled with people who appear for paragraphs, pages, or chapters before they fade away, the presence of the two notorious justices is felt constantly in the lead up to the case. This is because they are less characters and more embodiments of their specific ideological positions. Black and Frankfurter become abstract ideas and reference to one or the other is less a reference to their specific character than the ideals that they represent. As a result, the tension between Black and Frankfurter informs the entire narrative. Both men are respected justices on the Court and neither man is presented as being wrong. Both seem to have diametrically opposed interpretations of one of the nation’s most fundamental laws. The question of whether Gideon’s case will succeed is a question of whether Fortas and Gideon can successfully untangle the gordian knot of federalism. Frankfurter represents the idea that states should be free to set their own laws, while Black believes in the greater importance of a wider federal authority that can preserve justice across the nation.
While Frankfurter is retired by the time the case appears before the Court, his presence is felt. He is the ghost at the feast; the issue of federalism lingers in justice Harlan, and Fortas must convince Harlan that the case does not contravene the issue of federalism. He does this by turning the argument around, positing that Gideon’s success would actually be a triumph for Frankfurter’s school of thought. He succeeds and a unanimous victory is accomplished. In doing so, the text presents Gideon’s victory as a unifying force. It is not a divisive issue that will echo down the ages. Rather, it is the culmination of hundreds of years of American legal history. This point is driven home by the closing lines of Chapter 14. Going to visit the now-retired Frankfurter, Black discusses the case with him. The moment is profoundly humane, and for the first time in the text, the two men are no longer abstract ideals but actual characters. In this moment, Black explains the case and asks Frankfurter whether he would have voted with the rest of the Court. When Frankfurter says that he would have done exactly that, the text achieves a final, lasting victory. The issue of federalism is successfully navigated and meaningful change is achieved.
