Justice and Judgment Quotes in The Bourne Identity

Washburn is reprimanding anonymous dude (later Bourne) for beating the tar out of several locals on a sailing ship. Bourne says that he was defending himself: he had to use extreme violence to prevent his own death. This nicely sets up the logic (excuse?) for Bourne's violence in the rest of the book. He's always under threat of death. Therefore, even the most extreme violence (like kidnapping innocent people) is understandable and reasonable.

This is a promise of revenge against Herr Koenig, the bank official who betrayed Bourne. Revenge here is also a promise of justice—and, in the novel, where everything is done in the shadows outside of the reach of law enforcement, personal revenge becomes almost the only kind of justice available.

Bourne here appears ready to kill the woman he's kidnapped just because she (very reasonably) tried to escape him. We eventually learn that Bourne isn't really an assassin, but if he's willing to murder innocent people simply to protect himself, it's not really clear how being an assassin would make him morally worse. Murdering innocent people is murdering innocent people, after all. The idea that Bourne is a good person with whom we should sympathize—pushed later by Marie, and by the novel as a whole—seems undercut by this passage.

Marie's judgment of Bourne is based both on his act of kindness (trying to protect her from being identified) and on the look in his eyes (though those eyes are quite elusive—see our "Eyes" entry in the "Symbols" section.) We're supposed to see Bourne as a just man both because of what he does and because there's this ineffable decency in everything he does (and that, perhaps, makes him okay even when he does horrible things like kidnap innocent people). At least that's how Marie sees it.

Marie's belief in Bourne is based in large part on a kind of gratitude: he rescued her when she was being raped. For her, the fact that he administered justice in that instance (killing her rapist) shows that he is just. That's not entirely convincing, since, logically, Bourne kidnapped Marie in the first place, leading to the situation in which she was raped. Isn't refusing to do evil in the first place ultimately more just than trying to rectify the evil you've already done?

Marie draws a firm line between decency and corruption, and she claims that it's very easy for corruption to lead to killing. She wants justice for the meek. Do you think the novel as a whole contradicts her wishes? After all, the "decent" guy here turns out to be Bourne, who is not at all meek, and who kills just about every other person he encounters.

Bourne is thinking about killing and breaking Jacqueline Lavier, the owner of the fashion house that Carlos uses as a message relay. Lavier is involved in criminal activities, but she's not actually a physical threat to Bourne. He plans to torture and kill her, anyway, in order to get information about his identity. Are his plans just, or are they selfish and brutal?

Bourne never carries these plans through, though. Does that mean he was just boasting to himself, and isn't actually willing to do such things? Are we supposed to be impressed with his toughness and capacity for violence? Or maybe the point is that Bourne is imperfect, and we should respect him more for not giving in to some of his more unpleasant tendencies?

Gillette, the American academic intelligence officer, explains that he's never gotten enough credit and that everyone has treated him unjustly. Therefore, he feels justified in betraying and killing everyone. As a result, he gets himself killed. Justice all around?

Bourne says that if General Villiers was once involved in violence, he'll always find violence effective and appealing—the bad guys always stay bad guys. It's an interesting argument, since it seems to apply to Bourne himself. He is also a man of violence, and he is, maybe, trying to change. Villiers and Bourne are both "good," yet both still use violence to gain their ends. This passage seems to say that you need to renounce violence to be a good person. But in the rest of the book, justice and violence seem to be compatible.

Marie suggests that there's something revolting about violent justice. Does the rest of the novel disagree with her? Or is this the novel's secret message? Maybe Marie is the true hero of The Bourne Identity, the only character with a stable identity, and the only character to steer absolutely clear of violence?