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This article analyzes how law drives citizens out of the category of “normal” in Philip Osment’s This Island’s Mine. Osment shows how minorities are alienated in a ‘legitimate’ manner in a modern metropolis called London, England. “This Island’s Mine” is borrowed from Caliban’s word in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Osment portrays how citizens are deprived of their sovereign rights on their lands and become alienated by alluding to Caliban. In order to analyze this text, this article uses Walter Benjamin and Slavoj Žižek’s theory on law and violence. In particular, by taking note of the reasons of Žižek’s “subjects supposed to...,” this article analyzes the systemic violence working in society. In addition, by confirming how structural violence, symbolic violence, and subjective violence are intermingled, this article also examines what kind of violence citizens are exposed to the moment they become ‘abnormal’ citizens. This article analyzes the effects of violence that Selwyn, an African-American and homosexual, is exposed to by law. The process of his becoming "abnormal" reveals that no one can be free from the threat of becoming "abnormal" in the face of violent law. Through this analysis, this article confirms that Caliban, the object of violence, is not a stranger, but our neighbor, and even ourselves.
