# The Trial Begins explained — The Financier > Chapter companion for The Financier by Theodore Dreiser. ## What happens Cowperwood enters the courtroom for his trial, observing the scene with a detached, analytical eye. He feels sympathy for Stener's foolishness but contempt for the legal system, which he views as a tool for the strong. The jury is impaneled after a series of challenges from both the prosecution and defense. ## Themes in this chapter ### Deception and Self-Justification Cowperwood views the law as a mere tool for the strong, justifying his own manipulations as necessary for survival in a ruthless world. ### Class and Social Mobility The jury is composed of middle-class tradesmen and professionals, contrasting with Cowperwood's wealth and status, highlighting class divisions in the justice system. ## Character check-ins ### Frank Algernon Cowperwood Enters the courtroom jaunty and reserved, wearing a lavender tie with a green emerald. He observes the proceedings with keen interest and disdain for the law. ### Harper Steger Cowperwood's lawyer, looking shrewd and canny, challenges jurors and moves to quash the indictment. ### George W. Stener Present as a witness, pale and thin, without malice toward Cowperwood. He still hopes for political intervention. ### Mrs. Stener Sallow and poorly dressed, she blames Cowperwood for her husband's downfall. ### Judge Wilbur Payderson Presides over the court, clearing minor motions before calling Cowperwood's case. ### Dennis Shannon The new district attorney, who examines and challenges jurors for the prosecution. ## Key lines > Law, if you had asked him, and he had accurately expressed himself, was a mist formed out of the moods and the mistakes of men, which befogged the sea of life and prevented plain sailing for the little commercial and social barques of men; it was a miasma of misinterpretation where the ills of life festered, and also a place where the accidentally wounded were ground between the upper and the nether millstones of force or chance; it was a strange, weird, interesting, and yet futile battle of wits where the ignorant and the incompetent and the shrewd and the angry and the weak were made pawns and shuttlecocks for men—lawyers, who were playing upon their moods, their vanities, their desires, and their necessities. Cowperwood believed the law was a confusing fog created by human error, a battleground where lawyers manipulated the ignorant and weak for their own gain. _Cowperwood's cynical view of the legal system as a tool for the powerful._ > Great lawyers were merely great unscrupulous subtleties, like himself, sitting back in dark, close-woven lairs like spiders and awaiting the approach of unwary human flies. He saw top lawyers as cunning predators, much like himself, lying in wait for naive victims. _Cowperwood equates lawyers with spiders, reflecting his predatory worldview._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_financier_se/chapters/xl - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_financier_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_financier_se/chapters