Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg Literary Elements

Biography/Judicial history

America over the course of its history as a nation with a special focus, of course, on the years covering the Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s term as Supreme Court Justice, 1993-2020.

Third-person narration from a perspective presenting a positive interpretation of Ginsberg’s political ideology.

Despite being a history book, the tone is conversational and the mood is positive and upbeat even when dealing with negative aspects and circumstances of Ginsberg’s life and career.

Protagonist: Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Antagonists: conservative politicians, conservative ideology and the conservative political climate creating social circumstances against which Ginsberg fought both personally and professionally.

Progressive liberal values versus reactionary conservative values; Ginsberg versus cancer.

The climax of the book and Ginsberg’s story is her appointment and subsequent confirmation to become a Supreme Court Justice. This is an example of an extended climax which spanned the entirety of Ginsberg’s life following confirmation.

“Now, if Justice Ginsburg departs the Supreme Court with a Republican in the White House it is probable that the female Thurgood Marshall will be replaced by a female Clarence Thomas.” With the controversial and hypocritical rushing through to confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to fill her position within weeks of Ginsberg’s death, that predication made by Harvard professor Randall Kennedy in 2011 proved to be extremely prescient.

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The title of the book derives from a nickname for Ginsberg which is an allusion to perhaps the most appropriate rap pseudonym in hip-hop history, adopted by Christopher Wallace: the Notorious B.I.G.

Ginsberg in 2013 on the commencement of attempts by the courts to dismantle voting rights which rocketed from drizzle to Pacino in 2021: “We put down the umbrella because we weren’t getting wet. But the storm is raging.”

“It is almost impossible to successfully sue someone as soon as the first instance of discrimination occurs.”

The inspiration for the nickname linking the two figures with the same nickname demonstrates an example of this technique: “The humor was in the contrasts—the elite court and the streets, white and black, female and male, octogenarian and died too young.”

The single most often recurring example of metonymy is the frequent use of “the court” as shorthand intended to represent various and all-encompassing aspects of the entire judicial system.

“Cancer, which had already stolen RBG’s mother, threatened to take Marty too.”