Necessary Evil Revenge Quotes

“In moments of pain, we seek revenge”. This quote is something that does happen in certain events that humans go thru and it can influence a person to do things that they would never even think of doing. In certain cases regular people would actually kill someone because revenge seems to take over their mind. In the book A Necessary Evil, revenge is seen as a driving force in all the characters. Like the quote says, humans always feel the need for revenge when they are feeling pain. It is first seen in Michael Grey, when his wife is murdered and the man who killed her isn’t convicted, he feels an enormous sense for revenge. After hiring a hitman by the name Butch, Michael Grey regrets making his decision and decides to not pay butch the final

payment. Because of Mr. Grey’s decision not to pay Butch, he feels an urge to get revenge on Michel by going to an “old friend” who is part of the mafia. Because of what happened in the book it seems that revenge is a feeling you get that makes people do things they later regret.

This essay will be talking about how revenge effected Michael Grey, how it effected Butch, and It will supply some research on how revenge effects people in real life.
The character that is most effected by revenge is Michael Grey. Because of his wife death, Michael begins to get depressed and does not feel that life is treating him well at all. He feels that there is no hope for him and that there is no reason to live. After going thru the same routines of wakening up, not eating, looking at old pictures of him and his wife, going to work, coming home, and crying himself to sleep, for 2 years, Michael suddenly feels this new erg. He starts thinking that by killing the murderer, and getting revenge, all his pain would disappear. This is one way that revenge effects Michael. The thoughts that Michael is having about killing his wife’s murderer starts to become part of his new routine. Instead of looking back on old memories he has with his wife he is out staking out the apartment building of the murderer, planing the route he is going to take to get to the murders apartment. At work Michael starts researching gun

shops and different requirement he needs to purchase a gun. And at night instead of crying Michael is plotting the different ways he is going to committee the murder. Revenge has taken over his whole life and becomes a part of him. The second way that revenge effects Michael is when a girl from the office, named Cynthia Porter, cant keep her eyes off of him “He’s like a character in one of those novels that frequently crossed her desk, he possessed all the qualities she found alluring in a man…” (Stricklin, 17). Altho she tries everything she can to get his attention she cant seem to get him interested in her. Before he was thinking of his plan’s, he would have loved the idea that such a beautiful women would be attracted to him (Cynthia Porter had a way of turning heads, she was unarguably the most attractive employee at Paragon Books, Inc.” (Stricklin, 17). Maybe that could have been a new start in his life after losing his first love, but revenge blinded him from everything that was going on around him. The final way that revenge effected Michael is when he decides to go forward with his plan. The first thing that Michael does is take time off to go “on a vacation” so he tells everyone. Instead he go’s to Fort Lauderdale and gets his weapon license and buys a .9mm pistole. When he gets home he holds the gun and it gives him a good feeling “Holding it in his hand gave him a sense of power…” (Stricklin, 10). After making it to the murders door and standing there for a while he figures that he is not able to do this. Instead Michael phones a hitman that his friend suggested he do to do the deed for him. When he makes the first payment and the murderer is killed, Michael thinks twice abut what he did and says that he is not going to pay the second half of the money. After all that he has gone thru to make sure that he gets revenge for what happened to his wife Michael’s mind starts to kick back into its normal state and come back to reality.
The second person who is effected by revenge in this novel is Butch.

Butch was the rough looking hit man that Michael hires to kill the murderer that killed his wife “He had thick, prematurely grey hair and striking Mediterranean features — a high, unfurled brow, a finely chiseled beak of a nose, a slightly jutting jaw with a cleft in his chin…” (Stricklin, 34). Butch explains to Michael that he must make a payment of $20,000, $10,000 before he does the deed and $10,000 after. When Michael makes the first payment Butch go’s ahead and starts preparing for his job when he suddenly gets a call from Michael. Michael explains to him that killing the guy might be a bad idea and that he wants to kill the job off but Butch refuses and go’s ahead with the plan. When Michael refuses to pay the final payment Butch gets mad at Michael and revenge starts taking over. The first way that revenge effects Butch is when he tries to get back at Michael by catching off guard in his apartment “Startled by a sudden creek, Michael lifted his head and spend his eyes. Staring back at him was Butch, pointing the barrel of a gun in his face” (Stricklin, 87). Butches attempt at scaring Michael failed when Michael pointed out that if Butch killed him he wouldn't get the money. This part of the story made Butches need for revenge become even more greater because it was the first time that anyone stood up to him and outsmarted him. The second effect that revenge had on Butch was when he went to his old

friend, Carlo Torello, to help him get the money Michael owed him. By going back, Butch was taking a big risk because he actually owed money to Carlo. Because Butch was in a state of revenge, he didn't care about how much trouble he could get into. By talking with Carlo Butch now had a deadline of one weeks to get the money or else Carlo wasn’t going to give him another chance “ Ive been more than patient with you, but my patience has reached its limit…I don't care what you have to do, or who you have to do it to, but you’d better do it and do it fast” (Stricklin, 93). Because of this now Butch is feeling angrier than ever which makes his need for revenge ever more greater.
Throughout the book revenge is the most common feeling that is seen throughout all the characters, but revenge in the real world is a real thing that actually effects people in the same way as in the book. One way revenge can effect a human can depend on your attitude. A study was done by psychologist Ian McKee, of Adelaide University in Australia, where he surveyed 150 university students who answered questions about their attitudes toward revenge, authority and tradition, and group inequality. The results showed that students whose answers showed a deference to authority and respect for traditions and social dominance, had the most favourable opinions about revenge, “Those personalities, tend to be less forgiving, less benevolent and less focused on universal-connectedness-type values… If you live in a society where the rule of law is weak, revenge provides a way to keep order” (Ian McKee). Revenge can also effect people depending on their culture. Michele Gelfand and her collaborators Garriy Shteynberg and Kibum Kim have found that different events trigger the revenge process in different cultures. Their study showed that American students felt more offended when there rights were violated, and Korean students felt more offended when their sense of duty and obligation was threatened, "Revenge is more contagious in collectivist cultures” (Michele Gelfand). The emotions that fuel revenge is also different depending on the cultures. Anger often drives the antagonistic feelings of people in self absorbed cultures like the United States, where shame powers revenge in collectivist ones like China or Japan. A part of Martin Luther King’s speech is, "The old law of 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind” (Martin Luther King Jr.). The last study I want to look at is one by Kevin Carlsmith, a psychologist at Colgate University in Hamilton. Him and his colleagues Daniel Gilbert, PhD, at Harvard, and Timothy Wilson, PhD, at the University of Virginia got students to play an investment game where if everyone cooperated, everyone would benefit equally, If someone refused to invest, that person would largely benefit at the group’s expense. Before the game was played everyone said that they would all invest equally, but when it was time to play some students didn't corporate. the free riders, as Carlsmith calls the, earned an average of $5.59, where the other players earned about $2.51. Then Carlsmith offered some groups a way to get back at the free rider, they could spend some of their own earnings to financially punish the group’s betrayers. "Virtually everybody was angry over what happened to them, and everyone given the opportunity [for revenge] took it.” Carlsmith said. After that he then asked the groups who had been allowed to punish the free rider to predict how they'd feel if they hadn't been allowed to, and he asked the non-punishing groups how they thought they'd feel if they had. after getting the results Carlsmith seen that the punishers reported feeling worse than the non punishers, but predicted they would have felt even worse had they not been given the opportunity to punish. The non-punishers said they thought they would feel better if they'd had that opportunity for revenge—even though the survey identified them as the happier group, “In other words, both groups thought revenge would be sweet, but their own reported feelings agreed more with MLK Jr. than with Exodus” (Kevin Carlsmith).
In conclusion revenge is a big emotional attachment that can effect the human mind in very bad ways. With Michael Grey and the loss of his wife we seen how revenge got the best of him and made him do things he normally wouldn't do. In Butches case revenge seemed to lead him in to greater and greater trouble with Carlo and ultimately make him in more debt. In the real life scenarios that were tested by Ian McKee, Michele Gelfand, and Kevin Carlsmith, we seen that revenge can have different effects on different people depending on there attitudes, there culture and there fanatical results. Looking at all these different instances of revenge we can see that revenge in the book and revenge that was tested in real life are very similar and ultimately show that revenge drives humans and our world.