Mark Mathabane, a native South African, was subject to Apartheid. After Apartheid was lifted, there was talk of violence against the whites. In The Cycle of Revenge Can Be Broken, Mathabane writes “Guns, bombs, and tanks cannot defeat hatred. It can be vanquished only by humanity”. I agree with his claim, but also think that not wanting to do the things done to oneself to other people also influences people to be able to overcome hatred and revenge.
Mathabane overcame revenge by seeing the humanity in white people. In The Cycle of Revenge Can Be Broken, Mathabane tells a story about a nun who cared about his family: “My mother had been repeatedly denied a birth certificate for me -- a necessary document for school registration -- because she did not have a permit proving that our family had a right to live in Alexandra. But we couldn't get the permit without the birth certificate. My mother asked a white nun for help. When she realized the Catch-22 my mother was trapped in, the nun cried. I remember being stunned by her tears, for they were the first I'd ever seen streak a white face. I remember saying to myself: ''She feels my mother's pain. She's human after all, not a monster.''” In this story, he saw that this white nun had empathy-she cared about him and his problem. This was nothing like the white policeman, who were cold, hard, and devoid of empathy. He realized that exacting his revenge on all white folk would mean killing people like the nun, who cared about black people and were probably against Apartheid. Also, if he started killing white people in “white homes, kindergartens, shopping centers, schools, buses, and playgrounds”, then wouldn’t he be worse than the policeman also killing people?
By seeing the hu...
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...ey be any better than Nazis? The entire Holocaust happened because Hitler blamed Germany’s loss in World War I on the Jews, and wanted revenge. Some of you may be thinking, “The Jew should take revenge”. If the Holocaust never happened, and the Jews randomly killed innocent Germans, (like what the Africans in South Africa could have done after Apartheid was lifted), wouldn’t that have been considered evil, horrible, and inhumane? But as revenge, acts like this seem acceptable.
People can quench their thirst for revenge by not wanting to cause the pain on others caused to them. Also, revenge can be overcome by, as Mark Mathabane writes, “It [hatred] can be vanquished only by humanity”. Hatred will only cause more hatred, creating increasingly more and more pain and instability for everybody. The only way this cycle can be broken is through peace and forgiveness.
While revenge may feel sweet at times, in most cases it is destructive to yourself and those around you. The article “Revenge:Will You Feel Better?” makes one contemplate this, and draws the question “is revenge really worth it?” Well, in the article, Karyn Hall suggests that “Revenge can be a strong urge, but you may not feel better if you act on it.” In fact, in a study performed by Kevin Carlsmith showed that “...the students that got revenge reported feeling worse than those who didn't…” With this, one may see that revenge is pointless, and in most cases leaves you feeling worse than the people you performed it
Through this, I come to my conclusion that the desire to enact vengeance is just too great for the Characters to overcome, sometimes even so much that they do not bother making peace with their opponents. The desire of revenge is common amongst everyone, what we call a monster and what we call a human. Think this though, if Grendel, his mother, and the dragon (what we would classify as beasts) have a slightly lower, but generally same, ability to keep peace, then what does that say about the others involved in revenge?
For the meek, vengeance pleasures the soul; however, it is only temporal. Like an addictive drug, revenge soothes anger and tension by sedating the mind with ephemeral comfort. Despite the initial relief, pain ensues and conditions seem worse than before. Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of the non-violence movement in India, stated once that “an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” There is no such thing as a sweet revenge.
revenge and revenge and revenge will never come to an end...” (210). Because he had seen first
In today's world, vengeance is still in existence, bubbling below our calm facade, waiting for the catalyst it needs to break loose. Evidence can be seen right now in the reactions of the American people towards Bin Laden. He destroyed so many lives, and now, there is probably not one American that would not love to get their minute alone with him. The American people want to hurt him the way he and his followers hurt their fellow Americans, their family. This hunger for vengeance is completely Dionysian and is found in more than one written work.
Everyone thought slavery was horrific but what Hitler did to the Jewish community was just as bad, if not, worse. A lot of us are oblivious to what really happened; the Jews were just another minority that got the short end of the stick. Millions of innocent Jews died due to Hitler and his rules.
The action of inflicting harm on someone for a wrong suffered at their hands is known as revenge. Revenge is a natural human instinct and it can be displayed in many different ways. People want to get back at others who have wronged them, this either happens quickly or it becomes a long process. In the epic poem Beowulf, revenge is taken when Grendel and Grendel’s mother attack the Herot and when Beowulf kills Grendel’s mother and the dragon; this is also prevalent in today’s society when opposing gang members kill each other, when people are oppressed by their government, and when a country or group retaliates to attacks.
Revenge is best served cold or so says the well-known expression. This idea of revenge that they seek is usually to restore balance and take an “eye for an eye” as the Bible says. Revenge, if by chance everyone were in Plato’s perfect utopia, would be in a perfect form, where justice and revenge would be one, and the coined phrase “eye for an eye” would be taken literally. By taking an eye for and eye, and punishing those who did wrong equally as they did wrong, there is justice. However, this revenge sometimes goes too far and is consequently not justice.
Revenge is to inflict punishment for injury or an insult, but those that seek revenge end up hurting themselves according to Sir Francis Bacon. Bacon claims “This is certain, that a man consumed for a desire for revenge keeps his own wounds open which otherwise would heal”, Bacon believes that instead of people letting their hatred go they hold on to causing them to want to seek revenge more and well hurt themselves. A person seeking revenge may get even with the enemy, but also hurt themselves in the process. Keeping hatred inside and living in the past just wastes life away. Bacon’s ideas of revenge are expressed in Romeo and Juliet, The Interlopers, and the song Present Tense.
Norms of Revenge. 4. Blackwell Publisher, 1990. 862. eBook. . Bar-elli, G. and Heyd, D. (1986), Can revenge be just or otherwise justified?.
Throughout history, revenge, or vengeance, has been altered by several cultures and even the American culture. This is shown throughout many ancient greek epics. Throughout these two epics, what is just revenge and what the action of revenge is are much different than what Revenge is seen through today’s society. Revenge is the main theme in The Iliad, with Achilles’ revenge on Agamemnon and Hector, and in The Odyssey, with Poseidon’s revenge on Odysseus and Odysseus’s revenge on the Suitors, and these epics define how revenge was seen in the ancient Greek world.
Revenge is such an enormous part of a being human. It is something that no matter how much you try to avoid part of you will persistently lust for it. When you are hurt in any way your natural instinct will always tell you to make the one who hurt you feel just as bad if not worse as how you felt. It is such a natural and powerful feeling, that when revenge is incorporated into a story it makes it so much stronger. Revenge will make you see so many more sides of characters and make them seem much more complex. Revenge can give fictional characters a more human quality. That is why so many writers use it as their theme.
“Those who plot the destruction of others often fall themselves” (Phaedrus). This quote was said by a Roman fabulist and it depicts the entire concept of revenge in Hamlet. The nature of revenge causes someone to act upon anger rather than reason. Hamlet takes place in Denmark and is about Hamlet’s uncle who kills his dad to gain power of Denmark. After the killing, Hamlet seeks revenge on his uncle. In the play, there are several characters wanting vengeance like that of Hamlet. Throughout the play, Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras all had a tragic death of a family member which caused their decision for revenge. Consequentially, these revenges caused the demise of two characters and the rise of power of another. The retaliation shown by the Prince of Denmark, as well as Laertes led to the downfall of their government.
Taking revenge is a bitter sweet thing. I have always thought that people should always get what they desire, whether it be a grade, a smile and hug or in some cases, revenge. When I was in high school there seemed to be someone always trying to get me in trouble, they would say things that wouldn’t be true or do things to make me look bad. The fact that I never seemed to do anything to them would make me mad and wonder what I could do to get them back. Revenge would usually come in some sort of verbal put down or I would try to physically hurt them. It always seemed when I would get the revenge right away I would feel really good but as I thought about what I did, and what they did to me I would always feel guilty or wish I would have never done anything to them in return.
People can be motivated to take revenge on others for various reasons. While these reasons may be considered as very serious or rather trivial, they are all motives for revenge. Revenge occurs when a person has been offended or angered by an individual and in result they have the desire to pay them back. People’s opinions on revenge differ from each other, some may believe it is justified and some don’t. Mahatma Ghandi believed that revenge is not the answer and he stated that “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. This quote portrays the opinion that if everyone gets even then there will be no one else; if we all take an eye for an eye everyone would be blind. Revenge can be learnt through real life experiences as well as fiction and can be shown as justice or unacceptable. It becomes difficult to determine when revenge can be justified but is revenge always worth it?