What goes around comes around. Although many of us believe in the basic Buddhist theory of Karma, we often fail to be patient and seek revenge on those who have hurt. Revenge works in a cycle, Transgression after transgression. As seen in Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Revenge in every aspect including its cycles and displacement can cause harm to the one seeking revenge, the target of the revenge, and innocent bystanders. With so many ways it can hurt, why would we even seek revenge against others?
To fully understand the effects of revenge and the reasons behind it we must first understand what revenge is. “Revenge is defined as “an aggressive, often violent, response to intentional harm that has been inflicted on the avengers and their
“Victims tend to view transgression and more harmful than do perpetrators.” (Witvlet, 446).The only thing they may ever feel is guilt. It doesn’t really hurt the perpetrators, but others may be affected in the avenger’s attempts to hurt them. This type of revenge is known as displaced revenge. “Displaced revenge can be defined as retributive reactions toward a prior transgression that are not directed against the original transgressor(s) but rather against uninvolved targets. “(Sjöström & Gollwitzer. 192). Although initially directed at the perpetrator revenge can hurt others, just like the way Hamlet unintentionally hurt Ophelia in Act 3 scene 1 of the play. He took out his frustrations and wanting to hurt his mother out on her and created a stereotype about all women because of it. “Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell.” (Shakesphere). Ophelia not even apart of him and his family’s issues felt the wrath and cruelty of his
“When a victim exacts revenge, the original perpetrator often perceives the revenge as greater than the original offense and may retaliate to settle the score, thereby perpetrating a vicious cycle of vengeance.” (Witvlet, 447). After the original victim revenge on the aggressor, the aggressor may return it with more wrongdoings and like in any cause and effect situation the initial action leads to more, hurting more and more people and the original aggressor still isn’t effected as much as the original victim. An example from Hamlet is in his attempts to hurt his uncle and playing crazy, his mother, Ophelia and Polonius all died, before him even to to hurt the king. Even then the king wasn’t really affected by any of these, but hamlet hurt more. “Cycles of revenge are exceedingly destructive, and, indeed, forgiveness can offer a way of terminating the cycle.” (Gower 116). If we would simply forgive wrongdoing against us, we would eliminate others feeling the same pain we felt or people uninvolved getting hurt. Like the bible verse Mark 11:25 says “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” Not only will we be forgiven in heaven, our lives here on earth will be way more
The definition of revenge: “to punish somebody who has harmed you or harmed a friend” (Revenge, web).
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
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.
Justice and revenge are two completely different things but are sometimes incorrectly used interchangeably. Many people get them confused with each other. Justice tends to be very rational, impartial, impersonal, and by definition fair. Whereas, revenge is emotional, personal, and generally people acting out based on their negative emotions. First, revenge tends to be much more brutal, where justice is more along the lines of moral correction and someone getting arrested for their wrong doings.
Revenge is a fairly strong emotion; it’s wanting to retaliate towards those who wronged you. Revenge is such an uncontrollable form of retaliation that it can result in a destructive outcome or be carried out successfully. Although the results may vary, revenge sums up to one thing which is pain of some sort, affecting both parties or just one. Throughout history, we see many tales of revenge and redemption. Often revenge does leave the one carrying it out feeling victorious, but this can suddenly change as the process of karma generally begins in some tales.
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 defined as harming someone for the wrong doings that they commit. Revenge is the key ingredient to hundreds of the most loved and action packed movies, books, and shows of today. Because of the fact that there is so much vengeance played out in entertainment media, society encourages revenge as necessary to those seeking retribution. Works of art such as Kill Bill and “Killings” are prime examples of stories that are about revenge.
In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare the theme of revenge is heavily embedded into its frame work, seeing it follows Prince Hamlet in his task of avenging the mysterious death of his father. After encountering the ghost of his father Hamlet was lead to suspect that his uncle Claudius, who took over as king of Denmark after marrying Hamlet’s widowed mother, was the father’s murder. So although by simple glance it may seem that Hamlet was in search for revenge throughout the play, Hamlet took many precautions to insure that the action of removing his uncle from power was truthfully deserved. So, Hamlet ultimately sought justice for the murder of his father, but through strong emotions hamlet did commit several uncivil acts that played an
The person at whom the revenge is directed may have harmed the person carrying out an act of revenge indirectly or not at all, but on some level there is a perceived personal grievance. An unaffected third party, on the other hand, can carry out Justice. In most developed countries it is considered vital that the judiciary be independent from the government, partly for this reason, which is justice also doesn't necessarily involve any act of retribution. For example, the “acquittal” of an innocent person can be considered an act of justice, but it certainly isn't reveng... ... middle of paper ... ...
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.
It is the idea of revenge that sends a cool shiver down the spines of justly men when they begin to question as to why someone would stoop to such a level. But yet it is still more than an idea for revenge has been carried out in various forms along all the eras of history side-by-side of that of novels and tragedies. Even so, revenge is still a dark scheme; an evil plague of the mind per se. It is such a plague that will turn even the greatest persons of the brightest, optimistically capable of minds into lowly, as well as lonely, individuals. Thus, revenge will, and can, only end in despair and agony of the mind. Therefore, provided that all that has been said is true, revenge would appear quite unseemly to the observant onlooker. However, taking an in-depth insight into revenge you can uncover quite a compelling feature, which is best summed up into one word. Pride. Pride is the one clear motivational proprietor needed to push a protagonist into the downward spiral of personal vendetta. Without pride, revenge is no more than a mindless massacre of flesh and bone ending in the obliteration of any hope for reconciliation.
Revenge almost always has the makings of an intriguing and tragic story. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a perfect example of how revenge unfolds and what it unveils. The play tells the story of Hamlet, the prince of Denmark. Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle, marries his mother soon after his father’s death. Hamlet greatly disapproves of the hasty marriage and suspects foul play. His suspicions are confirmed when the ghost of his father appears and tells him that Claudius murdered him. Hamlet’s father asks him to take revenge upon Claudius, and soon everything takes a drastic change. The courses of revenge throughout Hamlet surround each character with corruption, obsession, and fatality.
I do agree that revenge does have an effect on the story, but not as strong as conflict does. An example is the plot that follows the battle of Hamlet and Claudius. Hamlet wants revenge on Claudius, killing his father (Shakespeare, 39). Claudius wants Hamlet out of the picture in any way possible before that kid spoils his plan. That conflict, that revenge, that fight between them causes events like people dying or Hamlet gets shipped away.
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?