Revenge in the Contemporary Society - Assignment Example

Revenge Revenge in the contemporary society is the act of responding to a grievance directed against an individualor a group and it is normally an action that is harmful to the person it is hurled at. Others refer to it as vengeance, retaliation, or payback. Some may refer to it as a form of wild justice in the aspect that it is the altruistic act that enforces justice apart from the normal justice system. Most societies argue that payback through revenge should be more than the actual injury that results from revenge. The two artistic pieces that is the film about Titus and the play of Titus Andronicus are good pieces of work to demonstrate what revenge can be in the aspect of the society. Shakespeare presents two pieces of artwork of Titus and Titus Andronicus who appears as a sordid tale of blood thirsty revenge in political turmoil. The pieces of work present a turbulent scenario characterized with massive blood flows and unthinkable brutality. In the process of affecting the revenge, countless murders are reported, rape and terrible actions of fierce mutilation. Generally, the characters in both pieces of work of Titus Andronicus are the Romans and the vital captives that found their way to the Roman Empire after the ten-year war with the Goths. This integrated the Goth’s queen, Tamara, and her family members who were the painful bearers of the cold brutal murders, hence, creating the theme of revenge (Shakespeare 232). Shakespeare presents this theme as a plot in one of his earlier works which do not appear to be popular as the pieces of work are viewed as excessively violent which, in my opinion, appear to be the best setting for the theme. The story is quite powerful and juicy as moving though is not that dynamic as one may wish a play to be. Titus Andronicus is a Roman general, who is in charge with leadership position in the army that fights the Goths and defeats them in cruel and bloody war. Before the war is finished Titus wants to execute the son of the queen of Goths, Tamara, who pleads for the mercy for her son as it is normally said that the pain of childbirth should be enquired from the mother. Titus though defies the pleas of the mother and goes ahead to kill Tamara’s son anyway (Shakespeare 157). After the bloody killing of Tamara’s sons by Titus, the queen swears to revenge on Titus’ kingdom and initiates a total blood bath. Tamara convinces the emperor of Rome to marry her, which paves her way into being excessively powerful. In collusion with her lover, who is a Moor named Aaron, the queen plans a bloody murder of two sons of Titus. In addition, she also plans for the daughter of Titus to be raped, her tongue cut out, and hands cut off.. In addition, the revenge by the queen entailed to compel Titus through a forced ransom of his son to sacrifice one of his hands after Aaron returned the heads of his sons to him. Titus ultimately kills both Aaron and Tamara in another brutal attack with the aim of revenge (Shakespeare 280-300). With respect to the definition of revenge the impacts of actual revenge should be qualified to be more than the actual injury; actually revenge, as viewed in the past, signifies the seek for justice outside the courts. As observed above, Titus attacks the queen Tamara, kills her daughter and makes Tamara hit back through disabling the sons and eventually killing them. In another revenge mission, Titus comes back even in a bigger way to sweep out Tamara in totality. Tamara’s act of revenge seems to be bigger than Titus’s initial and final acts of revenge. The play of Titus Andronicus depicts and clearly shows the utter rage by Titus and the horrific level of his response. This rage brings out the need for purification or release of such a society characterized by revenge as it was depicted by Aristotle. The violence witnessed on both sides, that initiated by queen Tamara and that of Titus, was unspeakable. The rage of the queen is quite understood as the execution of her son by Titus after the war was useless for him (Shakespeare 212). There is something terrible about the brutality with which Titus had to execute his revenge upon Tamara’s two sons and her daughter. The film and the play clearly show that any act of evil doing never goes unpunished. At the end of the play, it is observed that both Tamara and Aaron were punished for the evil acts they had inflicted upon the innocent people. This was inevitable act of justice executed in an extremely harsh way. From the play and film, several forms of conflict can be realized as presented in the theme of revenge. In the process of revenge, two or more parties face the conflict of interest with unpredictable consequences. A conflict again arises when Tamara falls in love with Aaron with a subsequent objective of elevating her to that point of power which would afford her to make revenge on Titus. The question as to whether a father should kill her daughter after she has been raped presents another point of conflict. The play and the film are, hence, good points of reference to clarify both themes of revenge and conflict. Work Cited Shakespeare, William. Titus Andronicus and Timon of Athens:Two Classical Plays. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Print. Read More