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Edited by

Sheila C. Bibb & Daniel Escandell Montiel


Best Served Cold
Probing the Boundaries

Series Editors
Dr Robert Fisher
Dr Daniel Riha

Advisory Board

Dr Alejandro Cervantes-Carson Dr Peter Mario Kreuter


Professor Margaret Chatterjee Martin McGoldrick
Dr Wayne Cristaudo Revd Stephen Morris
Mira Crouch Professor John Parry
Dr Phil Fitzsimmons Paul Reynolds
Professor Asa Kasher Professor Peter Twohig
Owen Kelly Professor S Ram Vemuri
Revd Dr Kenneth Wilson, O.B.E

A Probing the Boundaries research and publications project.


http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/

The Persons Hub


‘Revenge’

2010
Best Served Cold:
Studies on Revenge

Edited by

Sheila C. Bibb & Daniel Escandell Montiel

Inter-Disciplinary Press
Oxford, United Kingdom
© Inter-Disciplinary Press 2010
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ISBN: 978-1-84888-043-6
First published in the United Kingdom in eBook format in 2010. First Edition.
Table of Contents
Introduction vii
Sheila C. Bibb & Daniel Escandell Montiel

PART I Historical and Philosophical Perspectives

Aristotle on the Purpose of Revenge 3


Krissana M. Scheiter

Dead before Breakfast: The English Gentleman 13


and Honour Affronted
Stephen Banks

The Anthropology of Revenge, Ancestral Wrath: 23


A Modern Day Dilemma?
Sheila C. Bibb

‘If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you’: Primal 31


Injury and Revenge in the Ghost Stories of M.R. James
Terry Scarborough

PART II Literature and Poe-Tic Revenge

The Mixed-Blood Settles Scores: The Question of 41


Racial Justice in Georges by Alexandre Dumas
Claudie Bernard

Analysing Darker Motives of Delving Robert Browning’s 49


‘Poetry of Revenge’
Paula Guimarães

The Servant as an Agent of Retributive and Restorative 61


Justice in Wuthering Heights
Esra Melikoğlu

A Self-Destructive Path to Dead End: An Exploration on 71


Revenge in Wuthering Heights
Kuo-Ping Claudia Tai

Montresor and Hop-Frog Strike Back: Poe’s Never-Ending 79


Poetics of Revenge
Marta Miquel-Baldellou
PART III Revenge in the Arts and around the Globe

The Involuntary Casualties of Revenge in Alan 91


Ayckbourn’s The Revengers’ Comedies
Iwona Bojarska

Revenge, American Cinema and Framing the Decade 97


of the 1970s
William Gombash, III

Maternal Revenge and Redemption in Postfeminist 105


Rape-Revenge Cinema
Claire Henry

Revenge as Cultural Catharsis in Moya Henderson’s 115


Opera Lindy
Timothy McKenry

PART IV Various Perspectives on Revenge

The Writer Seeking Vengeance: Blognovelism and 127


Its Relationship with Literary Critics
Daniel Escandell Montiel

Treatment of Vengeance in Ferdowsi’s The Shahnameh: 137


Book of Kings
Leyli Jamali

Unlikely Heroines: Self-Destructive Sexuality and 145


Narrative Identity-Building in the Fiction of
Joyce Carol Oates
Jenaeth Markaj

Experiences of Revenge as Reflected in the Contemporary 153


Pashto Short Story
Anders Widmark
Introduction

Sheila C. Bibb & Daniel Escandell Montiel


This volume is based on a collection of papers that were presented at Inter-
Disciplinary.Net’s 1st Global Conference on Revenge. This three day Conference,
held in Oxford, UK during July 2010, together with this publication, forms part of
a broader Probing the Boundaries project facilitated by Inter-Disciplinary.Net.
This project seeks to explore various aspects of the nature of Persons and their
experiences and in this instance focuses on concepts and applications of revenge.
The conference attracted participants from a wide range of countries and
disciplines, both from within and outside academia, all of whom have a
professional interest in this subject.
Revenge as a concept evokes many differing responses and has been the subject
of much debate. One of the chief areas of disagreement lies in deciding what
constitutes revenge, what constitutes justice and what determines the line between
the two. While cultural beliefs and traditions may play a large part in determining
this, it became clear as delegates presented their papers that there are often other
factors at play as well. Additionally, the ways in which revenge may manifest itself
are also many and varied. Whether it is through the manipulation of events in order
to humiliate and shame the person believed to have in some way wronged another,
or the use of Art to publicly and collectively re-educate a segment of society, the
prime concern of the person seeking revenge is often thought to be a need to vent
their own feelings and so maintain their honour and social standing. However, this
is not always the motive and it became clear from this conference that to think of
revenge only in these terms is both limiting and inaccurate. Not only does it affect
the way we think about revenge and our response to it, but it also prevents us from
recognizing some of the many guises which revenge may adopt. An open and
questioning approach allows us to consider notions, constructions and arguments
which are not at first obvious. It also allows us to weigh these alternatives in a
cross-cultural setting. Diversity was, therefore, a major factor in the success of the
conference, both in terms of the subject matter covered and in the regions and
disciplines represented. We are delighted to be able to present here their collective
works.
The papers, which form this eBook, cover a wide and varied array of topics. In
order to build on the conclusions reached and support the hypothesis that revenge
is a subject, which would benefit greatly from a detailed and ongoing discussion,
the papers have been grouped together into four sections, each with a common
theme. PART I investigates some of the basic concepts of revenge as it considers
both historical and philosophical perspectives. This is followed by PART II that
looks at Literature and considers revenge as both an instrument and a subject in
various acclaimed works. The emphasis in these examples is on the individual.
PART III expands on this theme to show how revenge is incorporated into the
viii Introduction
__________________________________________________________________
world of the Arts, often as a means of facilitating a collective act of revenge.
Finally, PART IV is devoted to other perspectives, particularly those involving
writing, either in other parts of the world or within cyberspace. In each of these
instances the subject matter presents a unique example of revenge and some less
obvious ways in which it manifests itself.
As stated above, the first part of this book focuses on various historical and
philosophical perspectives which set a background for understanding not only
some of the general concepts and considerations regarding the topic of revenge but
also context for the specific examples under discussion. In the first paper Krisanna
M. Scheiter examines Aristotle’s contention that revenge is analogous to
punishment. Contending that rather than destroy the offender, revenge is actually a
means to bring about justice and ensure that in the future the perpetrator does not
repeat the offense, Scheiter’s work leads naturally into the second paper. Presented
by Stephen Banks, the focus here is on the restoration of honour and social status.
Examining the English honour culture, and specifically the obligations placed on
gentlemen to defend both honour and status by issuing a challenge to a duel, he
argues that duelling was a highly nuanced activity encompassing both the desire
for revenge and a means to divert it into a system of reparation. In the third paper,
Sheila C. Bibb offers an anthropological insight into revenge as she considers the
dilemmas faced by those who have a belief in the Ancestors and their continued
influence over the living. Using examples from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, she
shows that the need to maintain both honour and status as well as avoid the
vengeance too often wreaked as a result of ancestral wrath, can pose great
challenges in a modern world. PART I concludes with a paper by Terry
Scarborough which examines further the perceived role of ghosts in mediating fear
as he analyses primal vengeance and reprisal as it is reflected in the ghost stories of
M.R. James. All four authors reach similar conclusions, each arguing that revenge,
while intimately bound with notions of honour and social status, also encompasses
very nuanced cultural responses.
Embracing the literary theme introduced at the end of the first section, PART II
examines very specific examples of revenge in literature. Entitled ‘Literature and
Poe-tic Revenge’, the section begins with Claudie Bernard’s examination of racial
justice in Alexandre Dumas’ book, Georges. Focusing on the failure of Georges to
‘kill the colour prejudice’, this paper shows how heroic intentions and models may
paradoxically thwart expressed desires for equality, honour and status. The second
paper in this section analyses Robert Browning’s ‘Poetry of Revenge’. Written by
Paula Guimarães, this paper contrasts the more usual Victorian literary approach of
extolling noble and virtuous passions and actions with Browning’s deliberate use
of evil characters in his poetry. She argues that by channelling the voice of a
character, Browning is able to explore evil without actually being evil himself.
This device allows him to question the responsibility of the artist in his creations
and to also investigate the relationship between art and morality. These themes are
Sheila C. Bibb & Daniel Escandell Montiel ix
__________________________________________________________________
arguably explored further in the next two papers, both dealing with Emily Brontë’s
book, Wuthering Height’s. Esra Melikoğlu focuses on class-division and the role of
the servant as Nemesis and agent for retribution. She argues that the dialogue
between victim and offender acts as revenge but is meted out proportionately and
as a prelude to reconciliation. In this way the future concept of restorative justice
and social reform is hinted at but never attained. Kuo-Ping Claudia Thai, in her
examination of this same novel, focuses on the self-destructive element which so
often is associated with acts of revenge. Highlighting the way in which Heathcliff
realizes the absurdity of his existence – a life lived not for living but for
meaningless revenge – she argues that the power of revenge can unexpectedly and
instantly transform and dissolve; in this case death is his only way out. The final
paper in this section is Marta Miquel-Baldellou’s interpretation of two works by
Edgar Allan Poe – The Cask of Amontillado and Hop-Frog. Exploring the by now
familiar themes of deception, both of the intended victim and often of self, the
perpetrators of revenge in these two instances are demonstrated to be parallel texts
reflecting the circulatory nature of revenge apparent in many literary works,
namely, the victim of revenge invariably reflects the self the avenger seeks to
destroy. It is this recurring theme of the juxtaposition between justice and revenge,
between victim and avenger which is further explored in the next section of this
book, as we move from literature specifically to the wider spectrum offered by a
consideration of the Arts.
PART III begins with what may be thought of as a transition piece as Iwona
Bojarska delves into the machinations recorded in Alan Ayckbourn’s The
Revengers’ Comedies. Once more exploring the relationship between victim and
avenger, Bojarska adds another dimension to our understanding as she investigates
and demonstrates that revenge is bound to terminally affect not just the avengers
and their targets but also frequently traps outside agents in the process and
sacrifices them as well. While this example focuses on individuals and those
immediately involved with them, William Gombash III turns our attention to the
wider nature of political motives and cultural stereotypes which frame the public
attitude. He does this by examining the role of American cinema and its popular
1970’s revenge genre in framing the political discourse prevalent at that time, in
relation to victimhood and exploitation. Focusing on films such as Dirty Harry and
Death Wish, which symbolically frame heroes, locales and enemies within
traditional parameters, he shows how the mass media adapted their message to
promote American values of law, order and vengeance. Contemporary versions of
this same genre, in the form of Postfeminist Rape-Revenge Cinema such as Kill
Bill Vol 1 & 2 and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance are discussed by Claire Henry
who argues that revenge is never just revenge for rape. There is always a maternal
construction which serves to both justify the acts of vengeance and at the same
time results in an ambivalence towards revenge. The final paper in this section is
by Timothy McKenry and takes us from film to the world of Australian opera.
x Introduction
__________________________________________________________________
Lindy, an opera by Moya Henderson retells the true story of Lindy Chamberlain, a
mother accused of murdering her baby daughter. Her eventual exoneration makes
possible this opera, which acts as a form of ‘cultural revenge’ giving one section of
society the opportunity to punish, marginalize and re-educate another. McKenry
posits that Lindy actually represents a cultural tool enabling catharsis through
vengeance. In all these instances the authors show us that revenge rarely affects
just the individuals directly involved but frequently includes outside agents and
society. It is this collective aspect, which can add a further dimension and can lead
to tragedy or catharsis.
The final section, PART IV, brings together various additional perspectives.
Starting with a contemporary literary genre – the blognovel, Daniel Escandell
Montiel’s analysis of a new form of relationship between the writer, the reader and
the critic reveals a three-way charade between blogs into the cyberspace. Featuring
Hernán Casciari’s blognovel Más respeto que soy tu madre, and the criticism
levelled at it by a literary critic in his own blog, we are introduced to a new way of
exacting personal revenge as the unwary critic is cast as an unfavourable character
in the blognovel. Turning from the contemporary to an ancient historical writing,
The Shahnameh: Book of Kings, Leyli Jamali exposes the different kinds of
vengeance and revenge, which connect its events as the warrior-heroes battle for
truthfulness. Identifying vengeance with passion, with justice, with moral values
and authority, and also with honour all give credibility to the act. She notes,
however, that this credibility ceases when revenge is seen to be nothing more than
a hostile response in favour of evil forces. As she traces the logic and motivation
behind the various acts described in the writing, it again becomes clear that
vengeance and revenge have many guises and are not simple to understand or
explain. Jenæth Markaj addresses this in a different manner as she examines the
notions of both self-destructive sexuality and narrative identity-building found in
the fiction of Joyce Carol Oates. The apparent passivity of Oates’ female
characters frequently draws criticism from feminists yet this ignores the power of
narration as a cathartic process. While the deliberate and triumphant act of revenge
may be fulfilling to both the reader and the protagonist, the argument here is that
the refusal to rebel or conform to the expected outburst of revenge – taking actually
facilitates a more substantive form of retaliation, as there is a redefinition of
personal identity. This then gives rise to an understated but powerful testament of
self and effectively destroys revenge in its more familiar form as the woman in fact
gains revenge by her very refusal to engage with it. Staying with literature, but this
time the short story genre found among the Pashtun of Afghanistan, Anders
Widmark explores how the concept of revenge is formulated within this type of
text. Seeking answers as to whether revenge in this situation is narrated according
to its traditional denotation of ‘defending honour’ or if a more neutral or
materialistic type of revenge may be discerned, Widmark also considers whether
revenge is a typical characteristic of Pashtun life or not.
Sheila C. Bibb & Daniel Escandell Montiel xi
__________________________________________________________________
While Anders Widmark’s paper concludes the current consideration of this
topic it is apparent that this has been very much an introduction to revenge, not an
encompassing and final determination. The success of the 1st Global Conference
on Revenge and the fact that there are still many more dimensions of the subject to
explore leads us to hope that future gatherings will be similarly successful. By
broadening the discussion of revenge and deepening the discussions that have
already begun we believe it will be possible to better understand not only revenge
as a subject but also its impact and ramifications within all aspects of life. We are
therefore proud to present this volume as the first instalment in what we hope will
be a complete series dedicated to the subject of revenge.
PART I

Historical and Philosophical Perspectives


Aristotle on the Purpose of Revenge

Krisanna M. Scheiter
Abstract
Aristotle defines anger as a desire for revenge aroused by an intentional and
undeserved slight. His remarks on revenge are scattered throughout his corpus
causing many commentators to overlook or oversimplify his account of revenge.
Stocker and Hegeman, for example, claim that for Aristotle the purpose of revenge
is to make the offender suffer and take pleasure in his suffering. David Konstan
claims that the purpose of revenge is to restore one’s sense of honour and social
status. Both these claims are correct, but the main purpose of revenge for Aristotle,
I argue, is to restore justice and ensure that we are not mistreated by the offender in
the future. I begin by showing that for Aristotle revenge entails three things. First,
we desire to cause the offender pain; second, we want the offender to know that we
are the cause of his pain; and third, we want him to know that we are causing him
pain because he mistreated us. If the purpose of revenge was merely to take
pleasure in the offender’s suffering, these last two criteria would be unnecessary. I
further show that the desire for revenge is not a desire to destroy or ruin the
offender. Killing another person or ruining their reputation would be an act of
hatred, according to Aristotle, not revenge. This is an important point and one that
many contemporary philosophers writing on revenge have failed to make. For
Aristotle, revenge is analogous to punishment. We punish people for stealing so
that they will refrain from stealing in the future. Similarly, we seek revenge
because we believe the offender wronged us; we want to cause him pain so that he
will not wrong us in the future.

Key Words: Aristotle, revenge, anger, punishment, justice, injustice, honour,


slighting, orge, hate.

*****

Introduction
There is a tendency in contemporary Western culture to view revenge as
immoral, even irrational.1 Jon Elster, for example, claims that revenge is not
compatible with reason or goal-oriented behaviour because it ‘involves only costs
and risks, no benefits’ (862).2 Suzanne Uniacke claims that revenge is wrong
because it is motivated by resentment, rather than moral indignation (67).3
Aristotle, however, comes from a culture where revenge is often the norm, and so
he has a much different perspective.4 In the Nicomachean Ethics he claims that
there are times when it is virtuous and rational to desire revenge (EN IV.5,
1125b33-1126a8).5 In order to understand how revenge can be both moral and
4 Aristotle on the Purpose of Revenge
__________________________________________________________________
rational we must figure out what Aristotle considers to be the purpose of revenge,
which is the task of this paper.
Stocker and Hegeman claim that for Aristotle the purpose of revenge is to make
the offender suffer and take pleasure in his suffering (282). David Konstan claims
that the purpose of revenge is to restore one’s honour and reputation. Both claims
are correct, but neither one captures what I take to be the ultimate goal of revenge
(114). In this paper I argue that the aim of revenge for Aristotle is not simply the
suffering of the other person or saving face in front of other people; rather the
purpose of revenge is to right a wrong and to ensure that we are not treated unjustly
in the future.
I begin by discussing Aristotle’s account of slighting, which he claims gives
rise to our desire for revenge. We desire revenge when we think that we have been
undeservedly and intentionally slighted. In the second section I give two reasons
why the purpose of revenge cannot be just the suffering of another person and I
argue instead that revenge is aimed at protecting oneself against injustice, restoring
one’s sense of self worth by making sure that the wrongdoer does not slight one in
the future. In the final section I claim that revenge is not just a form of punishment,
but it is closely related to punishment in that it can be both rational and moral.

1. Anger and Slights


Aristotle defines anger as ‘a desire accompanied by pain, for a conspicuous
revenge for a conspicuous slight at the hands of men who have no call to slight
oneself or one’s friends’ (Rhetoric II.2, 1378a31-32). He has a much narrower
account of anger than we do today. We talk about getting angry when our loved
ones die, when social injustices go unpunished, or when natural disasters destroy
our material possessions. For Aristotle, however, orge, the Greek word translated
as ‘anger’, refers only to the kind of anger that arises when we believe that we have
been unfairly and intentionally slighted by someone whom we think ought to treat
us well (Rh. II.2, 1378a31-32).6
A slight, according to Aristotle, is ‘the actively entertained opinion of
something as obviously no importance’ (Rh. II.2, 1378b10). He divides slights into
three categories: contempt, spite and insolence. Contempt is treating another
person disrespectfully. He explains that we get angry ‘with those who reply with
humorous levity when we are speaking seriously, for such behaviour indicates
contempt’ (Rh. II.2, 1379b31-32). Reversely, we do not get angry ‘towards those
who are serious when we are serious, because then we feel that we are treated
seriously and not contemptuously’ (Rh. II.3, 1380a25-27). We also get angry ‘with
those who treat us less well than they treat everybody else; it is another mark of
contempt that they should think we do not deserve what everyone else deserves’
(Rh. II.2, 1379b33-34). By not taking someone seriously or treating someone
unequally we are sending a message to the person that he or she is unworthy. In
Krisanna M. Scheiter 5
__________________________________________________________________
short, treating someone contemptuously means failing to give that person the
respect and honour he or she deserves.
Spite, the second form of slighting, ‘is a thwarting another man’s wishes not to
get what you want but to prevent his getting it’ (Rh. II.2, 1378b17-18). An
example of spite would be a schoolyard bully who takes another child’s lunch and
then throws it on the ground. His motivation for taking the lunch is simply to slight
and humiliate the other child. The bully does not believe that the other kid will
fight back or tattle to the teacher or be any benefit to him whatsoever. If he did he
would not take the other child’s lunch.
The last form of slighting is insolence, which Aristotle claims ‘consists in doing
and saying things that cause shame to the victim, not in order that anything may
happen to yourself, or because anything has happened to yourself, but simply for
the pleasure involved’ (Rh. II.2, 1378B23-25). He claims that the ‘cause of the
pleasure thus enjoyed by the insolent man is that he thinks himself greatly superior
to others when ill-treating them’ (Rh. II.2, 1378b27-28). Insolence is different from
spite in that insolence is aimed at causing the other person shame, whereas spite is
keeping the other person from getting what he wants. Aristotle notes that one ‘sort
of insolence is to rob people of the honour due to them; you certainly slight them
thus; for it is the unworthy, for good or evil, that has no honour paid to it’
(1378b29-31). Insolence involves making ourselves feel superior and deserving of
honour when in reality we are not superior and do not deserve to be honoured.
In sum, a slight entails treating someone as if they are of no consequence.
Failing to take someone seriously, keeping someone from getting what he wants or
refusing to recognize another person’s excellence, accomplishments or status are
different ways of disrespecting the other person.
For Aristotle, slights are a special kind of injustice. Slights involve a failure to
adhere to certain social expectations and this is a form of injustice on his account.
He claims that ‘it is by proportionate requital that the city holds together. Men seek
to return either evil for evil—and if they cannot do so, think their position mere
slavery’ (EN V.5, 1132b34-1133a2). In the Nicomachean Ethics he claims that
there are two different kinds of justice. On the one hand, there is justice in its
entirety, which involves following the mean and exercising the virtues of character
(EN V.3). But there is a sub-category of justice, which Aristotle explains is
equality or proportion (EN V.3). He claims that an unjust act is ‘assigning too
much to oneself of things good in themselves and too little of things evil in
themselves’ (V.6, 1134a35-b1). When someone commits a slight they are
overestimating their own worth while at the same time undervaluing the other
person. Aristotle further explains that some things are just by nature, while other
things are just by law or custom (V.7 1134b32). Killing may be unjust by nature
whereas paying respect to one’s superiors is just through law or custom (V.7,
1134b16-17).7 For Aristotle it doesn’t matter whether something is just by nature
6 Aristotle on the Purpose of Revenge
__________________________________________________________________
or by law or custom. As a consequence, slighting may be only violating a social
norm, but for Aristotle it is still an injustice.

2. The Pleasure of Revenge


Aristotle describes emotions, like anger, as pleasures or pains.8 Anger, he
claims, is both painful and pleasurable. Perceiving a slight is painful and gives rise
to our desire for revenge, which he claims is pleasurable. He explains that revenge
is pleasurable insofar as ‘it is pleasant to think that you will attain what you aim at’
(Rh. II.2, 1378b2). Aristotle states that the desire for revenge is ‘attended by a
certain pleasure because the thoughts dwell upon the act of vengeance, and the
images then called up cause pleasure, like the images called up in dreams’ (Rh.
II.2, 1378b8-10). In other words, the desire for revenge is pleasurable because
revenge itself is pleasurable.
The question, of course, is what makes revenge pleasurable? Stocker and
Hegeman claim that the desire for revenge is ‘a childish desire of angry men to
repay in kind the pain they suffered’ (282). They quote the beginning of the
Nicomachean Ethics where Aristotle claims that ‘every action and choice, is
thought to aim at some good’ (EN I.1, 1094a2). They argue that the ‘good aimed at
in anger is the suffering of the other’ (283). Thus, on their account it is the
suffering of the other person that we find pleasurable when we get revenge. There
are two reasons, however, why this cannot be how Aristotle conceives of the aim
of revenge
First of all, if the suffering of the other person is the purpose of revenge, then it
does not matter how the suffering of the other person comes about. But based on
Aristotle’s scattered remarks on revenge it does seem to matter how the suffering
of the other person occurs. Successful revenge requires three things. First revenge
requires that the person who is slighted be the cause of the wrongdoer’s pain.
Aristotle claims that we do not get angry, i.e. desire revenge, ‘if we think that the
offender will not see that he is punished on our account and because of the way he
has treated us’ (Rh. II.3, 1380b20). Moreover, he states that ‘no one grows angry
with a person on whom there is no prospect of taking revenge, and we feel
comparatively little anger, or none at all, with those who are much our superiors in
power’ (Rh. I.11, 1370b11-14). Second, the wrongdoer must be aware that the
slighted person is the cause of his pain. He claims that ‘we do not get angry with
anyone who cannot be aware of our anger’ (Rh. II.3, 1380b20-25). Third the
wrongdoer must know that he is in pain because of what he did to the slighted
person. Aristotle states that when we seek revenge we ought to ‘inflict a
preliminary punishment in words’ so that the wrongdoer will know why we are
causing him pain (Rh. II.3, 1380b19). If revenge is merely for the pleasure of
seeing the other person in pain, then it seems like we should take pleasure in the
wrongdoer’s suffering whether or not we are the cause of his pain and whether or
not he is aware of our anger, but this is not the case, according to Aristotle.
Krisanna M. Scheiter 7
__________________________________________________________________
The second reason for rejecting the idea that revenge is simply aimed at the
suffering of the wrongdoer is Aristotle’s analysis of pleasure and pain. He employs
Plato’s account of pleasure and pain, pleasure being ‘a movement by which the
soul as a whole is consciously brought into its normal state of being; and that pain
is the opposite’ (Rhet. 1.11 1369b35-1370a2; see also Plato, Philebus 47c). In
short, pain is a disturbance of a natural or normal state, whereas pleasure is the
restoration of that state. Hunger, for example, is painful because it is a deprivation
of the body, an emptiness. Eating is pleasurable because it restores the deprivation.
These pleasures and pains are natural, but there are also pleasures and pains that
are habitual. For instance, if we are habituated to gorge ourselves on junk food,
then we will feel pained if we have not had junk food for a while and we will feel
pleasure when we do get our hands on a bag of Doritos.
If we apply Aristotle’s account of pleasure and pain to anger, we see that a
slight must be a type of deprivation, not necessarily of a natural state, but of a
normal or habitual state. We expect to be treated in a certain way by other people
and when we are not treated in this way there is a sort of ‘social disturbance.’
Revenge, being pleasurable and arising from a painful slight, must be a restoration
of a social disturbance. Causing someone else pain would not in itself give us
pleasure because it does not repair or restore the ‘social disturbance.’ The social
disturbance is repaired only if the person regrets doing what he did and if we feel
confident that he will not do it again. Therefore the purpose of revenge is not to
cause the other person pain. Rather causing the other person pain is a means to a
further end, namely repairing the social disturbance. We cause the other person
pain so that he knows a wrong was committed and will not commit the wrong
against us again.
It is worth pointing out that on Aristotle’s account, revenge does not have to be
severe or violent in order to be effective. In the Topics he remarks that ‘upon some
people it is vengeance enough to cause them pain and make them repent’ (156a38-
156b1). He does not give an example of what he has in mind, but we can think of
an example that fits this description. We may get revenge on our parents by
uninviting them to our child’s birthday party. This action would presumably cause
them pain and if they know that we are doing it because we feel slighted by them
the hope is that they will regret what they have done. Simply causing someone to
feel ashamed could also be revenge for Aristotle since on his account shame is
painful.

3. Revenge vs. Punishment


Revenge is aimed at preventing future injustice, but it is not the same as
punishment. Aristotle draws a distinction between revenge and punishment. He
claims that ‘punishment is inflicted for the sake of the person punished; revenge
for that of the punisher, to satisfy his feelings’ (Rh. I.10, 1369b12-13). He is
following Socrates’ claim in the Gorgias that punishment is for the benefit of the
8 Aristotle on the Purpose of Revenge
__________________________________________________________________
one being punished (477a). The purpose of punishment, according to both Plato
and Aristotle, is to benefit the one being punished, to help the wrongdoer see that
he has acted unjustly and give him an incentive to become more just, not because
he is afraid of being punished, but for the sake of justice. Punishing someone for
stealing is supposed to help that person come to understand that stealing is wrong
and teach him the value of being just. The purpose of revenge, however, is not to
make the other person more just (although this may be a happy consequence). The
sole purpose of revenge is to make sure that the wrongdoer will never again
commit an injustice against the person seeking revenge. The aim of revenge is not
to make the other person more just or deter him from mistreating others. The aim
of revenge is to make sure that we are not slighted again in the future.

4. Conclusion
Aristotle and the ancient Athenians have a much different view of revenge than
we do today. They understood that revenge could be vicious, destructive and
immoral. Aristotle even says in the Nicomachean Ethics that the virtuous person
will err on the side of forgiveness and will not give into his passions. Nevertheless
he claims that there may be times when the virtuous person ought to get angry and
seek revenge. For Aristotle, and the ancient Athenians, revenge is not necessarily
irrational or immoral.
As I have shown, the purpose of revenge, on Aristotle’s account, is not to take
pleasure in the wrongdoer’s suffering. Rather the goal of revenge is to prevent the
wrongdoer from slighting us in the future. Just as punishment can be rational and
moral, so can revenge. Punishment is not moral if we are malicious, extreme or
wrong about what kinds of acts we ought to punish. Likewise revenge is not moral
if we overestimate our worth or what we are owed or if we seek malicious revenge
that aims at harming the other person rather than trying to change their behaviour
towards us. Punishment is aimed at preventing future injustice in general and
making the one punished more just. Revenge is aimed at preventing injustice from
happening to us. The important point to take away from Aristotle is that revenge,
being for our own benefit, does not in itself make it immoral or irrational.

Notes
1
Tamler Sommers points out that honour cultures (like ancient Athens) do not
have the same negative attitudes towards revenge as non-honour cultures. ‘Two
Faces of Revenge: Moral Responsibility and the Culture of Honour’, Biology and
Philosophy, Vol. 24, No.1, 2009, pp. 35-50 .
2
For a response to Elster see AP Hamlin, ‘Rational Revenge’, Ethics, Vol. 101,
No. 2, 1991, pp. 374-381.
Krisanna M. Scheiter 9

__________________________________________________________________

3
S Uniacke, ‘Why is Revenge Wrong?’, The Journal of Value Inquiry, Vol. 34,
2000, pp. 61-69. I do not think that Aristotle would disagree with Uniacke’s claim
that revenge is motivated by resentment (or what I call ‘anger’), but even so the
desire for revenge can be virtuous for Aristotle.
4
See G Herman for a discussion about ancient Athenian attitudes towards revenge.
He claims that not all ancient Athenians thought revenge was morally permissible.
‘Honour, Revenge and the State in Fourth-Century Athens’, Die athenische
Demokratie im 4.Jahrhundert v. Chr, Franz Steiner, W Eder (ed), Verlag, Stuttgart,
1995.
5
For Aristotle acting virtuously just is to act rationally.
6
Thumos is the other Greek word that is often translated as anger in Aristotle and
Plato, however it has a much more broader usage than orge. Orge is used by
Aristotle to refer only to our desire for revenge that arises when we believe we
have been slighted. Thumos, however, can also refer to our desire for honour,
reputation and victory (see Plato Republic IV).
7
Aristotle does not actually give examples of things that are just by nature versus
things that are just by law or custom.
8
There is some debate regarding whether or not emotions are always attended by
pleasure and pain. See, for example, WW Fortenbaugh, 1970 & 2008, S Leighton,
1996 and J Cooper, 1996.

Bibiography
Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle. Vols. 1 & 2, Barnes, J. (ed), Princeton
University Press, Princeton, 1984.

Elster, J., ‘Norms of Revenge’. Ethics. Vol. 100, No. 4, 1990, pp. 862-885.

Hamlin, A.P., ‘Rational Revenge’. Ethics. Vol. 101, No. 2, 1991, pp.374-381.

Herman, G., ‘Honour, Revenge and the State in Fourth-Century Athens’. Die
athenishce Demokratie im 4.Jahrhundert v. Chr. Franz Steiner. Eder, W. (ed),
Verlag, Stuttgart, 1995.

Konstan, D., ‘Aristotle on Anger and the Emotions’. Ancient Anger: Perspectives
from Homer to Galen. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003.

Plato, Complete Works. Cooper, J. & Hutchinson, D.S. (eds), Hackett Publishing,
Indianapolis, 1997.
10 Aristotle on the Purpose of Revenge
__________________________________________________________________

Sommers, T., ‘Two Faces of Revenge: Moral Responsibility and the Culture of
Honor’. Biology and Philosophy. Vol. 24, No. 1, 2009, pp. 35-50.

Stocker, M. & Hegeman, E., ‘The Complex Evaluative World of Aristotle’s Angry
Man’. Valuing Emotions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996.

Uniacke, S., ‘Why is Revenge Wrong?’. The Journal of Value Inquiry. Vol. 34,
2000, pp. 61-69.

Related Readings
Allen, D.S., The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in Democratic
Athens. Princeton University Press, Princeton. 1999.

Carey, C., ‘Rhetorical Means of Persuasion’. Essays on Aristotle’s Rhetoric.


Oksenberg-Rorty, A. (ed), University of California Press, Berkeley, 1996.

Chamberlin, A.F., ‘On the Words for ‘Anger’ in Certain Languages: A Study in
Linguistic Psychology’. The American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 6, No. 4, 1895,
pp. 585-592.

Cooper, J.M., ‘An Aristotelian Theory of the Emotions’. Essays on Aristotle’s


Rhetoric. Oksenberg-Rorty, A. (ed), University of California Press, Berkeley,
1996.

Fortenbaugh, W.W., Aristotle on Emotion. Gerald Duckworth & Company


Limited, London, 1975.

Frede, D., ‘Mixed Feelings in Aristotle’s Rhetoric’. Essays on Aristotle’s Rhetoric.


Oksenberg-Rorty, A. (ed), University of California Press, Berkeley, 1996.

Harris, W.V., ‘The Rage of Women’. Ancient Anger: Perspectives from Homer to
Galen. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2003.

____, ‘Saving the Phainomena: A Note on Aristotle’s Definition of Anger’. The


Classical Quarterly. New Series, Vol. 47, No. 2, 1997, pp. 452-454.
Krisanna M. Scheiter 11
__________________________________________________________________

Herman, G., ‘Honour, Revenge and the State in Fourth-Century Athens’. Die
athenishce Demokratie im 4.Jahrhundert v. Chr. Franz Steiner. Eder, W. (ed),
Verlag, Stuttgart, 1995.

Konstan, D., The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and
Classical Literature. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2006.

____
, ‘Aristotle on Anger and the Emotions’. Ancient Anger: Perspectives from
Homer to Galen. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003.

Kosman, L.A., ‘Being Properly Affected: Virtues and Feelings in Aristotle’s


Ethics’. Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics. Oksenberg-Rorty, A. (ed), University of
California Press, Berkeley, 1980.

Koziak, B., ‘Homeric Thumos: The Early History of Gender, Emotion and
Politics’. The Journal of Politics. Vol. 61, No. 4, 1999, pp. 1068-1091.

Leighton, S.R., ‘Aristotle’s Exclusion of Anger from the Experience of Tragedy’.


Poiesis. Vol. 23, No. 2, 2003, pp. 361-383.

____
, ‘Aristotle’s Account of Anger: Narcissism and Illusions of Self-Sufficiency’.
Ratio. Vol. XV, 1 March 2002.
____
, ‘Aristotle and the Emotions’. Essays on Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Oksenberg-
Rorty, A. (ed), University of California Press, Berkeley, 1996.

Martin, T.W., ‘Sorting the Syntax of Aristotle’s Anger’. Hermes. Vol. 129, No. 4,
2001, pp. 474-478.

Nussbaum, M.C., ‘Aristotle on Emotion and Rational Persuasion’. Essays on


Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Oksenberg-Rorty, A. (ed), University of California Press,
Berkeley, 1996.

Striker, G., ‘Emotions in Context: Aristotle’s Treatment of the Passions in the


Rhetoric and His Moral Psychology’. Essays on Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Oksenberg-
Rorty, A. (ed), University of California Press, Berkeley, 1996.
12 Aristotle on the Purpose of Revenge
__________________________________________________________________

Krisanna Scheiter is a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania. While


interested in ancient philosophy, philosophy of emotions and moral psychology in
general, currently her research and writing is focused on Aristotle’s account of
anger, revenge and justice.
Dead before Breakfast: The English Gentleman and
Honour Affronted

Stephen Banks
Abstract
The desire for revenge may be aroused by physical loss caused by the malicious act
of another. Deprived of what was his or hers, the avenger seeks to inflict retaliatory
damage on the transgressor. Yet a history of revenge, which confined itself to
disputes over material objects, would be impoverished indeed. Historically, the
desire for revenge has been peculiarly invited not by disputes over things, but by
conflicts over states of being, by those assaults upon reputation and by those social
humiliations, which although intangible, nurture the deepest feelings of enmity. In
the contemporary context one need only think of the spontaneous shootings in
violent neighbourhoods occasioned not by disputes over drugs or territory per se
but by the perpetration, sometimes unwittingly, of acts alleged to show disrespect.
My paper will examine social slights and social humiliations as instigators of acts
of violence, but it will do so in the very particular context of English honour
culture. It will consider what it was to be a gentleman, the nuances of social
placing and the particular social capital to be acquired by responding to slights by
challenging the offender to a duel. It will argue that the obligation to right a wrong
was particularly imposed upon gentlemen by the arrival, towards the end of the
sixteenth century, of a courtesy literature that was not afraid to contradict the
teachings of the Church. In its wake came duelling, an apparently somewhat severe
method of resolving honour disputes. I shall argue however, that in fact duelling
was a highly nuanced activity which evolved to both contain the desire for revenge
and to divert it into a system of reparation to be offered, perhaps paradoxically, by
the party offended rather than by the offender.

Key Words: Duelling, honour, courtesy, gentlemen, revenge, Sanquhar,


challenges.

*****

On 29 June 1612 Robert Creighton, Lord Sanquhar was hanged outside


Westminster Hall. His crime had been to hire assassins to murder one John Turner,
a fencing master. Turner had accidentally put out one of Creighton’s eyes in a
fencing match ten years before. At the time of his injury however, Creighton had
appeared to forgive his opponent and the matter had rested. Until three years later
that is, when Creighton had been introduced to Henry IV of France. The King had
inquired as to how Creighton had acquired his wound and upon hearing the details
had made no remark-other than to say, ‘Doth the man live? And that question gave
14 Dead Before Breakfast
__________________________________________________________________
an end to the discourse but was the beginner of a strange confusion in his working
fancy, which neither time nor distance could compose.’1
At his trial Creighton had readily confessed his guilt, yet he had defended
himself by appeal to a set of mores and principles that he felt might in part
exonerate him. He had referred to the obligation upon someone in his station to
personally and unreservedly requite any harm or affront to his honour. In a
Christian society one thinks immediately of the contrasting imprecation to turn the
other cheek but Creighton at this trial stated the matter baldly, ‘I considered not my
wrongs upon terms of Christianity, for then I should have sought for other
satisfaction, but being trained up in the courts of princes and in arms, I stood upon
the terms of honour.’2 Francis Bacon, as Solicitor General, immediately responded,
‘I must tell you plainly that I conceive you have sucked those affections of
dwelling in malice rather out of Italy, and outlandish manners, where you have
conversed, than out of any part of this island of England and Scotland.’3
Bacon, with the support of the king, was trying to resist a change in aristocratic
mores initiated by the arrival of a plethora of Italian courtesy and conduct books at
the end of the sixteenth century.4 In particular they were trying to suppress the
duelling that such a culture brought with it. To this end pamphlets were written,
edicts made and Star Chamber deployed against would-be protagonists.5 None of
these prevailed against a growing, ‘allegiance to that lodestar of Italian humanism,
virtú: manliness, or the ideal of manly and courageous action, with overtones
strongly aristocratic.’6 Characteristic of the new courtly literature was an obsession
with one’s own projected mask and the assertion of a duty to preserve one’s vision
of oneself and if necessary impose it upon others. In preserving one’s honour
intact, ‘the extent to which the authors of civil courtesy and duelling were prepared
to argue that some elements of their ideology were incompatible with the doctrines
of Christianity is striking.’7 If the new humanistic literature but reformulated age
old ideas nevertheless it legitimated violent responses to affronts and described the
circumstances in which such responses were obligatory. The duelling culture that
resulted influenced better English society until the 1840’s. My interest here then is
in the duel and the place of vengeance within the culture of honour, and I hope by
the end that it will become apparent why I began with an anecdote that at first sight
appears to have nothing to do with duelling at all.
The value given to the vigorous response to slights seems to have resulted in
some men fetishizing their own honour to such an extent that they seemed to have
lived their entire lives in readiness for outrage. Such men tended to be abnormally
competitive in an already competitive society and they accepted the assertion of
Hobbes that, ‘Because the power of one man resisteth and hindreth the effects of
the power of another: power is no more, but the excess of power of one above that
of another.’8 Their punctiliousness allowed them to accrue a particular species of
social capital, Hester Stanhope the intimate of the violent, unpredictable and
probably indeed ‘half-mad’ Lord Camelford, killed in a duel in 1806 recalled with
Stephen Banks 15
__________________________________________________________________
delight, ‘His taking me one evening to a party, and it was quite a scene to notice
how the men shuffled away, and the women stared at him.’9 Such men moved very
quickly to the very extremes of physical violence, they were completely
uninhibited, and yet in a way they displayed a kind of childishness, an inability to
govern themselves. Colonel Bayley reflected upon this mental infirmity when he
recalled in his memoirs how in 1797 he had almost killed a fellow officer who had
accidentally drunk the wrong cup of wine. ‘Not a mortal existing is certain of his
line of conduct for the ensuing 24 hours, some sudden impulse or capricious
emanation from the brain hurries him on to the commission of absurd and even
criminal actions, repugnant to his very nature.’10 Such men appear to have been
invaded by a sense of honour, it possessed them rather in the way that the Homeric
heroes were said to have been invaded by fury, which drove them to great and
terrible acts. That the sense of honour outraged is not quite the same as the lust for
revenge, I will suggest, but they have much in common. Both can lead to that
intoxication that comes from abandoning all consideration of consequences, all
concern for physical self and committing oneself wholly to acts which may lead to
one’s own destruction.
Men did not only act in a passion however, sometimes they nursed grievances
convinced that the ability to resent a slight indefinitely was a sign of high honour.
The 1752 journal of Captain Augustus Hervey provides a useful illustration. In
1747, a Portsmouth clerk, Mr Blankely, had been insolent to Hervey. Hervey had
threatened to beat him, ‘yet he never took any notice of it.’11 However, the clerk, a
putative gentleman, had turned up drunk at Hervey’s lodgings three days later,
demanding satisfaction. Hervey had responded by giving the man a ‘good
drubbing’. He had followed this up the following day by searching for Blankely to
instigate a duel. Blankely had however, fled and in his absence Hervey had written
to the dockyard and to the commander of the garrison to report Blankely’s
cowardice. Thus far the advantage had been entirely Hervey’s, yet he had not
forgotten the insolence. Blankely had managed to find a new post at Gibraltar
however, in October 1752 Hervey’s ship berthed there:

Having long resolved wherever I met Mr Blankley to call him to


account for his behaviour at Portsmouth…I desired Captain
Morgan, a friend of mine, and an officer of the garrison, to go to
that fellow and tell that I desired he would immediately give me
satisfaction for his conduct and that we must meet with sword
and pistol on neutral ground. He send word by Captain Morgan
he desired to ask my pardon publickly in any manner I pleased,
upon which Captain Morgan and Lord Robert Manners, whom I
had sent to, told me surely it was sufficient, let his offence have
been what it would. And so he came with his friend, and asked
me pardon before these gentlemen, all in humblest manner.12
16 Dead Before Breakfast
__________________________________________________________________
Perhaps only those familiar with this type of material will understand the
excruciating humiliation being described here-which very likely ruined Blankely.
Hervey was careful to record that it was not he but two reputable witnesses who
had adjudged that Blankely had made adequate reparation. Throughout his memoir,
Hervey gave regard to the judgment of others and it did not occur to him that they
might regard his conduct with disapprobation. Forgiveness was not easily to be
separated from cowardice in his eyes and the domination of others and the
extraction of reparation was not to be the subject of censure; rather, it was a token
of manly spirit.
Carried to extreme one might imagine that the extreme fetishization of honour
might lead to society dissolving in a blood bath-yet self-evidently it did not do so.
Honour culture was always contested; there were other views abroad. Furthermore,
although honour culture was manifested through duelling, the institution of the
duel had emerged and evolved as a method of containing the violence implicit in
the culture that gave it birth. As in Italy in England, duelling ‘succeeded in
diverting the nobility from faction warfare with armed gangs without leading to a
dislocation of social intercourse by incessant fighting over trivial slights, real or
imagined.’13 Casualties in English duels were quite high, perhaps one third or more
of pistol duels in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries resulted in a
serious injury and one third in a fatality. Between 1785 and 1849 at least 277
duellists were indeed rendered ‘dead before breakfast.’14 Nonetheless, the duel
marked the limit of the acknowledged and tolerated violence between gentlemen;
its ritual brought an honourable and acknowledged termination which prevented
grievance running on into blood feud.
Why then did gentlemen allow the duel to constrain them? Partly because
gentlemen had early developed the notion of equality as the price of distinguishing
themselves from social inferiors. Rules to regulate conflict were necessary to
maintain mutual solidarity and formal duelling met such a need. Furthermore, in
time, the order of gentlemen came to be defined by access to a right of satisfaction
that was denied to others. Duelling came to be one of those acts through which
‘social magic always manages to produce discontinuity out of continuity.’15 Social
magic was accomplished by a form of violence, eventually so specialised and
nuanced that, save for the consequences; it scarcely seemed like violence at all.
Supporting it ideologically was the belief that all gentlemen possessed a reservoir
of inner honour that fitted them for it and a recognition that in a competitive
society only right of recourse to the duel might preserve the interests of lesser
gentlemen against the more powerful.

Was it not from the fear of being called on for redress in this
manner, many persons whose fortunes and interest are large,
would, without scruple, injure and oppress their inferiors in those
respects...Money will carry through any thing; power and interest
Stephen Banks 17
__________________________________________________________________
will work similar effects, but, happy is it, neither will turn a
pistol ball, nor ward off the thrust of a rapier; otherwise
gentlemen who are deficient in riches, would be subject to
continual injuries and insults. 16

On occasion of course, gentlemen were injured or insulted. One distinguishing


feature of duelling culture was that disputes were not conceptualised as arising out
of conflicts over physical material interests. One did not duel over land, or office,
or money, one duelled over affronts to one’s honour-though often these affronts
might arise precisely in the context of such disputes over property or interest.
Honour was closely associated with personal courage and perhaps the proposition
that all gentlemen possessed such honourable courage could only be sustained by
the recognition that some might be unfit to remain within the order, the action of
expulsion validating the claims of those that remained. If one wanted to challenge
the right of someone to remain, one might say that he lied since it, ‘is an Affront
that nothing but Blood can expiate. The Reason may perhaps be, because no other
Vice implies a Want of Courage so much as the making of a Lie.’17 One might
strike a blow since a gentleman resented a blow not, ‘in order to prevent the
disorders in society which would follow from such violence being suffered to go
unpunished, but because a Blow dishonours him.’18 In many of the duels I have
surveyed from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries however, a gesture sufficed,
one merely displayed a horse-whip in front of one’s opponent. Why so? Because
who might be whipped, a felon, a slave, a common soldier and so forth, the gesture
was a very poignant attempt at social placing.
The victim of an attempt upon his honour was not however irrevocably placed-
had that been so then indiscriminate violence might indeed have followed. Failure
to respond appropriately to an insult might lead to social expulsion, but by
declaring ones willingness to hazard one’s life one could restore and even enhance
one’s honour. By accepting a challenge, the offender in turn might enlarge their
reputation. Fault was not at issue and it is absolutely essential to understanding
how the duel managed to diffuse interpersonal violence to comprehend that the
duel was not a system whereby retribution might be visited upon a wrongdoer and
it was not a system through which one party might win, in a reputational sense,
only at the expense of another.
The genius of the duel was that it focuses the attention of the slighted away
from the natural desire to have revenge upon the slighter and back to the
redemption of his own honour. Why does an English gentleman who has been
offended need to redeem his honour? Because men are not struck whom everyone
knows it is impossible to strike, something about the gentleman’s conduct has
suggested that he may be slighted, that he may not respond as a gentleman should.
The duty then of a gentleman, is to prove to society that he is in fact worthy to
remain; he has indeed to make reparation for the inadequacy of his projected social
18 Dead Before Breakfast
__________________________________________________________________
mask. The issuing of a challenge, the indication of a willingness to hazard life was
an act of such reparation. Perhaps paradoxically, the acceptance of that challenge
was a step towards the restoration of appropriate social relations since it implied a
recognition of the others interests. In many cases this was enough, many more
honour disputes were resolved at this stage than ever progressed on to a duel. 19
Where it did however, honour was restored not by giving a thrust or discharging a
shot but by hazarding the receipt of one. Consider the case of Sir Jacob Astley
who challenged the man who had had criminal conversation with his wife. How
outraged Astley was that on the field itself, the miscreant compounded his sins by
refusing to fire at him in earnest-leading the seconds to meet to declare ‘the
necessity of Captain Garth’s giving his pledge to return the Honourable Baronet’s
next fire’.20
That the cuckolded husband should insist that the cuckolder try to kill him
might seem somewhat strange but by focussing on restitution of honour by
reparation to the group as opposed to personal revenge upon the offender that the
animosities that honour culture might have indiscriminately unleashed were
contained. No doubt strong feelings of animosity were also present but Captain
Hervey, a man who had internalised the dictates of honour, did not need to kill
Blankely to gain personal satisfaction so much as he needed to hazard himself to
convince himself that no stain remained upon him. Blankely might have accepted
his challenge, in which case the matter could have been resolved as between
gentlemen, it was because he did not that Hervey humiliated him.
Returning then to the early rough days of honour culture in England, one begins
to understand why Creighton had Turner murdered. It was impossible to combat
with Turner, physically one could not fence with one eye and equally importantly,
socially Turner was not a gentleman. It was impossible to treat Turner as a mere
commoner and have him dealt with by the law-for Turner had done nothing
unlawful. Creighton could scarce endure it. He was unable to either requite the
harm or to demonstrate that he resented it in such a manner as to expunge any stain
upon his honour. ‘Doth the man live?’ was the judgment that impressed upon
Creighton the absolute necessity of ensuring that the man who had afflicted him
did not remain in the world. We might call the murder an act of revenge, although
perhaps this misses the important nuances, in any case it was precisely in order to
satisfy the lust for reparation and turn aside its potential consequences that the
formal duel evolved.21

Notes
1
TB Howell (ed), A Complete Collection of State Trials, 33 Vols, London, 1809-
1826, ii, col. 745.
2
Ibid, col. 747.
3
Howell, State Trials, ii, col. 751.
Stephen Banks 19
__________________________________________________________________

4
Castiglione’s Courtier was first translated into English in 1561 and soon
inspired home-grown works such as S Robson, The Courte of Ciuill Courtesie
(1577), A Romei, The Courtiers Academie (1598) and W Segar, Honor Military
and Ciuill (1602).
5
Between 1603 and 1625 there were about 200 such cases heard in Star Chamber.
TG Barnes, List and Index to the Proceedings in Star Chamber for the Reign of
James I (1603-1625) in the Public Record Office, London, Class STAC8, The
Foundation, Chicago, 1975, pp. 159-163.
6
VG Kiernan, The Duel in European History: Honour and the Reign of
Aristocracy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988, p. 48
7
M Peltonen, The Duel in Early Modern England: Civility, Politeness and
Honour, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, p. 78.
8
T Hobbes, The Elements of Law, Natural and Politics, F Tonnies (ed), Frank
Cass, London, 1969, p. 34.
9
N Tolstoy, The Half-Mad Lord: Thomas Pitt, 2nd Baron Camelsford, Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1978, p. 91.
10
Diary of Colonel Bayley 12th Regiment, 1796-1803 Army and Navy Cooperative
Society, London, 1896, pp. 113-4.
11
D Erskine & W Kimber, Augustus Hervey’s Journal: Being The Intimate
Account Of The Life Of A Captain In The Royal Navy Ashore and Afloat 1746-
1759, W. Kimber, London, 1953, p. 12.
12
ibid., p. 50.
13
L Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641, Clarendon Press, Oxford,
1965, p. 250.
14
S Banks, ‘Killing with Courtesy: The English Duelist, 1785-1845’, The Journal
of British Studies, Vol. 47, 2008 pp. 528-558, p. 554.
15
P Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1992, p.
121.
16
S Stanton, The Principles of Duelling with Rules to be Observed in Every
Particular Respecting It, Hookham, London, 1790, pp. 21-23.
17
The Spectator II, 99 1794.
18
R Hey, A Dissertation on Duelling, Magdalen College, Cambridge, 1784, p. 77.
19
S Banks, ‘Dangerous Friends: The Second and the Later English Duel’ The
Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies, Vol. 32 (1), 2009 pp. 87-106, p. 91.
20
The Times, 16 June 1828 p. 6 col. f.

Bibliography
Banks, S., ‘Dangerous Friends: The Second and the Later English Duel’. The
Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies. Vol. 32 (1), 2009, pp. 87-106.
20 Dead Before Breakfast
__________________________________________________________________

—, ‘Killing with Courtesy: The English Duelist, 1785-1845’. The Journal of


British Studies. Vol. 47, 2008, pp. 528-558.

Barnes, T.G., List and Index to the Proceedings in Star Chamber for the Reign of
James I (1603-1625) in the Public Record Office, London, Class STAC8. The
Foundation, Chicago, 1975.

Bayley, Col., Diary of Colonel Bayley 12th Regiment, 1796-1803. Army and Navy
Cooperative Society, London, 1896.

Bourdieu, P., Language and Symbolic Power. Thompson, J.B. (ed), Polity Press,
Cambridge, 1992.

Hervey, A., Augustus Hervey’s Journal: Being The Intimate Account Of The Life
Of A Captain In The Royal Navy Ashore and Afloat 1746-1759. Erskine, D. &
Kimber, W. (eds), W. Kimber, London, 1953.

Hey, R., A Dissertation on Duelling. Magdalen College, Cambridge, 1784.

Hobbes, T., The Elements of Law, Natural and Politics. Tonnies, F. (ed), Frank
Cass, London, 1969.

Howell, T.B. (ed), A Complete Collection of State Trials. 33 Vols. London, 1809-
1826.

Kiernan, V.G., The Duel in European History: Honour and the Reign of
Aristocracy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988.

Peltonen, M., The Duel in Early Modern England: Civility, Politeness and Honour.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003.

Stanton, S., The Principles of Duelling with Rules to be Observed in Every


Particular Respecting It. Hookham, London, 1790.

Stone, L., The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641. Clarendon Press, Oxford,
1965.

Tolstoy, N., The Half-Mad Lord: Thomas Pitt, 2nd Baron Camelsford. Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1978.
Stephen Banks 21
__________________________________________________________________

Stephen Banks is a lecturer in criminal law and legal history at the University of
Reading and researches in the area of violence, honour culture and the
development of the doctrine of provocation.
The Anthropology of Revenge, Ancestral Wrath:
A Modern Day Dilemma?

Sheila C. Bibb
Abstract:
Anthropological thought has frequently encountered and acknowledged the role of
the ancestors in many societies. This role has varied depending on circumstances
and the specific situation encountered. In many instances this role is assumed to be
a relic of a former time and of little real consequence in modern society. However,
drawing on my own research together with current literature, I will examine the
role of ancestors within Ghana, South Africa, Namibia and Mali, along with
similar societies in China, Nepal and Tibet, to establish the current ancestral
beliefs, practices and attitudes. I will specifically focus on the impact these may
have on daily behaviour patterns and their effectiveness as forms of social control.
In so doing I will seek to answer the question as to whether the wrath of the
ancestors and their capacity for revenge might indeed pose a modern-day dilemma
for members of those, and other, societies.

Key Words: Role of ancestors, social control, ancestral wrath, revenge.

*****

1. Introduction
Anthropological thought has frequently encountered and acknowledged the role
of the ancestors in many societies. Although this role varies depending on the
society, the circumstances and the specific situation encountered, the consensus is
that to become an ancestor is a primary goal during life and, once attained, the
duties or obligations may well be considered benevolent and passive. While this
may be considered a safe assumption to make, it is only that – an assumption. By
examining concepts and practices in both Asia and Africa, I show that there are
instances where the ancestors are believed to be active and display characteristics
where revenge, not benevolence, is the goal and the fear of incurring this wrath
impacts the daily behaviour of descendants. This in turn forms a means of social
control and both instances indicate a modern-day dilemma affecting beliefs,
behaviour and daily life in many societies.

2. Ancestors in Asia
There are certain ideas associated with ancestors in this part of the world,
which can be summarized as follows. On death the family of the deceased ensures
that all the necessary funeral rites are carried out, together with ongoing
ceremonies held at specific times during the following year(s). This not only
allows the deceased to reach full ancestral status but also facilitates their being able
24 The Anthropology of Revenge, Ancestral Wrath
__________________________________________________________________
to function fully in their new state. Often a shrine will be built and strategically
placed within the home thereby ensuring that the person is remembered, honoured,
maybe even worshipped. In such instances the new ancestor will be seen as a
guardian, a protector, someone who will look benevolently on their family
members. However, even within these generalities there can be marked
differences.
Practices in China serve to demonstrate the point well. Rubie Watson1
describes burial practices among the Ha Tsuen who are primarily based in the New
Territories, a region in southeastern China adjacent to Hong Kong. Here the focus
is on providing a burial place for both the body and the soul. However, since the
local belief is that the physical remains serve as conduits or conductors for the
powers such as wind and water that originate in nature, then great attention has to
be given to where those remains reside. Here geomancy dominates and the link
between the ancestor, his grave and his descendants is strong and has measurable
consequences for all involved. Watson’s research, and also that of Freedman,2
indicates that the ancestors themselves are not thought of as having any special
powers. A failure to properly align the gravesite may result in a lack of worldly
success, but this is ones’ own fault, not that of the ancestor. In contrast, Emily
Ahern3 in her studies in northern Taiwan found that it is ‘the ancestor himself, not
the [geomancy] of the gravesite, [which will] bring good fortune.’ Here then, lack
of success may apparently be attributed to a disgruntled ancestor.
A further contrast is found in Tibet, where despite the strong Buddhist
influence, evidence may still be found of an older belief, that of Bon. While this
does not directly involve ancestors, it does facilitate a strong belief in spirits,
deities and ghosts. Both here and in China ghosts are thought to be the souls of the
dead who have died accidentally or who have failed to successfully achieve
ancestor status. Referring to the Gurungs, originally from Tibet but now found
mainly in Nepal, Mumford states, ‘the dead are nearby and recallable.’4 Here then
we see an instance of the dead who must be settled for their own sake and also to
ensure harmony and balance among the living. This is usually accomplished by
invoking the efforts of a shaman. Similarly, in daily living there is a recognized
need to appease the spirits and this is displayed by the rituals carried out within and
around each home as well as the ritual or symbolic objects that may be located
there.
In Nepal, Charlotte Hardman has investigated the strong belief in the influence
of the dead on the living in great detail5 as she examined notions of self and
emotion among the Lohorung Rai. In one chapter she describes in detail the
necessity of keeping the ancestors fed and happy. Failure to do so can result in
such diverse conditions as ‘illness’, poor crops, landslides, death of animals and
depression.6 Her book contains many references to the ways in which the ancestors
impact the daily life of the inhabitants and these are well summarized by David
Gellner in his review of Hardman’s book when he says, ‘The main causal agents,
Sheila C. Bibb 25
__________________________________________________________________
as far as the Lohorung are concerned, are different categories of ancestors who are
believed to be capricious and needy ‘like children’…they are a very real presence
for all the Lohorung with whom Hardman was acquainted.’7 These ancestors then
would seem to be less benevolent entities.

3. Ancestors in sub-Saharan Africa


Turning to the African continent for examples of ancestral behaviour we find
familiar themes, and also some differences in the way the ancestors are both
regarded and dealt with. Starting with Mali, where animism is a central force in the
beliefs of many and is often held along with membership of other religious groups,
the role of ancestors is important because they are considered to be the ones who
made the first contacts and arrangements with the spirits of the land and continue
to interact with them. Ensuring that good relationships with the ancestors, and
therefore the spirits, are maintained is a priority if the people are to be successful in
producing crops, regulating their lives, and acting as a united social unit.
Moving south to Ghana and specifically to the Akan peoples, we again find the
role of ancestors is one to be taken seriously. During my own research in the
Mampong Ashanti region, I found that while my contacts did not seem overly
concerned about ancestors, in practice their relationships with them formed an
essential part of life events and was of especial relevance when discussing health
and well-being issues. For example, part of my research was focused on
Tuberculosis and despite the general knowledge that Tuberculosis was air-borne;
many people still insisted that often the true cause of the disease was an ancestor
who was holding a grudge. This raises two major issues; the perceived hereditary
link between disease and ancestor, and the fulfilment of proper ritual and respect.
The perceived hereditary link results from the fact that in many instances it is not
just one member of a family who is afflicted. Once one member is infected other
family members often become sick and if one of them dies then any further cases
are usually thought to be as a result of this deceased family member being upset;
either because they have failed to make a successful transition to ancestor-hood, or
because they were not properly honoured or treated correctly as they died. Here it
should be noted that a synonym for Tuberculosis is ‘ghost’ cough because, as one
person said to me, ‘once you get this cough you will soon be a ghost’. If ‘ghost’ in
this case carries the same connotations as it does among the Tibetans and Chinese,
then the deceased fails to reach true ancestral status and may therefore become
vengeful. Also, in Ghana, one of the main purposes of the ceremonies surrounding
the burial of the dead is the necessity to demonstrate publicly the honour and
respect which the family have for the deceased. This they do not only by the size of
the funeral, the performance of various rituals, and the attendance they can muster,
but also by the timing of these events. When all is done in a correct manner, the
deceased can transition smoothly into the next world and his soul can become an
ancestor with all the rights and privileges this entails. Compromise at any stage is
26 The Anthropology of Revenge, Ancestral Wrath
__________________________________________________________________
likely to jeopardize this passage and it is then that the ancestor may seek to punish
his family.
Additionally, revenge in this society may also be the result of manipulation of
the ancestors by the living. I was told that there were two types of Tuberculosis –
the physical and the spiritual. The physical came from contracting the disease from
air-borne particles while the spiritual could be contracted via the ancestors. My
informant said:

For example I can sit here and put down my mobile phone and
somebody comes along and steals it. So I can say, ‘OK, you have
stolen my phone,’ so what I am going to do maybe is say I will
let all the family members have tuberculosis and I will do it and
it will become lasting and you will see that the family members
have tuberculosis all the time. I will call on my ancestors and
they will do this and every man will die and you see that is the
spiritual tuberculosis.8

In this instance we see that the ancestors are manipulated by the living and used
as a mean to achieve revenge. This is introducing another dimension to our
understanding of ancestral behaviour and the implications here are far-reaching for
if a society truly believes that each one has the ability to call upon their ancestors
and ask them to perform certain requests then this must act as a form of social
control – particularly when it seems that these requests can be vengeful. There is
no evidence that the ancestors themselves are aware of or encouraging the
malicious intent of their descendants, yet the result – a family being stricken with
tuberculosis – is very real.
Moving to southern Africa, I wish to look briefly at beliefs among the Himba of
Namibia. Here we find a belief system which centers on Mukuru, an omnipotent
deity to whom the ancestors are subservient. Mukuru himself is believed to be born
of fire and every Himba homestead has an ancestral fire which forms a central part
of both daily and ceremonial life, being regulated by specific rules and
conventions, one of which is that the fire-keeper will approach the ancestral fire on
a weekly basis in order to communicate with Mukuru and the ancestors. Writing on
this subject, David Crandall records a conversation between a Himba father and
son:

Then he asked…‘My son, how does Mukuru differ from our


ancestors?’…I said, ‘We learn that Mukuru is good, that he only
blesses us and never curses us as our ancestors sometimes do.’9

Mukuru then does only good but the ancestors are not so constrained.
Sheila C. Bibb 27
__________________________________________________________________
In neighbouring South Africa much has been noted and written about various
belief systems and a constant theme has been the need to explain the misfortunes
which befall a family or individual. Adam Ashforth,10 in various writings,
discusses the normal interaction between ancestors and humans and then tells what
happens when the ancestors become angry. The examples he gives indicate that
rather than the angry ancestor actively causing harm to befall the object of his
wrath, he is more likely to withhold or modify the protection which he would
normally give.11 This negative application of ancestral protection and guardianship
highlights another aspect which may feature in our consideration, that of
indifference which may even result in the death of a family member.

4. Discussion
Whether passive or active, benevolent or malicious the ancestors are there and
are a force to be reckoned with. Failure to ensure they are respected, honoured and
fully-transitioned to their new status may incur ancestral displeasure at the least
and wrath in some instances, and may well be seen as a cause of current
misfortune. Occasionally there is the possibility that the ancestor is indeed
malicious and intent on wreaking havoc and inflicting abuse on family members
from beyond the grave. In most instances, there are ritual methods of appeasing the
offended ancestor and restoring harmony.
This leads us to consider daily practices and behaviour. If there are daily rituals
which when observed ensure the continued benevolence and protection of the
ancestors, then it behoves the family to follow these practices. Similarly, the
holding of feasts as well as the attention to graves and other obligations, should be
incorporated into normal life. However, these practices do raise questions about the
applicability of acknowledging ancestral wrath in today’s societies. Does this
actually pose a modern-day dilemma?
In all cases discussed the family or individual concerned either acknowledged
their belief in ancestral abilities and sought to meet all their obligations on a
regular basis thus adjusting their lives to accommodate all the requirements and
restrictions this might impose; or neglected or ignored the ancestor until some
mishap occurred. In both instances, there was an acknowledgement that no matter
what conditions might prevail in their specific society, whether this be advanced
technology, communication, higher education, medical advancements, travel or
any of the other attributes thought to comprise modern day living, these had to be
placed alongside an underlying belief in an invisible agent which impacted lives –
the ancestors. Here is where we really become aware of the dilemma in two ways.
First the practical application of essential obligations may interfere and even be at
odds with other secular demands upon the individual or family. Employers,
especially those who do not hold such beliefs, may well be less than
accommodating towards employees who wish to participate in lengthy or repetitive
rituals. Those persons who choose to leave their beliefs behind may nonetheless
28 The Anthropology of Revenge, Ancestral Wrath
__________________________________________________________________
undergo some guilt or mental trauma at having done so. Also, as modern living
often necessitates working away from home and multiple relationships become the
norm, so families become fragmented and knowledge is lost. Ashforth, speaking of
some of his Sowetan friends said, ‘None of my friends attended initiation schools.
There are no formal institutions devoted to the teaching of custom or tradition in
urban areas.’12 So the important ceremonies and rituals, rules and obligations are
not automatically being passed on. A new generation is carrying forward the
beliefs but is unequipped to deal with them.
We have also seen the possibility of a wrathful or malevolent force acting as a
form of social control encouraging specific modes of behaviour. Conversely it can
also be abused and used by corrupt political or religious forces as a threat to
maintain power and authority.

5. Summary
Using examples from Asia and Africa, I have discussed the role of ancestors in
general and the ways in which they remain connected to their descendants. While
these are normally positive and benevolent I have also shown that when neglected,
the ancestors can become agents of revenge meting out punishment to those who
disregard them in an effort to bring them back into compliance. Whilst it may be
argued that the ancestors are not actually malicious, and indeed may even be
manipulated by humans, it remains a fact that if they are thought to be an
instrument of revenge, then all behaviour attributed to them assumes a role of great
importance. Traditionally it was possible to rectify any lapses by complying with
established rituals and restoring a balance to the ancestor-human relationship.
Today, with fragmented families, an increase in urban dwelling and a subsequent
loss of traditional knowledge it is much harder to overcome the perceived effects
of ancestral wrath. At the same time, the existence of these invisible agents of
revenge can be more easily manipulated and invoked by the unscrupulous and the
corrupt. For many the fear of incurring ancestral wrath may well impact their daily
behaviour, their beliefs, and also form a means of social control.

Notes
1
R Watson, ‘Remembering the Dead: Graves and Politics in Southeastern China’,
Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China, JL Watson & ES Rawski (eds),
University of California Press, 1988, p. 206.
2
M Freedman, Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung. Athlone
Press, London & Humanities Press, New York, 1966, p. 143.
3
E Ahern, The Cult of the Dead in a Chinese Village, Stanford University Press,
Stanford, 1973, p. 185-188.
Sheila C. Bibb 29
__________________________________________________________________

4
SR Mumford, Himalayan Dialogue: Tibetan Lamas and Gurung Shamans in
Nepal, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison WI, 1989, p. 181.
5
C Hardman, Other Worlds: Notions of Self and Emotion among the Lohorung
Rai, Berg, Oxford, 2000, pp. 41- 56.
6
ibid. p. 45.
7
DN Gellner, Review of Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, (N.S.)
Vol. 9, 2003, p.601.
8
SC Bibb, Ghana Fieldnotes, Unpublished, 2005.
9
DP Crandall, The Place of Stunted Ironwood Trees, Continuum International
Publishing Group, New York, 2000, p.185.
10
A Ashforth, Witchcraft, Democracy and Violence in South Africa, University of
Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 2005, pp.202-206.
11
ibid. P.202
12
ibid pp.203-204.

Bibliography
Ahern, E., The Cult of the Dead in a Chinese Village. Stanford University Press,
Stanford, 1973.

Ashforth, A., Witchcraft, Democracy and Violence in South Africa. University of


Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 2005.

Bibb, S.C., Ghana Fieldnotes. (Unpublished), 2005.

Crandall, D.P., The Place of Stunted Ironwood Trees. Continuum International


Publishing Group, New York, 2000.

Freedman, M., Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung. Athlone
Press, London & Humanities Press, New York, 1966.

Gellner, DN. ‘Review’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 9,


2003.

Hardman, C.E., Other Worlds: Notions of Self and Emotion among the Lohorung
Rai. Berg, Oxford, 2000.

Mumford, S.R., Himalayan Dialogue: Tibetan Lamas and Gurung Shamans in


Nepal. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI, 1989.
30 The Anthropology of Revenge, Ancestral Wrath
__________________________________________________________________

Watson, R., ‘Remembering the Dead: Graves and Politics in Southeastern China’.
Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China. Watson, J.L. & Rawski, E.S.
(eds), University of California Press, 1988.

Sheila C Bibb, MPhil (Oxon) in Medical Anthropology, teaches Anthropology at


Brigham Young University, Utah. Her current research includes projects based in
South Africa, Utah, Tonga, and the United Kingdom and all reflect her interests in
topics such as Boundaries, Identity, Global Flows, and Belief Systems.
‘If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you’: Primal Injury and
Revenge in the Ghost Stories of M.R. James

Terry Scarborough
Abstract
Recent scholarship attempting to elucidate the nature of revenge has identified
recurring patterns in cycles of vengeance and questioned their connections to
justice. Notably, Jennifer L. Culbert identifies a perpetual cycle of reprisal, which
in its retaliatory nature suggests an incessant chain of vengeful acts rooted in
primal injury. Many attempts have been made to trace this cycle to primitive
cultures, and even to animals, through surveying cultural attempts to disrupt this
chain through blood sacrifice and other ritual practices. Culbert demonstrates
through her diction the very essence of revenge as unknown, haunting and fearful
through reference to a ‘specter’ to be ‘exorcized.’ Such attempts to understand and
master revenge then naturally suggest the ghost, specifically the ghost story, as a
means to mediate fear of revenge as a haunting reminder of and reaction to past
injustice and primal injury. Following contemporary theories connecting revenge
and justice, this paper will examine revenge as reflected in the ghost stories of
Montague Rhodes James. The analysis will span recent and Victorian analyses of
revenge to reveal James’s fascination with primal vengeance and reprisal as
reflected in the ghost story. I will examine James’s fixation on antiquarianism,
specifically the Gothic trope of the found manuscript and archeology, to reveal an
intricate commentary on the primal nature of anxieties surrounding revenge.
Positing that the ghost or specter functions for James as an archetypal reflection of
the human fear of vengeance and its resultant violence, I will address the common
claim that James’s ghosts are vengeful, and explain the nature and function of this
drive.

Key Words: Revenge, Reprisal, Haunting, Ghosts, Victorian, Gothic, Justice.

*****

Recent scholarship attempting to elucidate the nature of revenge has identified


recurring patterns in cycles of vengeance and questioned their connections to
justice, and attempts have been made to trace these cycles to primitive cultures
through surveying cultural efforts to disrupt this chain through blood sacrifice and
other ritual practices. Accordingly, it has become commonplace for critics to
employ diction which connotes the very essence of revenge as unknown, haunting
and dreadful through references to spectres, ghosts and exorcisms. Such attempts
to understand and master revenge then naturally suggest the ghost story as a means
to mediate fear of revenge as a haunting reminder of and reaction to past injustice
and primal injury, and the threat of reprisal in the form of ghostly returns.
32 ‘If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you’
__________________________________________________________________
Following contemporary theories connecting revenge and justice, this paper
will examine revenge in the ghost stories of Montague Rhodes James. The analysis
will span Victorian and recent analyses of revenge to reveal James’s fascination
with cycles of vengeance and reprisal and their articulation in distinct patterns
throughout ‘The Mezzotint,’ ‘The Ash Tree,’ and ‘A School Story.’ I will examine
James’s fixation on redress, anger and social and personal conceptions of justice, to
reveal an intricate commentary on the primal nature of anxieties surrounding
revenge. Positing that the ghost or spectre functions for James as an archetypal
reflection of the human fear of vengeance and its resultant violence, I will address
the common claim that his ghosts are vengeful, and explain the nature and function
of this drive in relation to its cyclical nature. I contend that James formulates a
theory of revenge which necessitates the inclusion of a party external to the
original injury to witness and perpetuate knowledge of the act of vengeance to
neutralize rage and put to rest the haunting threat of an ongoing cycle of revenge-
reprisal.
The concept of revenge has flourished within the world of Gothic literature in
forms ranging from villains and criminals to ghosts and revenants, and often
comments on the workings of social and personal conceptions of justice. In ‘The
Cask of Amontillado’ (1846), Edgar Allen Poe famously elucidates his philosophy
of revenge. His vengeful protagonist Montresor states, ‘A wrong is unredressed
when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger
fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.’1 Here, Poe
suggests the essence of revenge lies not merely in the injured party’s punishment
of the injurer, but also in the latter’s realization that the avenger has appropriately
achieved vengeance. However, Poe does not make explicit an important element of
his philosophy, one which may help explain Montresor’s otherwise ambiguous
motives: the extension of the knowledge of the vengeance to a party external to the
original injury. Poe’s philosophy offers insight into a similarly implicit
commentary on this external component of the process of revenge in M.R. James’s
ghost stories, specifically those of his first collection, Ghost Stories of an
Antiquary (1904). Through careful examination of specific narrative cycles of
revenge in these stories, James’s own philosophy of revenge and its requisite
extension to a third party may be brought to light.
Contemporary criticism has duly identified that James’s ghosts are generally
vengeful in nature; however, the motivations behind this drive for revenge have
been strangely neglected. Like Poe, James employs ambiguity as a significant tool
in creating horror, often through the reader’s questioning the avenger’s motives.
But careful examination of this technique reveals a significant pattern in his
ghostly cycle of revenge as characters are haunted, and even killed, due to
seemingly innocuous actions. In fact, these actions often do not extend far beyond
mere disturbance, whether through curiosity or chance circumstance. Although
these seemingly ambiguous incongruities between disturbance and punishment
Terry Scarborough 33
__________________________________________________________________
have remained an issue of debate, several details offer insight into the unique
qualities of James’ hauntings.
In ‘The Mezzotint,’ the seeming victim Mr. Williams purchases ‘a rather
indifferent mezzotint’2 for his museum and is ‘unexpectedly introduced’3 to a
process of past revenge, which is completed through a horrifying experience with a
changing picture. Williams is driven to locate the scene of a long past crime of
which he learns through investigation of the haunting that a Mr. Arthur Francis, in
attempt to expel a poacher from his estate, entered a dispute with one Gawdy in
which the latter ‘was unlucky enough…to shoot a keeper.4 ‘The last remains of a
very old family…[who were] lords of the Manor at one time,’5 Gawdy is hanged
and ‘buried on the north side of the church.’6 As the injury is compounded by
insult (not unlike the injury in Poe’s ‘Cask’), the outcome of Gawdy’s revenge
seems fitting; the mezzotint enacts his return and making away with Francis’s only
heir, ‘putting an end to his line, too.’7 However, a closing detail poses an important
point: we learn that ‘although carefully watched, [the mezzotint] has never been
known to change again.’8 The cessation of the haunting (one through which the
observer experiences much distress) suggests the necessity of a third and quite
innocent mortal party witness and maintain the act of revenge-through the very
knowledge of its occurrence-to complete the cycle.
As ‘The Mezzotint’ demonstrates the necessity of a third party in the process of
revenge, it also elicits the problem of justice in its execution. The reader learns that
Gawdy ‘always kept just on the right side of the law – until one night the keepers
found him at it…[on] the estate.’9 During the confrontation Gawdy is ‘unlucky
enough…to shoot a keeper’10 and we discover that, along with a jibe at ‘grand
juries – you know what they would have been then,’11 Gawdy’s prosecution is
‘what Francis wanted.’12 Here, supernatural vengeance supersedes social justice to
give rise to what Jennifer L. Culbert refers in ‘Reprising Revenge’ as ‘a completely
new set of circumstances,’ arguably through which the ‘ cycle of vengeance…may
be disrupted.’13 Culbert references a perpetual cycle of reprisal, which in its
retaliatory nature suggests an incessant chain of vengeful acts rooted in primal
injury and claims that ‘The spectre of being held captive in a cycle of vengeance
haunts accounts of the limits of sovereign power.’14 Basing her study on Rene
Girard’s famous statement that ‘vengeance is a vicious circle that is broken only
when the power to seek reprisal is consolidated in a sovereign authority,’
specifically ‘a judicial system in conjunction with a firmly established political
power,’15 Culbert asserts that when such authority is questioned, ‘what follows is a
return to a timeless state of nature in which people are once again perpetually
obliged to settle their own scores.’16 That is, she suggests that rather than remove
any form of victim, who will ostensibly retaliate against injury, such interference in
the process of revenge may revert the feeling of self-injury to a primal state. In
light of this theory, James’s emphasis on a questionable sovereign authority in the
grand jury and the suggestion that ‘Squires could do a lot of things then that they
34 ‘If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you’
__________________________________________________________________
daren’t think of now’17 thus exposes a pattern through which he suggests cycles of
reprisal may be broken, or at least disrupted, by way of extended and continued
knowledge of their existence. As the law seeks to displace the injured party and
thereby halt cycles of reprisal through a neutralized form of vengeance, James’
haunted image introduces an innocent third party to make public and complete the
process of revenge.
‘The Mezzotint’ establishes the first step in tracing this pattern, but it expands
to a more problematic inclusion of an innocent third party in ‘The Ash Tree.’
Here, one Mrs. Mothersole is tried and executed as a witch. A ‘victim,’ Mrs.
Mothersole is in a more ‘influential position’ than the other accused witches and
‘Efforts are made to save her by several reputable farmers of the parish.’18 Sir
Matthew Fell, the master of Castrigham Hall, provides the ‘fatal’19 evidence and
incites her ‘poysonous rage’20 as she is burned alive. Accordingly, Fell becomes
the target of vengeance and draws attention to the sovereign authority of the law
whose favour is influenced by social rank (the favour of several farmers is
outweighed by the testimony of one man of higher social status). Mothersole’s
crime of ‘gathering sprigs “from the ash-tree near [Fell’s] house”’21 provides the
vehicle through which she exacts her revenge. Fell is dispatched in similar fashion
to Mothersole as several creatures resembling large spiders enter Fell’s chamber
via the tree branches and leave the corpse ‘in Great Swelling and Blackness . . .
[and] “twisted after so an extream” suggesting that he expir’d in great Pain and
Agony.’22
Mothersole’s revenge seeks to rectify both the incongruous relation between
crime and punishment and the failure to question the sovereign authority of the
law, and points to James’s intricate understanding of the complexity of the revenge
process through the significance of anger. Mothersole’s revenge is directed toward
her injurer in Fell, but the legal authority remains unpunished. As Fell’s son, Sir
Matthew the second, succeeds the estate, there begins a ‘curiously constant
mortality among his cattle and live-stock in general, which show[s] a tendency to
increase slightly as time [goes] on.’23 After containing the animals indoors and in
parks, the ‘disorder’ is confined to ‘wild birds, and beasts of the chase,’ resulting in
the local farmers coining the occurrences the ‘Castringham sickness.’24 In an 1898
review in Mind, Edward Westermarck distinguishes ‘sudden anger’ from
revenge.25 According to Westermarck, the former can occur as an ‘outburst of a
wounded ‘self-feeling’, which, when not directed against its proper object, can
afford only an inadequate consolation to a vengeful man.’26 Westermarck’s
suggestion, with which James may have been acquainted, reveals a salient clue in
James’s cycle of revenge. Inadequately consoled by her revenge on Fell,
Mothersole’s ‘poysonous rage’27 is projected outward in attempt to heal her
‘wounded self-feeling’ and is eventually directed on to the third generation of
Fells, Sir Richard.
Terry Scarborough 35
__________________________________________________________________
Sir Richard’s demise, which results like his grandfather, in his lying ‘dead and
black in his bed,’28 is triggered by his order to exhume Mothersole’s corpse (which
is strangely absent) and burn her coffin. As the original injury is compounded by
insult,29 Mothersole’s rage is again focused on the Fell family line. At this point is
it important to note that Mothersole’s corpse is inside the very ash tree with which
Fell’s testimony connects her. Only upon destroying the tree-importantly, it is
accidentally burned to the ground-does the cycle of rage-revenge halt, suggesting
Mothersole’s inability to repair, in Westermarck’s terms, ‘the ‘self-feeling’ which
has been lowered or degraded by the injury suffered.’30 Through its destruction, the
tree metonymically equates to both the incongruity between Mothersole’s crime
(gathering sprigs from its branches) and the sentence bestowed on her by the law
(death by live burning). Upon examination of the roots is found ‘the anatomy or
skeleton of a human being, with the skin dried upon the bones…which was
pronounced…to be undoubtedly the body of a woman, and clearly dead for a
period of fifty years.’31
The documenter, one Bishop of Kilmore, who is in a position which although
not legal suggests sovereign authority, assumes the third party in James’s revenge
cycle, which corresponds to Culbert’s assertion that ‘The spectre of being held
captive in a cycle of vengeance haunts accounts of the limits of sovereign
power.’32 As the incongruity between crime and punishment is made public
through documentation by an ecclesiastic authority, albeit ambiguously, the failure
to halt an ongoing cycle of violent reprisal results in its perpetuation not merely
through continued knowledge of its occurrence, but through understanding of its
origin. That is, as the third party provides and preserves clues as to who and how
the redresser achieves revenge, Mothersole’s unfocussed rage is displaced by
James’s cycle of injury, reprisal and externalisation by a third party.
In ‘A School Story,’ James enacts what is perhaps his most overt rendering of
the revenge cycle. In a retrospective narration of a childhood experience with the
supernatural during his school years, the narrator recounts a tale of a vengeful
murder victim returned to claim his assassin. In typical Jamesian fashion, the ghost
or revenant communicates through Latin; but, in a significant gesture toward the
inclusion of a third party, this communication takes place through a medium, a
student and friend of the narrator. In a self-reflexive gesture, James catalogues
popular types of the bogey tale, and begins his cycle. Sampson, a master
instructing Latin grammar, encounters a haunting communication with his victim
through a student’s Latin exercises. Teaching ‘how to express remembering,’ he
instructs the students to construct a sentence using ‘the verb memini.’33 A very
average student McLeod constructs ‘Remember the well among the four…yews,’34
which excites a worried and inquisitive response in Sampson. The next message,
which appears without the aid of McLeod, threatens, ‘Si tu non veneris ad me, ego
veniam ad te,’ which means…‘If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you.’35 As
Sampson faces violent reprisal, McLeod is mysteriously drawn to the window,
36 ‘If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you’
__________________________________________________________________
notably without ‘hear[ing] anything at all.’36 McLeod and the narrator experience
the occurrence, the latter second hand, but are not fully aware of the circumstance;
thus, the cycle of revenge is incomplete as we learn that the observers did not
mention what they ‘had seen to any third person whatever.’37
At this point in his enactment of the revenge cycle, James appends a sequel
through which the cycle is successfully completed in an overt commentary on the
necessity of an external party. The reader learns that ‘there had been more than one
listener to the story, and, in the latter part of the same year…one such listener was
staying at a country house in Ireland.’38 The unnamed external party chances upon
an engraved gold coin, which the reader learns earlier belonged to Sampson.
Learning that his host, upon cleaning an old well in a yew thicket, found the coin
on one of the remains of two bodies at the bottom, the speaker ‘experience[s] an
odd sense of nervousness’39 upon recognizing the coin engraved with Sampson’s
initials. Similar to the function of the tree in ‘The Ash Tree,’ the coin functions as
a metonym for the now ongoing cycle of revenge. Although the well is filled ‘fast
enough,’40 the coin containing distinct evidence pertaining to the initial narrative is
retained and discovered by the third party, thereby revealing the explicit details of
the school story, and perpetuating knowledge of the successful execution of
vengeance.
James’s fixation on the ability to disrupt haunting cycles of revenge through
their very perpetuation provides insight into tropes of haunting in the language
surrounding revenge. Furthermore, his ghost stories enact implicit commentary on
contemporary theories of revenge and their connections to justice and offer insight
into the cyclical nature of reprisal. Such intricate focus on revenge in Gothic
literature remains an important area of debate among scholars, one which retains
close proximity to the concepts of haunting and ghosts. Following Poe’s
philosophy of revenge, James articulates and expands upon the problematic
construction of a revenge cycle through which he emphasizes the externalisation of
the knowledge of vengeance through the necessary inclusion of a third party.
Perhaps such understandings of these cycles will offer insight into revenge and its
connections to justice; in so doing, perhaps the spectre of revenge can be brought,
at least for a moment, to the light of day.

Notes
1
EA Poe, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, The Portable Poe, Penguin, Ontario, 1973,
p. 309.
2
MR James, ‘The Mezzotint’, Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories, Penguin,
Toronto, 2005. p .27.
3
Ibid., p. 25.
4
Ibid., p. 36.
5
Ibid., p. 35.
Terry Scarborough 37
__________________________________________________________________

6
Ibid., p. 36.
7
Ibid., p. 36.
8
Ibid., p. 36.
9
Ibid., p. 36.
10
Ibid., p. 36; emphasis added.
11
Ibid., p. 36.
12
Ibid., p. 36.
13
JL Culbert, ‘Reprising Revenge’, Law, Culture and the Humanities, Vol. 1,
2005, pp.302-315.
14
Ibid., p. 313.
15
Ibid., pp. 302-303.
16
Ibid., p. 313.
17
James, op. cit., p. 35.
18
MR James, ‘The Ash Tree’, Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories, Penguin,
Toronto, 2005, p. 38.
19
Ibid., p. 38.
20
Ibid., p. 39.
21
Ibid., p. 38.
22
Ibid., p. 41.
23
Ibid., p. 43.
24
Ibid., p. 43.
25
E Westermarck, ‘The Essence of Revenge’, Mind: A Quarterly Review of
Psychology and Philosophy, Vol. 7.No. 27, 1898, p 289-310.
26
Ibid., p.295.
27
Ibid., p. 295
28
James, ‘The Ash Tree’, loc. cit.
29
Poe distinguishes in ‘The Cask’ between injury and insult, the latter being the far
more serious offence. Montresor states, ‘The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had
borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.’
30
Westermarck, op. cit., 19.
31
James, ‘The Ash Tree’, p. 50.
32
Culbert, emphasis added, p. 313.
33
MR James, ‘A School Story’, Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories, Penguin,
Toronto, 2005, p. 123.
34
Ibid., p. 124
35
Ibid., p. 125
36
Ibid., p. 126
37
Ibid., p. 126
38
Ibid., p. 127
39
Ibid., p. 127
40
Ibid., p. 127
38 ‘If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you’
__________________________________________________________________

Bibliography
Culbert, J.L., ‘Reprising Revenge’. Law, Culture and the Humanities. Vol. 1, 2005,
p. 302-315.

James, M.R., ‘A School Story’. Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories. Penguin,
Toronto, 2005.

–––, ‘The Ash Tree’. Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories. Penguin, Toronto,
2005.

–––, ‘The Mezzotint’. Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories. Penguin, Toronto,
2005.

Poe, E.A., ‘The Cask of Amontillado’. The Portable Poe. Penguin, Ontario, 1973.

Westermarck, E., ‘The Essence of Revenge’. Mind: A Quarterly Review of


Psychology and Philosophy. Vol. 7, No. 27, 1898, pp. 289-310.

Terry Scarborough is College Professor in the Department of English at


Okanagan College. His research interests include fin-de-siecle Gothic literature and
Victorian representations of crime and urban exploration.
PART II

Literature and Poe-Tic Revenge


The Mixed-Blood Settles Scores: The Question of Racial Justice
in Georges by Alexandre Dumas

Claudie Bernard
Abstract
The English word revenge has two equivalents in French: vengeance (revenge
proper), and revanche (a settling of scores). This paper examines the functioning of
these two concepts, as well as that of reprisals (the revenge of a group against
another group), and their bearing on the question of racial justice in the novel
Georges by Alexandre Dumas (1843). Georges is a free mixed-blood from
Mauritius who dreams of ‘killing the colour prejudice’ against the mulattos. In
order to prove to the whites that he is equal and even superior to them, he plans a
shining settling of scores: the conquest of the white lady. His settlement turns to
revenge when the whites threaten him, and, when they treat him like a ‘Negro,’
pushes him to lead the reprisals of the black slaves against their masters. In the
end, can the protagonist claim to have ‘killed the colour prejudice’ against the
mulattos? Obviously not. I interrogate the reasons of this failure, linking it to the
heroic model cultivated by the mixed-blood, that of the proud (white) knight
fighting a monster.

Key Words: Revenge, justice, race, Alexandre Dumas, adventure novel.

*****

The word revenge in English comes from an old French word (revengier), itself
from a Latin root (vindicare). Revengier has given two terms in modern French:
vengeance, and revanche. Vengeance (revenge proper) is a retaliation, which
responds to an offence, and renders a wrong for a wrong, in order to re-establish
the balance of justice. Revanche, which I will translate as a settling of scores,
responds not so much to an offence as to a humiliation, and consists in taking the
upper hand after having been defeated. Revenge hurts by returning the wrong done
by the other; revanche hurts by doing better than the other. In revenge, this other is
an offender, an enemy; revanche deals with an adversary, whose tactics it borrows;
for, in contrast to revenge, revanche presupposes an initial parity between the
parties. In addition to these two concepts, my paper will make use of that of
reprisals, which I reserve for the revenge of a group against another group.
I would like to examine the functioning of these notions and their bearing on
the question of racial justice in Georges, an adventure novel replete with exotic and
melodramatic elements, published by Alexandre Dumas in 1843. Dumas, a prolific
author of popular novels in the Romantic era, was a quarter black by his paternal
grandmother, a slave from the Caribbean island of Saint-Domingue (today’s Haiti).
After the bloody insurrection in Saint-Domingue in 1791, slavery was abolished by
42 The Mixed-Blood Settles Scores
__________________________________________________________________
the French Revolution in all its colonies, but reinstituted by Bonaparte in 1802, on
the pressure of the planters’ lobbies, in spite of the resistance of rebel leader
Toussaint Louverture and the proclamation of Haiti’s independence in 1804. The
triangular trade was forbidden in 1815 - which did not prevent it from continuing
illegally -, and, following the example of the United Kingdom, the IId Republic put
an end to slavery, for economic as well as humanitarian reasons - a measure which
did not, however, put an end to imperialism, exploitation, and pigmentocracy. In
Paris, the debates surrounding these issues were very lively, and had strong
repercussions in literature: the Black, as cursed figure, superlative victim or
exceptional hero, made a good Romantic character, while urgently raising the
question of distributive and retributive justice (in Ourika by Mme de Duras,
Tamango by Mérimée, Toussaint Louverture by Lamartine, Bug-Jargal by Hugo).
Mulattos had been present in the colonies from their inception. Whereas a
relationship between a white female, precious property of the colonials, and a black
male was unacceptable, the fornication of white masters with their black female
slaves was common. The degree of hybridism of the offspring was carefully
classified, the slightest stain in the blood precipitating them into métissage.
Mulattos could be servile or free, free by birth or by emancipation. In spite of their
juridical rights, the free mulattos suffered multiple forms of discrimination;
demographically and economically active, occasionally slave owners, they were
perceived both as allies, and as a threat by the white minority. Their rancour
against this elite was all the more bitter as they dreamed of integrating into it, and
their brutality vis-à-vis the inferior masses was all the harsher as they wanted to
separate from them. In the Romantic period, the duality of the mulatto can elicit a
dream of ethnic reconciliation; more often, he is depicted as torn between his blood
lines, or as trying to assimilate to one while denying the other; too black for some,
too white for others, he accumulates the vices of both races, and excels in the role
of traitor (Habibrah in Bug-Jargal). And the female mulatto is all the more
disquieting as she is particularly erotic (Toni in Die Verlobung in Santo Domingo
by Kleist).
And Dumas? His rapport to his black ascendancy, which in no way prevented
his mundane, amorous, and literary success, is ambiguous. In his Memoirs, he
either omits it, attenuates it, or jokes about it. More disappointingly, he did not
support the négrophiles or the abolitionists, and only on a few occasions took a
position in favour of his ‘coloured brothers.’ Can one surmise that, along with his
contradictions, he bequeathed to his fictional hero Georges a share of his hidden
frustrations, and entrusted him with his revanche?
Georges is a free mixed-blood from Ile de France, a French colony in the Indian
Ocean, conquered by the British in 1810, and rebaptized Mauritius. Georges has
assigned himself a mission: ‘I came back here to realize a destiny […] I have a
prejudice to fight. Either it will crush me, or I will kill it.’1 This pre-judice, the
colour prejudice against the mulattos, is not only a hasty, false judgment: it is an
Claudie Bernard 43
__________________________________________________________________
unjust judgment, in view of a conception inherited from the Enlightenment and the
French Revolution, which declares that all men are born equal. Fighting racism
will be fighting for justice.
The novel starts with a bucolic description of the tropical island which the
narrator persists in calling Ile de France, a utopian, timeless topos. Unfortunately,
the island has been invaded by history. After evoking the nearby rock of Saint
Helena haunted by the ghost of Napoleon, ‘the modern Prometheus,’ the narrator
describes the heavily felt presence of the new masters of the territory. And the
beginning of the plot brings us back to the battle of 1810, in which the perfidious
Albion defeated the French.
It is in this context that Georges, then a child, goes through an original trauma.
His father, a rich mulatto ordinarily subservient in front of the master race - ‘he
ended up considering this supremacy not only as an acquired right, but as a natural
superiority’,2 yet hoping that colour preferences will be forgotten for the sake of
the endangered fatherland, offers his services to the Creole commander, M. de
Malmédie: he is scornfully rejected. The old man then takes the lead of a band of
Negroes and wrenches a flag from the enemy, which he gives to Georges to keep.
But Georges is beaten up by Malmédie’s son, Henri, who steals the trophy, strikes
him with his toy sword, and calls him ‘mulatto!’ To which Georges replies:
‘coward!’ an epithet which, beyond the hue of the skin, qualifies the very nature of
the person, the worth of his blood. The adults promptly re-establish colonial, that
is, white order. Georges, who has internalised the incident, looks beyond revenge:
what would revenge change in the colonial situation? He intends to confront the
prejudice which infects both the persecutors and the persecuted, ‘to fight with it
hand to hand like Hercules against Antaeus […]. Young Annibal, spurred by his
father, had sworn to eternally hate a nation; young Georges, in spite of his father,
swore to fight to the death with a prejudice.’3
Instead of revenge, Georges plans a shining settling of scores: he will prove to
the whites that he is equal and even superior to them, and, by his example, that the
mulattos are as worthy as them. During the fourteen years of his exile in France
and England, he strives to make of himself, through a series of physical and
psychological preliminary trials, a superman, and comes back to Mauritius in 1824,
a highly educated and accomplished young man, ready to ‘kill single-handedly the
prejudice which no coloured man had dared fight.’4 In the posture of an epic hero,
Georges will confront the prejudice as if it were a dragon. And in so doing, in the
posture of a courteous knight, he will conquer the treasure that the dragon keeps
with the utmost care: the white Lady.
The white Lady, the most desirable Creole on the island, is the niece of M. de
Malmédie, and the fiancée of Henri. In his quest for Sara de Malmédie, Georges
goes through several qualifying trials: the killing of a sea monster, the overcoming
of a tropical tempest, and finally the winning of the horse races, a contest in which
he appears as glorious in his immaculate costume as Lancelot in his first joust.
44 The Mixed-Blood Settles Scores
__________________________________________________________________
Gradually, Sara, whose life he has saved, recognizes his gallantry, falls for him,
accepts to be his wife. Yet, when he asks her guardians for her hand in marriage,
they scoff at him; Henri even shakes his cane at him just as, fourteen years before,
he had his toy sword. This gesture, which reactivates the original trauma,
transforms Georges’s desire for revanche into a thirst for revenge. Not the
impulsive revenge dictated by crude resentment though, but the more refined and
codified form current among high born people: the duel. The duel, a chivalric
institution, initially appeared as a way to control the violence elicited by animosity
between noble peers; as revanche, it presupposes parity between the parties. This is
why Henri, the pure blood, refuses to take up the sword against a mixed blood. To
force him to do so, Georges publicly administers him a lash of his horse whip
which, in his mind, constitutes ‘not only a provocation to a rival, but a declaration
of war to all the whites,’5 in his larger duel against the colour prejudice. Alas,
Henri’s response is to threaten his opponent with a flogging…‘a negro’s
punishment!’6
Treated like a black, Georges will turn to the blacks to pursue his enterprise. A
decision all the more complicated, as his father is an affluent slave owner! Of
course, accustomed to the ways of England and France, Georges treats his laborers
in a paternalistic way; he carefully distributes punishments and rewards, does not
let them be bullied by their guards, gives them decent living and working
conditions, in short, exerts a conscientious retributive and distributive justice - yet
the justice of a slave-holder! In its comic description of the primitive comportment
of the blacks - to the dismay of modern readers - the text participates in the
prejudice against them. The ambivalence of Georges’s position is embodied in the
novel by his two antithetical ‘brothers.’ His older, biological brother, is a slave
trader; a figure of the Romantic adventurer, he is presented as a good relative and a
good person, and, although heavily ironic in its account of him, the text avoids
condemnation as well as approbation of his traffic in human flesh. Georges’s
younger, spiritual brother, is a slave; he belonged to the brutal M. de Malmédie
until Georges, recognizing in him a generosity (from genus, extraction, race)
typical of a good blood, bought and freed him. This character, a mixed blood in his
own right (half Black, half Arabic), physically and morally superior, and
hopelessly in love with Sara de Malmédie, appears as a modest double of the
protagonist. He, too, is keen on fighting the colour prejudice - not in the camp of
the mulattos, but in that of the blacks.
This Mauritian Spartacus does not seek revanche, but revenge, collective
revenge, that is, reprisals; thirty years after the Santo Domingo insurrection, he
prepares the revolt of the oppressed masses, and designates Georges as their leader.
Whereas revanche and revenge pitted Georges against the guardians of his Lady,
the reprisals bring him up against the guardian of the public order: the British
governor. Anxious to maintain the status quo between the ethnic components of the
segregationist society, the governor was ready to force Malmédie to give his niece
Claudie Bernard 45
__________________________________________________________________
to Georges, in the hope of aggregating the mulattos to the Creole minority; when
Georges sides with the insurgents, the governor has him arrested. And to stop the
mutiny, he avails himself of a ruse: he has alcohol distributed to the brutes so as to
divert their vindictive violence; their ‘clamours of rage and vengeance’7 turn into a
hideous turmoil, and the heroic enterprise into a grotesque farce.
While his last companions are massacred by the governor’s troops, Georges
faces his supreme trial: a judicial trial, at the hands of a hostile tribunal which,
rather than inflict an impartial penalty, imposes the vengeance of a class. The
mixed blood receives his condemnation without flinching, and offers a last ‘lesson
of courage’ to his antagonistic public.8 At this point though, in conformity with the
pattern of the heroic quest, Georges’s supreme trial converts into a triumphal one
when his paramour, Sara de Malmédie, publicly proclaims that she is ready to
marry him. This event restores to Georges his epic aura:

he was a victor laid low at the moment of his victory.’ ‘By the
sheer influence of his personal value, he, the mulatto, had
conquered the love of a white lady […] Now, Georges could die;
[…] he had fought hand to hand with the prejudice, and, while
costing Georges his life, the prejudice had been killed in the
struggle.9

The mixed blood has settled his scores. Better even, since a novel of
melodramatic adventures requires a happy ending, Georges’s father and brother
suddenly come up and help the newlyweds escape by sea.
Let us ponder this ending. If Georges has settled his own scores against the
whites and, in particular, against the Malmédies, obviously, the prejudice has not
thereby been killed. What about the liberation of the blacks? It looks as if the slave
brother had been the sacrificial victim whose immolation allows the hero to
survive, as if the haemorrhage of black blood had symbolically cleansed his mixed
blood. And what about the crusade on behalf of the mulattos, only represented in
the text by Georges and his family? However mortified, the Malmédies and their
ilk remain the masters of the ideological terrain - that of prejudice, precisely. In
fact, Georges has been trapped in the heroic model, which informs his revanche:
the myths of Hercules, of Annibal, of Napoleon, of the knight crushing the
dragon…Firstly, it is never clear whether the champion of the mulattos, and
occasionally of the blacks, is fighting for the collective cause - ‘these men are my
brothers’,10 as a new Toussaint Louverture, or primarily for himself, savouring
‘that great revenge he was to draw from society, that great compensation fate was
to give him’?11 Obsessed with the healing of his narcissistic wounds, that is, of the
prejudice of inferiority from which he has suffered, he is eager to wrest a judgment
of superiority from the whites; the need for recognition pushes him to cultivate his
exceptionality, while the very formula of revanche incites him to adopt his
46 The Mixed-Blood Settles Scores
__________________________________________________________________
adversaries’ criteria and models - among which the chivalric one - and, as his
whiteness is visibly imperfect, to exaggerate them; he is elegant to the point of
dandyism, generous to the point of prodigality, courageous to the point of temerity.
His pride and his pose isolate him from the blacks, which are at the crux of his
mixed nature, and at the core of the racial question.
Secondly, the heroic model locks him in retributive justice. In order to
eradicate a prejudice, a judgment intellectually erroneous and morally unfair, direct
confrontation is not enough. If the prejudice is a monster, it is a protean,
ubiquitous, treacherous one; in order to destroy it, one has to scrutinize and attack
the socio-economic infrastructures which generate it, the cultural foundations
which feed it; reforming them is the only way to extirpate the monster. In short,
beyond retributive justice, one has to address distributive justice.
Georges ends on an idyllic note. The mixed-blood and the white Lady got
married, seemed bound to live happily ever after, and to have many children -
children whiter than their father... In the meantime, where will the fugitive direct
their boat? Towards France? The mixed-blood do not belong to the ‘pure’ blood of
the Nation. Towards Europe, the land of the white lords? Towards Africa, the land
of the black supplies? Towards America, a land of immigration but also, in 1824,
of slavery? The novel abandons them in the void of the ocean, as if they had no
place anywhere. The novel of the mixed-blood is, finally, not as black and white as
it might seem.

Notes

1
A. Dumas, Georges, Gallimard, Folio, Paris, 2003, p.270. My translation.
2
Ibid., p.349. My translation.
3
Ibid., p.105. My translation.
4
Ibid., p.121. My translation.
5
Ibid. p.291. My translation.
6
Ibid., p.301. My translation.
7
Ibid., p.341. My translation.
8
Ibid., p.410. My translation.
9
Ibid., p.415. My translation.
10
Ibid., p.334. My translation.
11
Ibid., p.318. My translation.

Bibliography

Dumas, A., Georges. Gallimard, Folio, Paris, 2003.


Claudie Bernard 47
__________________________________________________________________

Claudie Bernard, a professor at New York University, is the author of several


books and many articles on the historical novel, the question of family, and the
theme of justice in nineteenth-century France.
Analysing Darker Motives or Delving Robert Browning’s
‘Poetry of Revenge’

Paula Guimarães

Abstract
Literature generally likes to illustrate the noble passions and not the more evil and
ignoble ones, like envy, jealousy, avarice, hatred or revenge. When these are
portrayed in the plays of Shakespeare or in a novel such as Emily Brontë’s
Wuthering Heights, they are driven by the emotion that so fiercely and swiftly
accumulates around them, they master the body and soul, the intellect and the will,
like some furious tyrant, and in their extremes hurry their victim into madness.
Robert Browning (1812-1889) took some of those terrible powers and made them
obsessive subjects in his poetry. Short, sharp-outlined sketches of them occur in his
dramas and longer poems but also in the smaller compositions. The combination,
for example, of envy and hatred resolved in vengeance in The Laboratory is too
intense for any pity to intrude. But in A Forgiveness our natural revolt against the
work of hatred is modified into pity even though the ‘justice’ of revenge is
accomplished. Unlike many of his Victorian contemporaries, Browning
deliberately populated his poetic creations with evil people – who not only commit
crimes and sins, ranging from simple hatred to cold-blooded murder, but who are
also crafty, intelligent, argumentative and capable of lying. In this sense, the poems
we propose to analyse provide interesting snapshots of his speakers and their often
deranged personalities. By channelling the voice of a character, Browning explores
evil without actually being evil himself, allowing several forms of consciousness
and self-representation to emerge. He thus seems to question the artist’s
responsibilities (in his creations) and the direct relationship between art and
morality, issues that were only developed later in the century.

Key Words: Revenge, forgiveness, poetry, drama, Browning, Brontë, good, evil,
adultery, death.

*****

Good, to forgive;
Best, to forget!
Living, we fret;
Dying, we live.
Fretless and free,
Soul, clap thy pinion!
Earth have dominion,
Body, o’er thee!
(R. Browning, 1878)
50 Analysing Darker Motives
__________________________________________________________________
The American philosopher Martha Nussbaum has written wisely and
sensitively of the psychological, moral and cultural foundation for revenge:

The primitive sense of the just – [...] – starts from the notion that
a human life is a vulnerable thing, a thing that can be invaded,
wounded, violated by another’s act in many ways. For this
penetration, the only remedy that seems appropriate is a counter
invasion, equally deliberate, equally grave.1

But in terms of the philosophical debate, and as Nussbaum states in a later


work, the pro-compassion person tends to recognize that private revenge can be an
especially unsatisfactory, costly way to effect the punishment of offenders, often
causing the exchange of damages to perpetuate without limit.2
As both a structural and a thematic centre for literature, especially literary
tragedy, revenge has nevertheless much to recommend it.3 For the writer, the
revenger’s position, necessarily secretive, solitary, and extreme, is conducive to
introspection. It encourages meditation on the anomalies of justice, both human
and divine, on past time, and on the value of life and human relationships. Besides
dramatists, several English novelists and poets have thus recognized the peculiar
aesthetic value of the topic of revenge, seeing the manifestations of vengefulness
as part of the human potential.
In the oldest epic poem in English, Beowulf (eighth century), vengeance is part
of the pagan heroic code and is strictly adhered to, despite the fact that it is written
by an anonymous Christian author. The poet acknowledges the perspective of the
avenger by allowing him to express his motivations, desires, and justifications.
Alongside this, however, is the author’s own reflection on the repercussions of
those actions, the destructiveness of the blood-feud.4
The feelings of envy and deep hatred which can ultimately lead to revenge are
analysed by William Blake in ‘A Poison Tree’ (1794), one of his Songs of
Experience. Here, revenge is no longer part of a heroic code but is seen as a long-
protracted and complex feeling that consumes the speaker and is symbolically
represented by a growing tree bearing a poisonous ‘apple’. The poet describes how
instead of making an attempt to solve that wrath by simply telling it, the speaker
allows the negative feeling to grow and develop inside of him.5 Sweet revenge is
finally fulfilled when the foe comes into the man’s ‘garden’ under the disguise of
night and eats the envied fruit, dying on the spot. Blake thus skilfully brings into
his poem the central motives associated with the topic of revenge: hatred,
premeditation, concealment, envy and gleeful fulfilment.
Another paradigmatic work on the theme of unresolved hate and revenge is
Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights (1847), in which retaliation extends to
two generations and two families. Although Heathcliff is undoubtedly the main
avenging force in this story of unrequited love, and he gives himself
Paula Guimarães 51
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wholeheartedly to acts of sadistic destruction and usurpation, he is not the only
one.6 At least one of the female victims, in the person of Catherine Linton, is
capable of returning the avenging curse of her formidable abuser and usurper, thus
disallowing any pardon-like speech:

On only one condition can I hope to forgive him. It is, if I may


take an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, for every wrench of
agony return a wrench, reduce him to my level.7

But other writings by Brontë, namely her Gondalian poems and Belgian devoirs,
contain those elements.8
Like his contemporary, Robert Browning (1812-1889) was a poet who saw all
life as a conflict, not only between good and evil but also between instinct and
intellect, the masculine and the feminine, trying to resolve the artistic dilemma
posed by a double awareness of things: moral and aesthetic. Like Brontë, he
developed a form of dramatic perception, in which inner and outer consciousness
could either split or become fused into unity by a single act of apprehension. What
his dialectical poems progressively offer is not so much the throb of passion, but
‘the psychoanalytic investigation of motives behind impulses which never
themselves get actualized.’9 Browning was interested in exposing the devious ways
in which our minds work and the complexity of our motives, but he tends ‘at one
further remove to refuse emotional involvement in the situations he evokes.’10
Like Emily Brontë, Browning believed that God had created an imperfect
world – one of falsehood and violence – as a kind of testing ground for man.11
There are few forms of human character the poet does not study, catching each
individual at the supreme moment of his life, and in the hardest stress of
circumstance, under which the inmost working of his nature is revealed.12 In
particular, Browning’s gallery of villains – murderers, sadistic husbands, mean and
petty manipulators – is a surprising and extraordinary one.13 Browning is interested
in demonstrating the moral-aesthetic dimension of this grotesque and violent world
mainly through the dialectics of human relationships, in particular those between
man and woman, inside and outside the institution of marriage.
We must now follow him into this region, in which he attempts to deal directly
with the speculative difficulties that crowd around the conception of evil, or that
which lurks within a being’s mind waiting to be inadvertently released by speech.14
Browning’s dramatic monologues start suddenly in the midst of things; the reader
is plunged abruptly into the midst of a consciousness, voicing its own assumptions
and limitations. His monologists go down layer after layer until they reach the truth
which is hidden in their hearts. 15
‘The Laboratory’ (1844), as its subtitle ‘Ancien Régime’ suggests, takes place
in France before the French Revolution and is in many ways a really sinister
poem.16 Browning presents a high society woman around the King’s court, who
52 Analysing Darker Motives
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has been betrayed by her husband or lover with another woman and is determined
to get her revenge. She secretly visits a chemist who agrees, for a large pay, to
make her a deadly poison, with which she will be able to kill her rival. In a mere
forty-eight lines, the story develops full of vivid detail and we literally enter into
the psychopathic mind of the speaker, witnessing not only her raging jealousy and
sense of betrayal but also her utter fascination with the chemist’s work in the
laboratory (characterized as a ‘devil’s-smithy’). Masked for both protection and
concealment, she is delighted at the idea that the poison could be hidden away in a
ring and she wants actually to witness the moment of her rival’s death and the way
her face contorts in agony:

Not that I bid you spare her the pain;


Let death be felt and the proof remain:
Brand, burn up, bite into its grace –
He is sure to remember her dying face!17

Although she sounds deranged and seems to have forgotten any moral norms,
the reader has to think of the corrupt world of eighteenth-century French
aristocracy and that this woman is determined not to be done down. In accordance
with the woman’s highly excited state of mind, the strong dactylic beat creates a
fast intense movement in the verse; in the same way, the poem’s combination of
envy and hatred resolved on vengeance becomes too intense for any pity to intrude.
Likewise, in ‘My Last Duchess’ (Dramatic Lyrics, 1842), the feelings of pity and
forgiveness seem inexistent on the part of the avenger: the lack of a final judgment
further implying that vice escapes unpunished. The speaker of the poem is a
powerful Italian ruler, who the poem suggests has had his ‘last Duchess’ put to
death for her familiar manner with other men, as a matter of masculine pride and
honour.18 But his late wife, though dead, has become a permanent part of his art
collection: ‘That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, / […] I call/ That piece a
wonder’.19 The Duke claims she flirted with everyone (‘her looks went
everywhere’) and did not appreciate his ‘gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name.’20
Nevertheless, his words betray the fact that the Duchess’s genuine depth and
passion contrast greatly with the Duke’s coldness and artfulness. As his monologue
continues, the reader realizes with ever-more chilling certainty that the Duke in
fact caused the Duchess’s early demise: when her behaviour escalated, ‘[he] gave
commands; / Then all smiles stopped together.’21 Having made this disclosure, the
Duke returns to the business at hand: arranging for another marriage; the moral
horror is thus concealed until the last lines when the visitor he is addressing is
revealed as the emissary for this new arrangement. The smoothness and polish of
the Duke’s discourse contrasts with his perfidious and deranged character. He is
‘helped’ not only by Browning’s tactful use of understatement and omission but
Paula Guimarães 53
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also by the flowing fluidity of the poet’s rhyming couplets and the use of
enjambment, a subtle driving force behind the duke’s compulsive revelations.
In other poems of the evil passions the relieving element is pity, as in the two
compositions entitled ‘Before’ and ‘After’ (Men and Women, 1855), in which
Browning refers to the moments just before and after a duel.22 The first poem is a
statement of one of the ‘seconds’ that the duel is absolutely necessary. The
challenger has been deeply wronged and he cannot and will not let forgiveness
intermit his vengeance. Although the male reader may identify with that feeling,
his Christian or more feminine side seems to say, ‘Forgive, let God do the
judgment’. But, in the end, the passion of revenge will have its way and the guilty
one falls dead. In the follow-up poem, After, the perspective changes because
forgiveness begins to seem right and the vengeance-fury wrong; it appears that for
Browning the dead man has escaped (to heaven) while the living one cannot escape
the wrath of conscience; pity then becomes all that is left for the tragic survivor:

How he lies in his rights of a man!


Death has done all death can.
And, absorbed in the new life he leads,
He recks not, he heeds
Nor his wrong nor my vengeance; both strike
On his senses alike,
And are lost in the solemn and strange
Surprise of the change.
Ha, what avails death to erase
His offence, my disgrace?23

While the first poem seems to state the universal impunity of the moral sin
represented by the duel – ‘When the sky, which noticed all, makes no disclosure, /
And the earth keeps up her terrible composure’,24 the second one questions the
effectiveness of the deed for both the subject and his victim.
In The Ring and the Book (1868-9) Browning found his theme in the court
records of an old criminal trial: the case history of Count Guido Franceschini’s
murder of his allegedly adulterous wife.25 This is the poet’s treatment of the
conflict between good and evil in terms of domestic tragedy. For E. D. H. Johnson,
‘It not only presents a full-scale vindication of Browning’s intuitional psychology,
it also embodies the author’s moral and aesthetic philosophy.’26 But the interest
could be said to reside as much in its villains and half-villains. The conflicting
interpretations of the characters directly involved in this seventeenth-century
murder drama are skewed by their respective moral formations. ‘Half-Rome’, or
the representative of patriarchy run mad, concludes that Franceschini was within
his rights to murder his wife, Pompilia, presumed to have been having an affair.
The sentimental would-be feminist voice, representing the ‘Other Half-Rome’,
54 Analysing Darker Motives
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asserts that the wife was both honest and innocent and that the husband was a
murderer. The first speaker clearly aligns himself with the discriminating code of
revenge that is fashionable in their social circles:

But she took all her stabbings in the face,


Since punished thus solely for honour’s sake,
Honoris causa, that’s the proper term.
A delicacy there is, our gallants hold,
When you avenge your honour and only then,
That you disfigure the subject, fray the face,
Not just take life and end, in clownish guise.27

‘Half-Rome’s phrasing is not only superiorly aloof but also narcissistic and
cruel: language acting as an index of character and moral insight. He supports
Franceschini’s revenge for its control and exactness and is oblivious to the sadism
implicit in his own viewpoint. Browning thus portrays Tuscan society as ruthlessly
stratified, filled with corrupt aristocrats, where women are traded in marriage.28
The same theme of adultery would emerge in A Forgiveness (from
Pacchiarotto, 1876), a sustained and subtle analysis of contempt, hatred and
revenge. Its ambiguous title marks how the feeling of pity accompanied and
followed the revenge, even if the justice of the act was finally accomplished on the
woman. The wife of a prominent Spanish statesman, jealous of her husband’s
dedication to his work, decides to take a lover as a form of retaliation: ‘Since my
right in you seemed lost, / I stung myself to teach you, to your cost,/ What you
rejected could be prized …’29 The unsuspecting husband is unable to carry out his
revenge there and then because he only feels a cold contempt for her: ‘I have too
much despised you to divert / My life from its set course by help or hurt of your
all-despicable life.’30 After some years of keeping up appearances, the wife
confesses her love for the deceived husband; but the dramatic disclosure of truth
causes a sudden change in the husband’s attitude, who now becomes obsessed with
the idea of killing:

[…] things that rend and rip,


Gash rough, slash smooth, help hate so many ways,
Yet ever keep a beauty that betrays
Love still at work with the artificer
With his quaint devising […]31

Now was finally the time, he thinks, to accomplish his just revenge; he is ready
to forgive his wife if she dies there and then (a dagger in her heart) and writes his
pardon with her own blood.
Paula Guimarães 55
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The identity of the mysterious lover (symbolized by the cloak wrapped about
his head) is finally revealed when, in cold-blood, the husband suddenly kills the
monk in the confessional. Ironically, this is the same ‘Father’ to whom he had been
‘confessing’ the details of his revenge. These moments are thus postponed to the
very end, in accordance with the maxim ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’. The
husband comments that he despises a crime of passion, preferring those avengers
that wait for the right moment:

The thing I pity most


In men is – action prompted by surprise
Of anger […] Once the foe prostate, […]
Prompt follows placability, regret,
Atonement. Trust me, blood-warmth never yet
Betokened strong will! 32

This close knowledge of the revenger’s mind allows Browning to conclude that
man can be good or evil and that it is the liberty of doing evil that gives the ‘doing
good’ a grace. Revenge and forgiveness are thus intimately associated for the poet.
It is this apparent mixture of shade and light in life, the conflict of seeming good
with seeming evil in the world that makes it a testing ground:

Type needs antitype:


As night needs day, as shine needs shade, so good
Needs evil: how were pity understood
Unless by pain?33

For Browning, good and evil are relative to each other, and each is known only
through its contrary: ‘Type needs antitype.’ How would forgiveness be understood
without the presence of revenge? The extinction of one of the terms would imply
the extinction of the other.

Notes
1
This feature is ‘remarkably constant from several ancient cultures to modern
institutions;’ so that the balance can be truly righted, Nussbaum adds, ‘the
retribution must be exactly, strictly proportional to the original encroachment.’ M
Nussbaum, ‘Equity and Mercy’ in Sex and Social Justice, Oxford University Press,
Oxford and New York, 1999, pp. 157-58 (my emphasis).
2
M Nussbaum, ‘Revenge and Mercy’, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of
Emotions, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, p. 396.
3
The first great tragedies which have survived from ancient Athens and from
Elizabethan England – the Oresteia of Aeschylus and Shakespeare’s Hamlet – are
56 Analysing Darker Motives
__________________________________________________________________

revenge plays. Both tragedies involve the shameful killing of a great king and the
adultery of his consort; both impose upon the son of the dead man a task which
either way will cost him dear.
4
In the primitive conflict of Beowulf and Grendel, the duty to avenge a slain
kinsman is absolute; but even Grendel’s mother seems to receive some sympathy
for her vengeance-raid and Grendel pity as a disinherited exile.
5
‘I was angry with my friend: / I told my wrath, my wrath did end. / I was angry
with my foe: / I told it not, my wrath did grow.’ W Blake, The Norton Anthology of
English Literature, W. W. Norton & Company, New York and London, 1993, p.
40, 1-4 (my emphasis).
6
As Hillis Miller has stated, ‘both God and man are represented as waiting, with
ill-concealed impatience, through the legally required time of mercy and
forgiveness, until they can get down to the ‘pleasant’ business of doing justified
violence on one another to the limit of their powers.’ The Disappearance of God,
1963, p. 189.
7
Brontë, op. cit., Volume II, Chapter III, p. 159 (my emphasis).
8
The state of existence as a ‘fall’, which is described in the first chapters of the
novel, matches that of Emily’s Gondal poems, with their wars and rebellions and
sadistic cruelties. Love in the poems and the novel is a form of destruction, the
most shocking example of the law of nature which says that every creature must be
the relentless instrument of death to the others or himself cease to live.
9
EDH Johnson, The Alien Vision of Victorian Poetry: Sources of the Poetic
Imagination in Tennyson, Browning and Arnold, Princeton University Press,
Princeton, 1952, p. 139.
10
ibid, p. 140. For example, the skill with which the protagonist in Fifine at the
Fair (1872) rationalizes his selfish desires, and thereby reduces morality to
conform to private convenience, shows how the emotions become the plaything of
intellectual casuistry when deprived of any ethical sanction (139-40).
11
Like Brontë, Browning was interested in dramatizing spiritual destinies. But,
unlike Brontë, was well aware that he had brought upon himself the hard task of
showing that pain, weakness, ignorance, failure, doubt, death, misery, and vice, in
all their complex forms, could somehow find their legitimate place in a scheme of
love.
12
Theories of the relation of mind and body, mental health and personality
abounded at this time, namely Thomas Brown’s Lectures on the Philosophy of the
Mind (1820). Browning seems to have been aware of the developments of
nineteenth-century psychology, namely A Bain, The Senses and the Intellect,
published in London in 1855, and Emotions and the Will (1859), which together
could be said to mark the advent of modern psychology.
13
Browning appears to have been inspired by the Roman Stoic philosopher Lucius
Annaeus Seneca (1st century A.D.), who wrote a set of rhetorical plays based on
Paula Guimarães 57
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Euripides’ dramas. In particular, the style of his declamatory, moralizing,


bombastic narrative accounts, detailing horrible deeds and containing long
reflective soliloquies, was recovered to a certain degree by Browning in his own
dramatic monologues and soliloquies.
14
Few disciplines had the ability to convince their followers that unknown
existences lurked under familiar shapes like those branches of psychology
concerned with obscure cerebral disorders. In 1860, Forbes Winslow assembled his
theories on insanity in an eccentric volume, On the Obscure Diseases of the Brain
and Disorders of the Mind, in which he warned that no individual is exempt from
the advance of insanity and irrational behaviour. It is perhaps no coincidence that
one of Browning’s earliest publications was called precisely Madhouse Cells
(1836), a title that emphasized the abnormal state of mind of the speaker.
15
‘Let any man, however clever and full of subterfuge, speak long enough,
Browning believes, and he will expose his deepest secrets, allow us access all
unwittingly to what is most inexpressible in his life – the very mark or note of his
unique selfhood.’ JH Miller, ‘Robert Browning’, The Disappearance of God: Five
Nineteenth-Century Writers, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago,
1963, p. 127 (my emphasis).
16
The poet apparently found out that, in the 1670’s, a police investigation
disclosed that an extraordinary number of women and men attached to King Louis
XIV’s court had been disposing of rivals and enemies by poisonings and that some
of the accused courtiers and poison dealers were punished with death.
17
R Browning, The Works of Robert Browning, Wordsworth Editions, Ware, 1994,
p. 212, 37-40 (my emphasis).
18
The poem is based on real incidents in the life of Alfonso II, fifth duke of Ferrara
in Italy, whose first wife Lucrezia de Medici, a young woman of fourteen, died in
1561 after only three years of marriage. Following her death, probably of poison,
the duke negotiated through an agent to marry a niece of the Count of Tyrol. In the
poem, Browning represents the duke as addressing this agent, whose name was
Nikolaus Madruz.
19
Browning, op. cit., p. 318, 1-3 (my emphasis).
20
ibid, 33.
21
ibid, 45-6 (my emphasis). Browning might have meant with ‘gave commands’
that the duchess was either put to death or shut up in a convent forever. But the
latter procedure was common enough at the time and it probably amounted to a
similar result.
22
In letters of April 1846 Browning had supported duelling, while his wife,
Elizabeth Barrett, had opposed it, D Karlin, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett:
The Courtship Correspondence, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York,
1990, pp. 234-243). The initial opposition to this form of honour settlement and
58 Analysing Darker Motives
__________________________________________________________________

Browning’s afterwards move to his wife’s views are reflected in ‘Before’ and its
companion.
23
Browning, op. cit., p. 243-44, 3-12 (my emphasis).
24
ibid,15-16 (my emphasis).
25
The middle-aged Guido grows dissatisfied with his young wife, Pompilia, and
accuses her of having adulterous relations with a handsome priest who, like St.
George, had tried to rescue her from the dragon’s den in which her husband
confined her. Eventually Guido stabs his wife to death and is himself executed. In a
series of twelve books, Browning retells this tale of violence, presenting it from the
contrasting points of view of the participants and spectators. In its experiments
with multiple points of view, the work anticipates later novels.
26
Johnson, op. cit., p. 120.
27
Browning, op. cit., p. 627, 26-32. This code claimed that the deceived husband
had the right not only to take his wife’s life but also to disfigure her.
28
‘The reader is appalled to realize that this world should after all provide so fair a
field for the exercise of man’s infernal potentialities.’ Johnson, op. cit., p. 126.
29
Browning, op. cit., p. 538-543, 73-76.
30
ibid, 80-83.
31
ibid, 90-94 (my emphasis).
32
ibid, 121-126 (my emphasis). In the case of Sebald and Ottima in Pippa Passes
(1841), a collection of sordid tales of adultery, pity also rules in spite of the fact
that those two have slaked their hate and murdered Luca, Ottima’s husband. Their
crime only creeps like a snake, half asleep, about the bottom of their hearts. The
outburst of horror and repentance may be the greater in the end as Browning
introduces the pity of God.
33
Browning, from Francis Furini, 1881, op. cit., pp. 835-850, 39-42 (my
emphasis).

Bibliography
Abrams, M.H. (ed), The Norton Anthology of English Literature. W. W. Norton &
Company, New York and London, 1993.

Alexander, M. (ed.), Beowulf (A Verse Translation). Penguin Books, London,


1973.

Bacon, F., ‘Of Revenge’. The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, of Francis Ld.
Verulam Viscount St. Albans. Authorama Public Domain Books, Viewed on 8 May
2010, <http://www.authorama.com/essays-of-francis-bacon-5.html>.
Paula Guimarães 59
__________________________________________________________________

Brontë, E., Wuthering Heights. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York,
1998.

Browning, R., The Works. The Wordsworth Poetry Library, Wordsworth Editions,
Ware, 1994.

Hawlin, S., The Complete Critical Guide to Robert Browning. Routledge, London
and New York, 2002.

Johnson, E.D.H., The Alien Vision of Victorian Poetry: Sources of the Poetic
Imagination in Tennyson, Browning and Arnold. Princeton University Press,
Princeton, 1952.

Jones, H., ‘Browning’s Solution of the Problem of Evil’. Browning as a


Philosophical and Religious Teacher. Authorama Public Domain Books. Viewed
on 21 May 2010, <http://www.authorama.com/browning-as-a-religious-teacher-
1.htlm>.

Karlin, D. (ed), Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett: The Courtship


Correspondence 1845-1846. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York,
1990.

Langbaum, R., The Poetry of Experience: The Dramatic Monologue in Modern


Literary Tradition. Penguin University Books, Harmondsworth, 1974.

Miller, J., ‘Robert Browning’. The Disappearance of God: Five Nineteenth-


Century Writers. University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 2000, pp. 81-
156.

Nussbaum, M., ‘Equity and Mercy’. Sex and Social Justice. Oxford University
Press, Oxford and New York, 1999, pp. 157-58.

—, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge University


Press, Cambridge, 2003.

Petch, S., ‘Equity and Natural Law in The Ring and the Book’. Victorian Poetry.
Vol. 35, No. 1, Spring 1997, pp. 105-111.

Shakespeare, W., Hamlet. Penguin Books, London, 1980.


60 Analysing Darker Motives
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Paula Guimarães is Auxiliary Professor at the Department of English and North-


American Studies of University of Minho, Portugal, where she lectures English
Poetry to graduate and postgraduate courses. Her research interests include British
women’s writing and its connections with the male canon in Romanticism,
Victorianism and Modernism, particularly the notions of ‘influence’ and
‘intertextuality’. Other interests include ethics and the analysis of emotions and
states of mind as applied to literature studies.
The Servant as an Agent of Retributive and Restorative Justice
in Wuthering Heights

Esra Melikoğlu
Abstract
The ghosts, in Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, attest to an unacknowledged cultural
crime- and consequent trauma- that must be both remembered and revenged: class-
division. Brontë’s servant character Ellen Dean’s story of masters/mistresses and
servants, into which she inserts the story of her own underprivileged life, expands
to a history of the crimes committed by both the feudal yeomanry and industrial
middle class against servants. This article aims at examining the servant’s role as
Nemesis, in which she unleashes her desire for retribution for the wrongdoing,
hubris and undeserved good fortune of her social superiors. Her surname, ‘Dean’,
alludes to the fact that she wreaks her retribution not merely as an individual, but
on behalf of an institution or community. Yet as the agent of retribution, Ellen
must renounce lawless retaliation. Genteel Lockwood lets blood, as punishment for
his class-arrogance, but the desire for bloodthirsty revenge is checked by the
concept of proportionate revenge or measure for measure. Lockwood is subjected
to humiliation, expropriation and exclusion, which are the traditional crimes
committed against the servant. It will also be argued that revenge is, however, only
the prelude to reconciliation. Story-telling is not only instrumental in the act of
taking revenge, but also in coping with trauma and reconciling the victim with the
offender. We see a foreshadowing of the concept of modern restorative justice, for
criminal Lockwood shall be reformed through Ellen’s tale. Restorative justice
encourages both the victim and offender to narrate the full impact of the crime on
his/ her life. Indeed, Ellen and Lockwood enter into dialogue as narrator and
recipient of a story, respectively. Although this dialogue suggests the possibility of
reconciliation, social reform, as envisioned by future-facing restorative justice,
remains a utopia.

Key Words: Emily Brontë, servant, class-conflict, Nemesis, retribution,


reconciliation, story-telling.

*****

Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights opens with a date, 1801, which ushers in
millennial fears, superstitious belief and the ghosts of an unresolved past. Like the
ghost of Hamlet’s father, Brontë’s ghosts haunting the Yorkshire moors attest to an
unacknowledged or half-acknowledged crime that must be remembered, revenged
and righted, for the future to begin. In Wuthering Heights, the ghosts attest to a
collective crime: class-division.
62 The Servant as an Agent of Retributive and Restorative Justice
__________________________________________________________________
The dispossessed servant, Heathcliff, speaks of ‘‘painting the house-front with
Hindley’s blood’’1, but bloodthirsty revenge, despite the raging class-conflict,
plays surprisingly little role in the novel. The weapons Heathcliff uses against his
gentrified oppressors, Arnold Kettle states, ‘are their weapons of money and
arranged marriages.’2 Ellen Dean emerges as another underprivileged servant
character that adopts the strategy of like for like or proportionate revenge or
retributive justice. It is, principally, in her role as Nemesis, the dispenser of dues,
that Ellen exacts retribution for her social superiors’ excessive pride and
undeserved good fortune. Yet this proportionate revenge is only the prelude to
reconciliation.
The exchange of like for like, ideally, restores the balance of equality between
victim and offender. What Nemesis, in her role as arbiter of class-conflict,
redresses is not merely the balance between two individuals, but the classes in a
community. In Wuthering Heights, this balance is also redressed by a
foreshadowing of modern restorative justice practice. Carrie Menkel-Meadow
notes that this practice encourages both the victim and offender to narrate the full
impact of the crime on their lives. The objects are to make possible direct and
democratic participation, foster empathy between victim and offender, through
dialogue, and reform the offender and reintegrate him or her into the community.3
In the novel, both Ellen, the victim, and the pompous, genteel Lockwood, the
offender, engage in such story-telling. Yet, in the novel, this involves a certain
ambiguity. Story-telling is, at once, Ellen’s principal means of wreaking her
revenge on the recipient of her story, Lockwood, who is brought low by her
exposure of the pomposity and cruelty of his class as well as a means of fostering
in him sympathy for slighted servants.
Wuthering Heights, thus, brings together all the parties affected by the crime of
class-division and the tear in the social texture, in an attempt to restore a kind of
equilibrium: the victim, offender and the community as represented by the
Victorian and post-Victorian readers, who have access to both Ellen’s and
Lockwood’s narratives and act as the public conscience weighing each narrative
against the other. The collective injury, its root causes, implications for the
different parties, the proper balance between crime and punishment and the
possibility of restitution for the victim and reintegration for the wrongdoer and
social reform are contemplated collectively and dialogically.
The novel also ponders the question of who shall have control over crime,
punishment and reconciliation: the victim, offender, community, larger society or
the state? Ellen, in fact, is, at once, victim, prosecutor, advocate, judge and
executor of the punishment, which is, precisely, what the law upholding
impartiality tries to prevent. On the other hand, restorative justice, Menkel-
Meadow notes, argues for a ‘Personalized and direct participation’ of the affected
parties.4 Certain circumstances, moreover, appear to justify this privatisation of
justice. Ellen, actually, steps into a vacancy, since the law in Wuthering Heights,
Esra Melikoğlu 63
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proves to be corrupt- Heathcliff bribes the lawyer, Green, in order to seize Edgar
Linton’s possessions- and legislation regulating the servant-master/mistress
relationship non-existent. Cruel class-division is also a crime that quite some
portion of society and the law do not recognise as such. R. Posner observes that ‘In
a world without government and legal system’ or one that does not operate
properly, ‘the practice of revenge complements that of self-protection.’5
Again, Ellen is not merely an individual, but a representative speaking on
behalf of the professional group of servants. Her representational function as well
as the legitimacy of her judicial role are alluded to by both her surname, Dean,
which suggests a dignitary or senior member of an ecclesiastical or lay body, and
her role as trustee of Cathy’s and Hareton’s estate, trustees often being chosen
from among highly esteemed lawyers. It is, then, not merely the role of an
individual but a public servant that she occupies.
Ellen, ultimately, derives her legitimacy from a divine source, Nemesis. Some
of the goddess’s many attributes are also hers: Nemesis’ apple-branch is alluded to
by the apples that Mr. Earnshaw promises to bring Ellen from Liverpool, while her
avenging sword is translated into Ellen’s knitting needles. The act of knitting
functions as a metaphor for narration, which, as noted above, constitutes the
servant’s principal means of taking revenge. Nemesis, is, moreover, associated
with Fate. The implicit thread, thus, alludes to the thread of a story and of life, here
knit, rather than spun, by Ellen, in her role as Fate. Servants, who are said to peep
through keyholes and eavesdrop, possess a god-like omniscience, which
encourages, as Bruce Robbins states, ‘the notion of the servant as Fate, at once
avenging and arbitrary.’ The servants’ hands that feed their masters and mistresses
might, at any given moment, strike against them.6
Margaret Atwood answers her question of why she writes with a long list of
motives, among them: ‘To satisfy my desire for revenge’.7 It is in the space of her
story that Ellen exposes the cruelty of her superiors and her own suffering. Adam
Phillips points to the therapeutic nature of both revenge and story-telling: ‘If rage
renders us helpless, revenge gives us something to do. It organizes our disarray.
Revenge is one way of making the world or one’s life make sense. Revenge turns
rupture into story.’8 Ellen’s revenge exacted through story-telling, helps her to
cope with trauma, caused by her social superiors’ refusal to acknowledge her as an
equal. Trauma traps individuals into, usually, non-verbal, mechanical re-enactment
of it; it is through, eventually, putting the story of their injury into empowering and
liberating words that they recover a sense of agency and control and turn rupture
into a meaningful story. Her narrative of masters/mistresses and servants, into
which Ellen, covertly, inserts the story of her own underprivileged life, expands to
a history of the crimes committed by both the feudal yeomanry and middle class
against the dispossessed servants, who, in the Victorian period, represented one of
the largest and, at times, the largest professional group. Ellen is recruited from a
poor family to drudge as a legally unprotected and unpaid child servant in the
64 The Servant as an Agent of Retributive and Restorative Justice
__________________________________________________________________
Earnshaw household. Servants were expected to self-sacrificially serve their
superiors; consequently, Ellen does not have a life and family of her own. As an
adult, she neither marries nor bears any children.
A crime involves damage to a person’s body, psychology, capacities to
function, life, plans, and/or resources. Joshua Searle-White, however, accentuates
that ‘Revenge seeks to right not the physical aspect of the injury, but the
psychological ones’ by restoring a balance of equality between victim and
victimiser. The aggrieved individual takes revenge ‘preferably by changing the
aggressor’s evaluation of the aggrieved. I want the mugger to recognize that he is
not better than me.’9 The desire for revenge is, basically, a desire for equilibrium.
What is restored, in Wuthering Heights, is, as noted above, not merely the balance
of equality between victim and victimiser, but the classes. Nemesis is an arbiter in
matters of class-conflict. Robert Graves states that ‘But if it ever happens that a
man, whom [Tyche or fortune] has favoured, boasts of his abundant riches and
neither sacrifices a part to the gods, nor alleviates the poverty of his fellow-
citizens, then the ancient goddess Nemesis steps in to humiliate him.’10 Ellen, as
Nemesis, brings low the wrongdoer, who believes that he or she is of greater value
than the socially underprivileged victim. She relates to the excessively proud
Lockwood: ‘I vexed [Catherine]’, that is, the daughter of the house, ‘frequently by
trying to bring down her arrogance.’11 The notion of equality also dictates the
nature of Ellen’s revenge: she must exact proportionate class revenge or measure
for measure. Joycelyn M. Pollock states that ‘retributive justice […. ] in an extreme
form…takes the form of lex talionis, a vengeance-oriented justice concerned with
equal retaliation (‘an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth’).12
Lockwood is, consequently, subjected to humiliation, expropriation and
exclusion, which are the traditional crimes committed against the servant. That he
is, indeed, on trial is suggested by his dream, in which he is publicly exposed and
excommunicated’, in a chapel. The sin Lockwood is guilty of is not disclosed, but
the fact that the congregation consists of the poor and that a servant, Joseph, proves
the first to physically assault him, suggests class revenge in adherence to the Old
Testament dictum of ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’. Lockwood, earlier in
the novel, attempts to acquit himself of the crimes of ‘underbred pride’ and
‘heartlessness.’13 He not only refers to Ellen, his housekeeper, at the Grange, as
‘My human fixture’14, but relates that his second visit to Wuthering Heights was
motivated by his disgust with a servant-girl raising dust in his room.
Brontë, too, emerges as Nemesis, as she, in an act of retributive story-telling,
treats or permits her servant characters to treat Lockwood like a servant. Robbins
states that the servant characters in literature are often reduced to butts ‘with much
the same repertory of comic gestures’, rather than being allowed to display any
potential for heroism and genuine suffering.15 George J. Worth states that
‘Lockwood is the only genuinely comic figure in Wuthering Heights.’16 The
servants ignore Lockwood’s wishes and treat him like a servant. In fact, the
Esra Melikoğlu 65
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servant-girl’s raising of dust, which threatens to rain down on him and thereby
pollute him, is not only reminiscent of the popular ‘motif of servant contagion’-
transmitted, as Robbins states, usually, through illness as a form of ‘accidental
class revenge’17- but will also reduce him to a sooty servant, who provokes fear
and disgust in the gentility. Ellen, moreover, turns a deaf ear to his request to be
served his dinner at a late hour, and the maidservant extinguishes the fire, thereby
crossing his ‘lazy intention’18 to spend the afternoon by the fire. Both servants
disrupt his leisurely life-style and treat him like air. Ellen, towards the end of the
novel, gives an irritated but complying Lockwood, who is going to the Heights, a
note for Cathy. A servant is treating a gentleman like a messenger boy.
At Wuthering Heights, the slapstick comedy culminates in Lockwood’s being
apprehended as a thief, by a servant, Joseph- in a reversal of the traditional
situation, in which the servant is accused by the master of stealing things in the
house- assaulted by the dogs of the house, pulled into the servants’ kitchen, and
poured over with ice-cold water by another servant, Zillah, to cure his nosebleed.
Lockwood must let a little symbolical amount of blood, despite the check on the
desire for bloodthirsty revenge. The gentrified ex-servant, Heathcliff, threatens to
cast Lockwood out on the marshes, in a raging snowstorm, as suggestive of
Lockwood’s subjection to the servant’s traditional fate of expropriation and
exclusion, and Zillah, finally, makes him sleep in the haunted room.
The servants’ collective revenge, in fact, not merely represents release of their
repressed frustration and fury, but prepares Lockwood for his role as recipient of a
servant’s reformatory story of the intertwined lives of servants and
masters/mistresses. Lockwood is forced into recognition of the servant’s existence
and tempering his pride. Yet he must also be incapacitated or laid low through
illness in order for him to prove willing to listen to a servant’s story. His severe
cold is as much the result of the contagious dust that the servant girl raises and the
cold water Zillah pours over him as it is of the cold weather.
Ellen and Lockwood commit themselves to a ‘Personalized and direct
participation in a process of speaking and listening’, which is, as Menkel-Meadow
notes, central in modern restorative justice practice.19 J. Hillis Miller points to
Lockwood’s role as reader, albeit an, at times, inept one.20 Yet the victim’s story of
the full impact of the crime on her life does succeed in re-educating the offender.
Modern restorative justice, Menkel-Meadow comments, ultimately, aims at healing
for the offender, the victim and the community in which they are embedded. It
‘usually involves direct communication,’ or mutual story-telling, ‘often with a
facilitator, of victims and offenders, often with some or full representation of the
relevant affected community.’21 Both Ellen and Lockwood tell their stories, but
Ellen, has no access to the offender’s story. Margaret Homans also points to the
possibility that Lockwood might have tempered with Ellen’s story.22 A ‘facilitator’
is absent, while the Victorian readers represented the ‘affected community’ and
contemporary readers, a global community. Despite some divergences, modern
66 The Servant as an Agent of Retributive and Restorative Justice
__________________________________________________________________
restorative justice practice is foreshadowed in the novel. Lockwood’s remark: ‘I’ll
extract wholesome medicines from Mrs Dean’s bitter herbs’23, alludes to both the
servant’s story-telling as a means of revenge and of reforming the wrongdoer.
Towards the end of the novel, on his journey to a friend in the north, a sudden
impulse takes Lockwood, once again, to the Grange. His leaving behind his servant
and great civility to both the unnamed old housekeeper and Ellen attest to his
reformation. His gift of sovereigns to Ellen and Joseph, which he, with a new
consideration for the servants’ delicacy of feeling, evaluates as ‘rudeness’24, on his
part, shows that he is no longer the rich man who refuses to alleviate the poverty of
others and is, consequently, brought low by Nemesis. This gift also accords with
the practice in restorative justice to encourage the offender to offer ‘apologies and
material exchanges or payments’ to the victim.25 Ellen’s welcoming attitude and
offer of nourishing food and drink to Lockwood suggests healing and forgiveness,
on her part. His reformation and her forgiveness also pave the way to Lockwood’s
reintegration into the community. The man who recoiled from human
companionship, has already accepted an invitation to stay with a friend.
Yet modern restorative justice aims, as Menkel-Meadow points out, at larger
‘institutional and social reform.’26 Wuthering Heights, indeed, suggests the
possibility of healing and reconciliation for an entire class-divided community. At
the end, Ellen has risen to a position of relative power as the surrogate-mother of
Cathy and Hareton and trustee of their estate, while Lockwood adopts the identity
of a peeping and eavesdropping servant. At Wuthering Heights, he peeps into the
sitting-room and overhears Cathy and Hareton’s conversation, but enters the
kitchen, where sit Ellen and Joseph. Ellen’s story about the reconciliation of the
proud Cathy and the slighted Hareton, who too is of genteel birth, albeit, for years,
reduced to a servant by Heathliff, again, attests to the possibility of an equilibrium
between the classes. On the other hand, Lockwood’s encounter with an old servant
and child servant, in front of the Grange, as emblematic of the continuing exilic
condition of servants, suggests that reconciliation and social reform are rather a
utopia, than an actuality. Jacques Derrida warns that ‘Forgiveness is not, it should
not be, normal, normative, normalizing.’ When forgiveness aims to re-establish
normality, there is the danger of repressing an unresolved political and
interpersonal trauma.27 Modern restorative justice, Menkel-Meadow states,
similarly, advocates ‘forgiveness of the individual, without forgetfulness of the
act.’28 And it is haunting ghosts that ensure awareness of a cultural crime and the
need to right it.
Esra Melikoğlu 67
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Notes
1
E Brontë, Wuthering Heights, 2nd edn, Wordsworth Classics, Ware,
Hertfordshire, 2000, p.33.
2
A Kettle, ‘Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights’, Twentieth Century Interpretations
Of Wuthering Heights: A Collection Of Critical Essays, Prentice-Hall, Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey, 1968, p. 38.
3
C Menkel-Meadow, ‘Restorative Justice: What Is It and Does It Work?’, Annual
Review of Law and Social Science, Vol. 3, July 2007, p. 10.3, Published online by
Annual Reviews, 2007, Viewed on 19 June 2010, http://www.law.georgetown.
edu/faculty/documents/MMRestorativeJustice.AnnuRev.LawSocSci.pdf.
4
ibid.
5
R Posner, Law and Literature- a Misunderstood Relation, Harvard University
Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1988, p. 34.
6
B Robbins, The Servant’s Hand: English Fiction From Below, Columbia
University Press, New York, 1986, p.141.
7
M Atwood, ‘Introduction: Into the Labyrinth’, Negotiating With The Dead: A
Writer on Writing, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002.
8
A Phillips, The Beast in the Nursery, Faber and Faber, London, 1998, p. 98.
9
J Searle-White, The Psychology of Nationalism, Palgrave, New York, 2001, p.
95.
10
R Graves, The Greek Myths: 1, 6th edn, Penguin, Harmondsworth, Middlesex,
1964, vol.1, p. 125.
11
Brontë, op. cit., p. 46.
12
JM Pollock, Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in Criminal Justice, 5th edn,
Thomson Wadsworth, Australia et al., 2007, p. 109.
13
Brontë, op. cit., p. 3.
14
ibid, p. 22.
15
Robbins, op. cit., p. 6.
16
GJ Worth, ‘Emily Brontë’s Mr. Lockwood’, A Wuthering Heights Handbook,
Odyssey Press, New York, 1961, p. 174.
17
Robbins, op. cit. , p. 144.
18
Brontë, op. cit., p. 5.
19
Menkel-Meadow, op. cit., p. 10.3.
20
J Hillis-Miller, ‘Wuthering Heights: Repetition and the Uncanny’, Bloom’s
Modern Critical Views, the Brontës, Chelsea House Publishers, New York and
Philadelphia, 1987, p. 170.
21
Menkel-Meadow, op. cit., p.10.1.
22
M Homans, ‘Repression and Sublimation of Nature in Wuthering Heights’,
Bloom’s Modern Critical Views, the Brontës, Chelsea House Publishers, New York
and Philadelphia, 1987, p. 93.
23
Brontë, op. cit., p. 112.
68 The Servant as an Agent of Retributive and Restorative Justice
__________________________________________________________________

24
ibid., p. 245.
25
Menkel-Meadow, op. cit., p. 10.1.
26
ibid., p. 10.2.
27
J Derrida, ‘On Forgiveness’, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, Routledge,
New York, 2001, p. 32.
28
Menkel-Meadow, op. cit., p. 10.3.

Bibliography
Atwood, M., ‘Introduction: Into the Labyrinth’. Negotiating With The Dead: A
Writer on Writing. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002.

Brontë, E., Wuthering Heights, 2nd edn. Wordsworth Classics, Ware, Hertfordshire,
2000.

Derrida, J., ‘On Forgiveness’. On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness. Routledge,


New York, 2001, pp. 25-60.

Graves, R., The Greek Myths: 1, 6th edn. Vol. 1. Penguin, Harmondsworth,
Middlesex, 1964

Homans, M., ‘Repression and Sublimation of Nature in Wuthering Heights’.


Bloom’s Modern Critical Views, the Brontës. Chelsea House Publishers, New York
and Philadelphia, 1987.

Kettle, A, ‘Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights’. Twentieth Century Interpretations


Of Wuthering Heights: A Collection Of Critical Essays. Prentice-Hall, Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey, 1968.

Menkel-Meadow, C, ‘Restorative Justice: What Is It and Does It Work?’. Annual


Review of Law and Social Science. Vol. 3, July 2007, pp. 10.1-10.27, Published
online by Annual Reviews, 2007, Viewed on 19 June 2010, http://www.law.
georgetown.edu/faculty/documents/MMRestorativeJustice.AnnuRev.LawSocSci.p
df.

Miller, J., ‘Wuthering Heights: Repetition and the Uncanny’. Bloom’s Modern
Critical Views, the Brontës. Chelsea House Publishers, New York and
Philadelphia, 1987.

Phillips, A., The Beast in the Nursery. Faber and Faber, London, 1998.
Esra Melikoğlu 69
__________________________________________________________________

Pollock, J.M., Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in Criminal Justice, 5th edn.
Thomson Wadsworth, Australia et al., 2007.

Posner, R., Law and Literature: A Misunderstood Relation. Harvard University


Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1988.

Robbins, B., The Servant’s Hand: English Fiction From Below. Columbia
University Press, New York, 1986.

Searle-White, J., The Psychology of Nationalism. Palgrave, New York, 2001.

Worth, G.J., ‘Emily Brontë’s Mr. Lockwood’. A Wuthering Heights Handbook.


Odyssey Press, New York, 1961.

Esra Melikoğlu is Professor of English at Istanbul University. She has published


on the servant character in English fiction. Currently her research and writing is
devoted to the (neo)gothic and ghost story with a feminist agenda.
A Self-Destructive Path to Dead End: An Exploration on
Revenge in Wuthering Heights

Kuo-Ping Claudia Tai


Abstract
It is not revenge but forgiveness and mercy that can help us release our repressed
rage and reach tranquillity when we are tested by fate and victimised by misfortune.
But revenge nevertheless stands as an indispensable self-reflective point that we
are unable to neglect; it is a significant divide that leads us either to joy and
liberation when we surpass it or to misery and despair when it conquers us. In her
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë obviously had chosen the hardest path for her
tragic character Heathcliff. Portrayed as a detestable and vengeful brute, Heathcliff
takes revenge on the people around him as to fight for an unfulfilled but lost
Garden of Eden that he longs for since childhood. His revenge is not irrational; in
contrast, he is conscious of it very well as he knows he is good at using this stormy
power to destroy everything extremely. He is conscious of it first when he is
betrayed by the grown-up Catherine, a close affinity for him, who marries Edgar
and lives in a cultured world which is opposed to his ideal world of wildness. He is
conscious of it again when he loses his comrade Catherine and his world but stays
in a cultured world where he never belongs. But Heathcliff is not conscious of
becoming a lifeless being constrained by his revenge until he sees closeness of
young Catherine and Hareton. At last, Heathcliff is awakened to see the absurdity
of his existence; he lives not for living as an ordinary person but for meaningless
revenge. The power of revenge can be unexpectedly but instantly transforms and
dissolves. Death is the only way to set Heathcliff free from his own cage.

Key Words: Heathcliff, revenge, betrayal, self-awakening, self-destruction.

*****

1. Introduction: the Paradox of Revenge


Why people revenge? In Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is portrayed as a
detestable avenger, but he is a hapless victim who fails to pass the test of fate and
is restricted in the poisonous trap of revenge. From the outset, he is conscious of
being abused by Edgar and betrayed by Catherine. He is also conscious of losing
his ideal world of wildness where he is accompanied by Catherine. He starts taking
revenge on the Earnshaws and the Lintons when he returns to Wuthering Heights.
He is unaware of walking into a blocked cage of darkness without exit as soon as
he begins his self-destructive journey of revenge.
It is natural that we choose to defend ourselves when we feel threatened and
harmed by others. As Govier argues,
72 A Self-Destructive Path to Dead End
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Seeking revenge is one way to reassert ourselves, to attempt to
get relief from the hurt and humiliation of being wronged. If one
person or group has wronged another, it is common for the
victim, the injured party, to feel rage and resentment, leading to a
desire to ‘get one’s own back’ or ‘get even.’1

People are accustomed to believing revenge is necessary to a certain degree.


We choose to revenge not only because we feel hurt and victimised with
unbearable treatment but also because we want to retaliate those who harm us
badly and get even. Revenge is mostly considered as a method that brings the
victims to reassert themselves and overcome their suffering. What if the victims
are unable to reassert themselves and overcome their sorrow after having taken
revenge? What if their revenge will bring them not to a peaceful but a distressing
situation? If we are not alert to the common myth covered by the paradox of
revenge, we will become another miserable Heathcliff who awakens too late to
release himself from the trap of revenge but is confined in it until his death. As
Govier indicates,

We think they wronged us, but they are unlikely to think of


themselves as wrongdoers who deserve to be made to suffer at
our hands. Thus, if we bring harm to them in revenge, they will
think we wronged them and feel in response a desire for revenge
themselves. A cycle of wrong and retaliation, revenge and
counter-revenge, begins.2

The paradox of revenge is that whether the victims are capable of perceiving
that they will not be entangled in an endless cycle of revenge and counter-revenge
and get what they expect. People assume that they can get even after they fight
back. But the cycle of revenge and counter-revenge will turn to be an irresistible
but unhealthy force that constantly disturbs the avengers and stimulates them to
stop or keep going. If they are aware that revenge is harmful, they will get rid of
the trap of revenge by means of forgiveness. If not, they allow hatred to stick in
their mind and remain in the cycle, as Heathcliff does. I will explore how
Heathcliff deliberately starts his schemes for revenge with his two motives,
belatedly awakens to see the absurdity of his hellish and meaningless existence,
and starkly dies as the only consolation he gains from revenge.

2. Two Motives for Revenge


Heathcliff’s first motive for revenge is arisen when he assumes that he is
betrayed by Catherine who declares that marrying him is her degradation. His
revenge is not an act of self-defence but a desire to relieve his hopeless suffering
from losing an ideal world. His repressed rage of losing her and their ideal world is
Kuo-Ping Claudia Tai 73
__________________________________________________________________
his second motive for revenge. He and Catherine comfort each other by inventing a
perfect wild world in the moors. It looks like their Garden of Eden where they are
free to stay, play and promise to ‘grow up as rude as savages.’3 Yet she breaks up
the promise and forsakes the ideal world after she meets the Lintons and chooses to
stand on their side. She believes that marrying Edgar is the way that fulfils her two
wishes: to let her enter the cultured world and to alter the inferior position of
Heathcliff. Her marriage, for Heathcliff, symbolises the utter obliteration of their
ideal world. As Cecil comments,

The shock of her infidelity and Hindley’s ill-treatment of him


now, in its turn, disturbs the natural harmony of Heathcliff’s
nature, and turns him from an alien element in the established
order, into a force for its destruction.4

Catherine attempts to use her marriage as a means to let her remain in both the
cultured world of Edgar and the rebellious world of Heathcliff, but this attempt can
never be successful because Heathcliff decides to destroy everything when he
returns and begins his self-destructive journey.

3. Revenge on Betrayal
Catherine starts betraying Heathcliff when she decides not to behave like him
as the ‘vulgar young ruffian’ and ‘worse than a brut,’ but intends to ‘practise
politeness.’ 5 So a clear breach emerges as she marks her difference from him.
Heathcliff has no way to stop this ongoing breach and her forthcoming marriage;
he is conscious of his nothingness as a wide brute, which is the reason that makes
him believe he is degraded and chooses to leave. After a few years, he returns there
as a rich and civilised man, who looks ‘intelligent’ and retains ‘no marks of former
degradation.’6 Heathcliff realises that being with Catherine can never be fulfilled,
so he uses his wealth as a powerful weapon to destroy the cultured world where the
Earnshaws and the Lintons stay and believes his shameful degradation can be
erased by way of taking revenge on them in front of Catherine and letting her feel
regretful for what she has done to him.
Heathcliff’s scheme for revenge works out when he seduces Isabella to fall in
love and elope with him, forcing her to live in Wuthering Heights with hatred, and
also engages in battle against his abhorrent enemy Hindley. However, he is not
conscious of the death of Catherine, the unexpected and unwanted result that he
will never be ready to accept. Catherine does not want to lose neither Heathcliff
nor Edgar, but she is incapable of ending the uncompromising clash between them
and dies in sorrow and misery. Her unexpected death for Heathcliff is an
irresistible force, as her rebellious nature, that cannot terminate his vengeance. As
Cecil argues, Heathcliff is not ‘a wicked man voluntarily yielding to his wicked
impulses’ but ‘a manifestation of natural forces acting involuntarily under the
74 A Self-Destructive Path to Dead End
__________________________________________________________________
pressure of his own nature.’ 7 The death of Catherine reminds Heathcliff of his
unbearable pain of losing her forever, as he says, ‘Two words would comprehend
my future – death and hell; existence, after losing her, would be hell.’8
The death of Catherine stirs up Heathcliff so intensely that he cannot help
becoming ‘destructive’ at last as ‘a natural force which has been frustrated of its
natural outlet.’ 9 For obsessively lamenting his permanent loss of Catherine,
Heathcliff does not decrease his hatred but intensifies it so much that it severely
damages not only Hindley and Edgar but also the next generation.

4. Revenge on Loss
Midgley points out, ‘obsession is a possibility for all of us, and a danger to
many, because the balance of motives which we normally maintain is incomplete
and insecure.’10 Heathcliff’s obsession is more disastrous. His intolerable fear of
loss distorts his mind, leading him to be a violent bigot who falsely believes that
what he loses can be regained by what he possesses. His hopeless despair turns to
be an uncontrollable energy from the wildness that regards the next generation as
his despicable possessions, and takes revenge on them by confining and
maltreating them in the isolated world where he has been left alone.
After the death of his father, Hareton is ‘reduced to a state of complete
dependence on his father’s inveterate enemy,’ and lives as an inferior servant ‘who
is deprived of the advantage of wages, and quite unable to right himself.’11 In order
to take revenge on Hindley, Heathcliff teaches Hareton to ‘scorn everything extra-
animal as silly and weak’ and trains him as a coarse and uneducated person who
has already lost his ‘first-rate qualities’ from the Earnshaws.12
Linton, the son whom Heathcliff despises, is the next one that he shuts in
Wuthering Heights. As Heathcliff declares, ‘he’s mine, and I want the triumph of
seeing my descendent fairly lord of their estates, my child hiring their children to
till their fathers’ lands for wages,’ Linton is used by his father as a means to attack
Edgar and get the property which belongs to Linton when he dies soon.13 Young
Catherine is the last victim; Heathcliff is determined to let Edgar suffer by
compelling her to be Linton’s wife, as he expresses, ‘I desire their union, and am
resolved to bring it about.’14
Yet Heathcliff is not conscious of the difference between human nature and
possessions. He can cultivate evil in his nature remaining in hatred as he wishes,
but he is unable to foster evil in others if they reject, including his son. Everything
starts to change when Linton decides not to obey his father as a worthless and bad-
tempered boy. Linton cannot stop behaving wretched with his distorted nature
when he lives in Wuthering Heights, but he gives young Catherine a slight favour
by fetching her the key and letting her leave there and see her father before his
death. Linton’s favour strengthens her belief in love as well as weakens
Heathcliff’s power of revenge. Later on, by perceiving the spirit of Catherine and
viewing her image vividly reflected on Hareton and young Catherine, Heathcliff
Kuo-Ping Claudia Tai 75
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belatedly awakens to realise peace that he longs for can be attained not by living in
an earthly hell with his futile revenge but by uniting with Catherine in their lost
world.

5. A Recurring Choice: Fate and Free Will


Heathcliff makes a mistake when he decides to revenge. The core of the
problem is that he is too obstinate to understand people have their free will to do
what they want. It is fate that brings him to Wuthering Heights and let him be close
to Catherine, but she has free will to decide her friendship with him. Although
Heathcliff reveals his intention to revenge, it is useless for him to get even and
bring her back if she does not think her conduct is wrong, as she replies to him,
‘I’ve treated you infernally – and you’ll take revenge! How will you take it,
ungrateful brute? How have I treated you infernally?’ 15 Heathcliff’s decision to
revenge only drives her away from him. Worst of all, her death symbolises a
hindrance of fate that gives him no chance to reconcile with her.
Heathcliff has free will to encounter the betrayal of Catherine. However, he
creates his evil nature when he cannot feel equal and valued, and erroneously
believes that revenge is the best way to prove his unthreatened authority over
others. Heathcliff spends his entire life cultivating evil and condemning others who
treat him unequally; however, he is never satisfied but restricted in the trap of
revenge. As Baumeister points out, ‘The choice of evil as a means to an end
signifies a victory of the narrow over the broad time perspective.’16 As Nietzsche
also indicates, ‘the eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again,
and you with it, speck of dust.’17 Heathcliff’s attempt to revenge is the heaviest
burden that he plants in his mind. ‘Those who condemn this world just reflect their
own impotence.’18 Heathcliff’s revenge is not a solution but an addicted but self-
destructive impulse that locks him firmly in the cage of recurring emptiness.
As Baumeister argues, ‘The parallel between evil and self-destruction is not
just a coincidence.’19 Heathcliff’s revenge is weakened when he sees the spirit of
Catherine, as he says, ‘It was a strange way of killing, not by inches, but by
fractions of hairbreadths, to beguile me with the spectre of a hope, through
eighteen years.’20 It is the spirit of Catherine and her resemblance mirrored through
the eyes of Hareton and young Catherine, as an overwhelming force of fate, which
stimulates Heathcliff to awaken and realise his hellish emptiness can never be
fulfilled by meaningless revenge. So he retreats himself from Hareton, and lessens
his threat on young Catherine. When Heathcliff is aware of his inability to maltreat
them who remind him of Catherine, he cannot help but quit his long-term violent
efforts as he has to reconcile with her by fate and accept ‘an absurd termination.’21
After having experienced a great amount of time in Wuthering Heights,
Heathcliff belatedly awakens to see his ridiculous living in a world as a poorly evil
creature which has to ceaselessly endure the pain of losing Catherine. As Mead
argues, ‘We have to recall the experience to become aware that we have been
76 A Self-Destructive Path to Dead End
__________________________________________________________________
involved as selves, to produce the self-consciousness which is a constituent part of
a large part of our experience.’22 Heathcliff’s finally knows who he is and what he
longs for. As Neiman argues, Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal return is to show us
everything we experience, whether we call it heaven or hell, is meant to save our
soul through our experiment.23 For Heathcliff, his acceptance of the forthcoming
death, his only destination, is what he gains in the experience of revenge, as Miller
concludes, ‘Only in death, the realm of absolute communion, can Heathcliff
‘dissolve with’ Cathy and ‘be happy’ at last.’24 Death is the place where Heathcliff
fulfils the desire to join with the spirit of Catherine.

6. Conclusion
Emerson says, ‘A man’s fortunes are the fruit of his character.’25 Heathcliff is
sadly damaged by his character. He is not only a merciless avenger who destroys
the people around him, but also a poor human being who is deceived by his
misconception of revenge. As Neiman argues, ‘The problem of evil was
meaningless suffering.’26 Heathcliff is too late to understand that revenge is useless
because the only significant thing in his life is to unite with Catherine and stay
together in their ideal world of wildness. First, Catherine does not forsake the
Lintons but reproaches Heathcliff’s attempt to revenge, and she dies suddenly
beyond his expectation. Second, Heathcliff’s continuous cruelty to others is
senseless because it never brings dead Catherine back but let him live in
abhorrence ‘worse than the devil.’27 Heathcliff’s revenge is futile because he never
gets even and fulfils his wish. As Neiman argues that ‘we invented sin and
redemption. Sin gave pain an origin, and redemption gave it a telos.’28 Heathcliff is
unusual; he does not invent redemption but only sin in his entire life, which is the
means for him to express his unbearable pain of losing Catherine. Heathcliff
cannot regain the lost Garden of Eden, which symbolises purity and innocence,
when he becomes an avenger.
Heathcliff finally realises that Wuthering Heights and the world of wildness are
his heaven where he can fulfil his wish and stay with the spirit of Catherine, as
Nelly describes, ‘They [Heathcliff and Catherine] are afraid of nothing. Together,
they would brave satan and all his legions.’29 As his absurd existence in the earthly
world, the end of his life is the point that Heathcliff starts enjoying the unique
heaven which belongs to him. Goodridge argues that Wuthering Heights ‘leaves us
with a host of unanswered questions and embodies no consistent philosophy of
life.’30 Emily Brontë creates an extraordinary and wild figure Heathcliff, which is
doomed to reach his dead end by his self-destructive nature.

Notes
1
T Govier, Forgiveness and Revenge, Routledge, London, 2002, p. 2.
2
Govier, Forgiveness and Revenge, p. 9.
Kuo-Ping Claudia Tai 77
__________________________________________________________________

3
E Brontë, Wuthering Heights, Signet Classic, New York, 2004, p. 44.
4
D Cecil, ‘Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights’, Twentieth Century
Interpretation of Wuthering Heights, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1968, p.103.
5
Brontë, Wuthering Heights, p. 65.
6
ibid., p. 93.
7
Cecil, ‘Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights’, p. 103.
8
Brontë, Wuthering Heights, p. 144.
9
Cecil, ‘Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights’, p. 103.
10
M Midgley, Wickedness, Routledge, London, 1984, p. 151.
11
Brontë, Wuthering Heights, p. 181.
12
ibid., p. 210.
13
ibid., p. 200.
14
ibid., p. 206.
15
ibid., p. 109.
16
RF Baumeister, Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty, W. H. Freeman, New
York, 1997, p. 123.
17
F Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, p.
194.
18
S Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002,
p. 212.
19
Baumeister, Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty, p. 124.
20
Brontë, Wuthering Heights, p. 277.
21
ibid., p. 308.
22
G J Mead, ‘The Social Self’, Pragmatism: Critical Concepts in Philosophy, Vol
1, Routledge, Abingdon, 2005, p. 273.
23
Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought, p. 220.
24
JH Miller, ‘Emily Brontë’, Twentieth Century Interpretation of Wuthering
Heights, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1968, p. 115.
25
RW Emerson, ‘Fate’, Nature and Selected Essays, Penguin, New York, 2003, p.
385.
26
Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought, p.216.
27
Brontë, Wuthering Heights, p. 319.
28
Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought, p.216.
29
Brontë, Wuthering Heights, p. 322.
30
JF Goodridge, ‘The Circumambient Universe’, Twentieth Century Interpretation
of Wuthering Heights, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1968, p. 77.
78 A Self-Destructive Path to Dead End
__________________________________________________________________

Bibliography
Baumeister, R.F., Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty. W. H. Freeman, New
York, 1997.

Brontë, E., Wuthering Heights. Signet Classic, New York, 2004.

Cecil, D., ‘Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights’. Twentieth Century


Interpretation of Wuthering Heights. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1968, pp.
102-105.

Emerson, R.W., ‘Fate’. Nature and Selected Essays. Penguin, New York, 2003, pp.
361-391.

Goodridge, J.F., ‘The Circumambient Universe’. Twentieth Century Interpretation


of Wuthering Heights. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1968.

Govier, T., Forgiveness and Revenge. Routledge, London, 2002.

Mead, G.H., ‘The Social Self’. Pragmatism: Critical Concepts in Philosophy. Vol
1, Routledge, Abingdon, 2005, pp. 271-276.

Midgley, M., Wickedness. Routledge, London, 1984.

Miller, J.H., ‘Emily Brontë’. Twentieth Century Interpretation of Wuthering


Heights. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1968.

Neiman, S., Evil in Modern Thought. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002.

Nietzsche, F., The Gay Science. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003.

Kuo-Ping Claudia Tai is Assistant Professor in Department of Applied Foreign


Languages at Hsuan Chuang University in Taiwan. In addition to constantly
reading fictions and writing stories, she is also focusing on her current research and
writing in Literature and Nietzsche.
Montresor and Hop-Frog Strike Back: Poe’s Never-Ending
Poetics of Revenge

Marta Miquel-Baldellou
Abstract
Edgar Allan Poe’s two later narratives ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ (1846) and
‘Hop-Frog’ (1849) can be interpreted as parallel texts which illustrate the
circularity of Poe’s poetics of revenge. In both tales, Montresor and Hop-Frog as
avenging figures adopt a Socratic approach whereby they conceal their real
intentions. Both characters display an analytical methodology to detect their
nemesis’ special vulnerability. Likewise, their strategy for revenge requires a trap
into which the victim must fall willingly so as to discover eventually he has
trapped himself. Nonetheless, this apparent sense of retribution is equivocal.
Despite his flawless execution, Montresor’s anxiety and guilt are ultimately
betrayed by his confessional recollections half a century later, just like the happily-
ever-after ending in ‘Hop-Frog’ seems to underline Poe’s acknowledgement that
only in a purely imaginary world can one silence his own enemy. A parallelism is
also established between victim and avenger as the victim of revenge invariably
reflects the self the avenger seeks to destroy. It is the aim of this paper to interpret
both tales as a unique narrative which displays Poe’s circular poetics of never-
ending revenge.

Key Words: Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, ‘Hop-Frog’, poetics of
revenge, intertextuality, memory, circularity, confession, guilt, the double.

*****

1. Introduction
Having published several tales underscoring the nature of retribution and
ongoing enmity, Poe consolidated the poetics of revenge in his later tale ‘The Cask
of Amontillado’ (1846), amalgamating and perfecting many of the characteristics
he had already disseminated in previous tales of revenge such as ‘Metzengerstein’,
‘William Wilson’ or ‘The Imp of the Perverse’. Likewise, ‘Hop-Frog’ (1849), a
less explored piece, was Poe’s last tale of revenge, published only some months
before his death and including many features of the poetics of revenge he had
already presented in ‘The Cask of Amontillado’. Both tales, including many
intertextual links that are repeated and reversed, can be interpreted as parallel texts
illustrating Poe’s poetics of revenge and the never-ending quality of retribution.
Taking these two tales as a point of departure, this paper aims at decoding Poe’s
poetics of revenge, identifying intertextual links between these two narratives, and
underlining the circularity of vengeance as illustrated in these texts.
80 Montresor and Hop-Frog Strike Back
__________________________________________________________________
2. Poe’s Poetics of Revenge
‘The Cask of Amontillado’ has openly been classified as a tale of revenge, but
it is also a tale of confession. Montresor, being unable to forget his crime after
fifty years, unfolds the testimony of his wicked deed, mentally enacting and
voicing each scene once more. His confession underlines both his vanity for what
he presumes to be a perfect crime, as well as foreshadows his necessity to recall
and retell his deed half a century later. As Fisher contends, once Montresor has
repressed ‘the ‘fortunate’ part of his being, he becomes fated never to forget that
event.’1 Montresor thus exemplifies two recurring themes in Poe’s fiction: analysis
and obsession. Even if he personifies one of Poe’s neurotic narrators, his
testimony of a carefully-projected crime endows him with the qualities of an
analyst. As Magistrale asserts, Montresor is coolly rational on the surface, but
truly raging inside.2 His painstaking confession responds to his analytical quality,
while his obsessive nature results in accomplishing his projected reprisal.
Vengeance and confession, obsession and analysis thus come hand in hand, just as
the public acknowledgement of retribution seems necessarily entangled in the act
of revenge.
Montresor’s analytical qualities are shown when he theorises about the nature
of ideal revenge despite his frenzied condition:

I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is


unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally
unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such
to him who has done the wrong.3

According to Gerald Kennedy, revenge must accomplish a triple satisfaction: first,


punish the wrongdoer; second, insure the avenger against any subsequent injury;
and third, demonstrate his superior intellect to the adversary.4 Through the act of
revenge, the avenger must preclude any possibility of response, while the victim
must recognise the deed as an act of retribution.
Having theorised about the nature of revenge, the avenger’s strategy lies in
analysing the rival to discover his special vulnerability. As a result of a deliberate
identification with his counterpart, Montresor discovers Fortunato’s vanity lies in
his expertise in wine, which Montresor also seems to share as he admits ‘I was
skilful in the Italian vintages myself.’5 After all, both characters present many
points in common: their names, Montresor and Fortunato, make explicit reference
to treasure and fortune; both are fond of wine, and both are in disguise due to the
carnival festivities. Consequently, a special and significant kind of parallelism is
established between victim and avenger so that the latter projects and externalises
his hatred, which is ultimately personified by the victim, the doppelganger, his
own double.
Marta Miquel-Baldellou 81
__________________________________________________________________
Following De Quincey, Poe also contemplated an aesthetics of murder in
which the perfect crime becomes the ideal realisation of a mental construct. To
commit the perfect crime is to effect a total disassociation of the self from its
double and destroy that part of the self that suffers mortal anxiety. Nonetheless,
the act of violence usually follows its way back to the perpetrator and cannot
eliminate the connection between the murderer and his victim, which always
remains inscribed in the memory of the avenger because of the bond of mortality it
recalls.6

3. Ironic Doubleness
Montresor also relies on ironic doubleness, a Socratic approach, adopting a
manner which is precisely the opposite of his real intentions, thus confessing: ‘It
must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to
doubt my good will.’7 Montresor cunningly weaves a trap to ensnare Fortunato,
urging him to taste his Amontillado, but constantly repeating he should have asked
Luchresi instead. Montresor’s strategy of revenge requires a trap, in which the
victim must fall by choice, believing he is proving his own talent and genius even
if ultimately paving the ground for his own destruction. Following Poe’s poetics of
revenge, the snare should involve an element of play, since the victim must have a
choice. Fortunato must not be overtly coerced, as he should eventually know he
has trapped himself. The victim’s awareness of his inability to extricate himself
from the trap brings about the ascendancy of the avenger. Finally, the avenger
silences the enemy denying any sort of retaliation, as the victim is well aware
there is no one else to blame but himself for his misfortune.
After all, Fortunato is punished for his inability to read the signs Montresor has
carefully presented. It is due to his ineptitude to detect Montresor’s clues that
Fortunato meets his ‘unfortunate’ end. All through their descent into his family’s
vaults, Montresor wears a black mask, resembling an executioner, Fortunato is
conducted to a crypt, and so as to convince Fortunato he is a mason, Montresor
shows his trowel, which anticipates Fortunato’s end. Likewise, Montresor’s
display of his family’s coat of arms and its motto, nemo me impune lacessit (no
one offends me with impunity), can be interpreted as an explicit affront to
Fortunato. In any case, dressed as a jester, Fortunato remains mystified all the way
through, despite Montresor’s recurrent insinuations during their descent into the
vaults. The downward path to the crypt reflects both Montresor’s ancestry and the
decline of his noble origins, as well as his sinful fall into the caverns of his own
unconsciousness. Montresor methodically weaves his trap through the use of
language, in a sort of verbal duel, which reaches its climax when Fortunato
challenges him to prove he is mason. This particular episode will reverberate at the
end of the tale when Fortunato hopelessly asks for mercy and the love of God.
82 Montresor and Hop-Frog Strike Back
__________________________________________________________________
4. The Victim, Myself
In order to prepare for revenge, Montresor observes Fortunato to emulate him
and anticipate his movements, so that Montresor’s strategy inevitably entails some
sort of identification with his rival. The antagonism between both opponents lies in
their mutual resemblance as well as their reciprocal fear. Thus, the desire for
revenge is articulated along with ontological fear, just like violence is projected as
a reification of displaced anxiety.
René Girard pointed at a mimetic desire, a rivalry, a mutuality of desire which
enforces a perverse bonding. All desire is a desire to be, that is to say, the dream of
a fullness attributed to the mediator, who separates the subject from the object, thus
the desire for a certain object always brings about the desire of another person for
this same object. Consequently, each character develops an obsessive awareness of
the ‘other’, an intimate identification. They anticipate each other’s strategies and
assume their nature, so that the distinction between self and other becomes blurred.
The rival becomes linked to the attributes of the self we seek to deny, so in aiming
to destroy our rival we attempt to destroy our most vexing qualities. The attack
upon one’s double thus becomes a suicidal gesture; a mechanism of self-
destruction. Every wound is the reciprocation of a previous injury through a history
of enmity as the desire for ascendancy ensures the repetition of the exchange.
Aware that his own actions will prompt retaliation, the rival seeks his own
suffering, and this is how the economy of revenge ensures the recirculation of evil.
Revenge unleashes to strike the balance between rivals once their antagonistic
equilibrium has been disrupted and needs to be re-established. In this respect, Poe’s
‘The Cask of Amontillado’ can also be interpreted as a roman-à-clef. Critics such
as Reynolds have referred to ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ as Poe’s vindictive
narrative against two prominent New York literati, the author Thomas Dunn
English and the newspaper editor Hiram Fuller. Taking this background into
consideration, the narrator Montresor (Poe) seeks revenge on his enemy Fortunato
(English) for a recent insult, using their mutual friend Luchresi (Fuller) as a foil in
his scheme.8

5. Mirroring Texts
This assumed duality as well as the constant need to hide one’s intentions is
especially characteristic of the season. It is significant to notice that Montresor
intends to accomplish his revenge during the carnival festivities, either to mask his
activity or to insinuate his intentions. He puts on a mask of black silk, thus
signalling the role of an executioner, while Fortunato looks like a jester.
Nonetheless, both are disguised and they both present several points in common as
fitting rivals. Montresor seems to have released himself from his double, from that
part of the self he loathes. Thus, his final exclamation in pace requiescat, which
can be referring to both himself and Fortunato, seems to point at a wish rather than
a reality. Retelling the same tale after fifty years paves the ground for shaping an
Marta Miquel-Baldellou 83
__________________________________________________________________
unforgettable memory which never seems to reach its proper end. Consequently,
‘The Cask of Amontillado’, due to its ambiguous conclusion - as Montresor feels
sick at heart and can still hear Fortunato’s jingling of bells - can be interpreted as
an open-ended tale.
These two roles, executioner and jester, are also repeated in Poe’s last tale
‘Hop-Frog’, even though roles are eventually reversed through both stories. If
Fortunato, disguised as a jester, ultimately becomes Montresor’s victim in ‘The
Cask of Amontillado’, in ‘Hop-Frog’, it is the jester who eventually takes revenge.
The similar characterisation between Fortunato and the jester is particularly
striking and foreshadows a close parallelism that can be established between Poe’s
two later tales.

The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-stripped


dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells.9

Several of the great continental ‘powers’ still retained their


‘fools’, who wore motley, with caps and bells.10

The mirroring effect established between Montresor and Fortunato, avenger and
victim, already pointed out by Gerald Kennedy, can be expanded and further
developed in relation to the King and the jester in ‘Hop-Frog’, as both tales
present many intertextual points in common. In tales of revenge, there is often the
need to give voice to the deed committed, which can be interpreted as an act of
narcissism, as an act of confession or as a sign of weakness on the part of the
avenger. The perpetrator’s sense of superiority vanishes when the victim ceases to
exist, consequently the avenger needs to enact the crime endlessly retelling the
same tale and echoing the same feeling in different tales. As Girard asserts,
characters in great fiction evolve in a system of relationships which reverberate
through different texts.
Having been immured in the vaults of Montresor’s family, Fortunato’s
appearance bears a close resemblance with the jester in Poe’s ‘Hop-Frog’, wearing
motley, caps and bells, seeking to effect revenge. In contrast, Montresor’s
aristocratic origins and ancestral vaults render him closer to the King in ‘Hop-
Frog’. Thus, a reversal of roles has been articulated so as to underline the
circularity of revenge. However, as all characters are often in disguise, Montresor
also shares his wit with the jester, while the King’s mesmerized condition bears a
close resemblance with Fortunato’s inability to unravel Montresor’s riddles. In any
case, ‘Hop-Frog’ as a tale bears many parallelisms with ‘The Cask of
Amontillado’ to the extent both tales can be read as parallel texts mirroring each
other.
If Montresor and Fortunato accentuate the mutual resemblance between
perpetrator and victim, Hop-Frog and the King, despite being rivals, are also
84 Montresor and Hop-Frog Strike Back
__________________________________________________________________
counterparts and often complement each other. Gradually, the apparent difference
established between the King and his fool is reversed so as to show the jester’s
real wit and the King’s true foolishness. If Fortunato’s vanity was his expertise in
wine, the King’s vanity lies in his fondness of joking. Likewise, as rivals,
Montresor also shares Fortunato’s knowledge of wine, while the King and the
jester are both especially proficient in cracking good jokes. Despite these
parallelisms, the antagonism between rivals in both couples remains fairly
obvious.

6. Is There a Reason for Revenge?


In ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, the perpetual hostility between Montresor and
Fortunato may be rooted in religious conflict. Nonetheless, the reason why
Montresor seeks revenge is never explicitly acknowledged except for Fortunato’s
thousand injuries and his venture upon insult. And yet, Montresor’s echoing
phrase ‘for the love of God’ seems to point at a Protestant-Catholic conflict lying
at the heart of revenge, bearing in mind the Brotherhood of the Masons, Protestant
in orientation and strongly opposed to the Catholic Church. As Reynolds points
out, historical associations rooted in Masonry aversion had swept America during
Poe’s apprentice period, especially referring to an actual fact involving William
Morgan, a bricklayer and a mason who, after thirty years of membership, was
determined to expose the order but was silenced by vindictive members of the
order.11
In contrast, ‘Hop-Frog’ has been interpreted as a tale of revenge with antiracist
undertones, a narrative of retaliation against slavery and racism. Hop-frog crafts a
counterplot to reveal and revenge himself upon the King, epitome of the ‘master’
race, who has abused both him and his female friend Tripetta. The King and his
seven ministers come to occupy the position of servants or slaves, especially
taking into consideration that they are ultimately chained and exhibited, disguised
as simians before the jester sets them on fire.12 Likewise, Fisher has also referred
to postcolonial readings of the tale interpreting Poe’s ‘Hop-Frog’ as a narrative of
retaliation against slavery and racism. Despite this discourse underlining each of
the tales, religion and slavery, Montresor admits his act of revenge responds to
Fortunato’s insult, whereas Hop-Frog’s action is aimed at punishing the King for
striking his friend Tripetta. Consequently, the act of revenge, regardless of any
major undertones, is ultimately an act of personal will.

7. Conclusion: The Circularity of Revenge


All things considered, many parallelisms can be established between both
tales, which underline Poe’s never-ending poetics of revenge. First, both
Montresor and the jester share their ironic doubleness, their Socratic approach, in
order to entrap their victims. If Fortunato is unable to gain insight into Montresor’s
witty insinuations, the King cannot possibly guess the jester’s real intentions.
Marta Miquel-Baldellou 85
__________________________________________________________________
Likewise, both Montresor and the jester take the necessary precautions to ensure
Fortunato and the King entrap themselves, preventing them from any possibility to
retaliate, thus condemning them to silence after arduous verbal fights.
In both tales, the avengers and their victims indulge in masquerades to conceal
or insinuate their real intentions, and similarly, the wine plays a pivotal role in
both stories. Fortunato’s conceit about his knowledge of wine eventually leads to
his demise. Nonetheless, despite his assumed expertise, Fortunato exhibits
intolerance to wine as he is hopelessly inebriated when he reaches the vaults. In
‘Hop-Frog’, the King urges the jester to drink even if knowing the wine exerts a
powerful effect on his brain. Thus, if the wine serves the purpose of mesmerising
Fortunato, it enrages Hop-Frog and leads him to commit murder. Likewise,
Montresor’s descent into his vaults is counteracted by the jester’s ascent to lower
the chandelier and set fire to the King and the ministers, disguised as apes.
The verbal battle anticipating both acts of revenge, which may echo Poe’s
personal one with other literary critics, takes place in both tales through
Montresor’s insinuations and the jester’s accurate depiction of the masquerade.
Fortunato is finally immured, literally turning into another cask of amontillado,
preserved in both Montresor’s vaults and memories. Similarly, the King is
transformed into a living joke, a capital diversion for his own jester. Furthermore,
if Montresor’s confessional tone implies a lingering sense of anxiety out of guilt
that urges him to repeat the same narrative after fifty years, ‘Hop-Frog’ portrays
Poe’s ultimate fantasy of revenge with impunity.
Both tales encode Poe’s poetics of revenge including several structural
indicators that reverberate all the way through such as immemorial antagonism
between rivals, identification with the victim, detection of the victim’s weakness,
elaborate strategies of mystification, instigation of the victim to fall into his own
trap as a result of his free choice and a final attempt to impose eternal silence. As
tales of vengeance and illustrative examples of the literary catharsis of retribution,
they generate a circular poetics of revenge that is enacted and re-enacted through
verbal battles whereby avengers attempt to impose silence on both their nemesis
and their own most vexing qualities.

Notes
1
BF Fisher, The Cambridge Introduction of Edgar Allan Poe, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 2008, p.69.
2
T Magistrale, Student Companion to Edgar Allan Poe, Greenwood Press, London,
2001, p.92.
3
EA Poe, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, The Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe,
Norton, London and New York, 2004, p.415.
4
JG Kennedy, Poe, Death and the Life of Writing, Yale University Press, New
Haven and London, 1987, p.139.
86 Montresor and Hop-Frog Strike Back
__________________________________________________________________

5
EA Poe, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, p.415.
6
JG Kennedy, op. cit., p.137-8.
7
EA Poe, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, p.415.
8
DS Reynolds, ‘Poe’s Art of Transformation: ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ in Its
Cultural Context’, New Essays on Poe’s Major Tales, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1995, p.93.
9
EA Poe, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, p.416.
10
EA Poe, ‘Hop-Frog; or, The Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs’, The Selected
Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Norton, London and New York, 2004, p.422.
11
DS Reynolds, op. cit., p.99.
12
LS Person, ‘Poe’s Philosophy of Amalgamation’, Romancing the Shadow: Poe
and Race, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001, p.218.

Bibliography
De Quincey, T., On Murder. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009.

Girard, R., Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure. John
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1966.

Fisher, B.F., The Cambridge Introduction of Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge


University Press, Cambridge, 2008.

Kennedy, J.G., Poe, Death and the Life of Writing. Yale University Press, New
Haven and London, 1987.

Magistrale, T., Student Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Greenwood Press, London,
2001.

Person, L.S., ‘Poe’s Philosophy of Amalgamation’. Romancing the Shadow: Poe


and Race, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001.

Poe, E.A., ‘The Cask of Amontillado’. The Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe.
Norton, London and New York, 2004, pp.415-421.

–––, ‘Hop-Frog: or, The Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs’. The Selected Writings of
Edgar Allan Poe. Norton, London and New York, 2004, pp.421-428.

Reynolds, D.S., ‘Poe’s Art of Transformation: ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ in Its


Cultural Context’. New Essays on Poe’s Major Tales. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1995.
Marta Miquel-Baldellou 87
__________________________________________________________________

Marta Miquel-Baldellou is member of the research groups Dedal-Lit and IRIS


(Institute of Research in Identity and Society) at the University of Lleida,
Catalonia, Spain. She is mainly interested in Victorian literature, nineteenth-
century American literature, gothic literature, gender studies and the
conceptualisations of aging in the literatures of the English-speaking countries.
PART III

Revenge in the Arts and around the Globe


The Involuntary Casualties of Revenge in Alan Ayckbourn’s The
Revengers’ Comedies

Iwona Bojarska
Abstract
Revenge is something that many attempted and so many more have lusted after.
Being such a powerful feeling, it corrupted the minds of those seeking revenge and
became a disdain for their targets. Regardless of the way revenge is acted out,
whether it is an instinctive act or a well orchestrated plot, it becomes a fatal
machinery aimed at the ones who did us wrong, and consumes many more that
become affected among it’s way. While conducting their mischievous plan,
avengers would let others get hurt in order to achieve the blissful satisfaction of
getting even. In my paper I investigate revenge in terms of how it is bound to
terminally effect not just the avengers and their targets but many more as, very
often, it also involves foreign agents who somehow get trapped in the process of
revenge and get sacrificed in order for it to take place. In my exploration of the
topic I relate to Modern English Drama in the writing of Alan Ayckbourn. In his
play, The Revengers’ Comedies, Ayckbourn portrays a magnificent example of
revenge where the two main characters, Karen and Henry, use each other to deliver
their punishment. Karen has lost her lover, Henry has lost his job and as a result
they both intend to commit suicide by jumping into the Thames. Luckily, Henry is
interrupted by Karen’s failed attempt and by helping Karen, he pulls himself out of
his dreadful feelings. Ironically, that suicidal interference of two people, that
initially saves them from hurting themselves, triggers a revengeful scheme that
results in a number of lives being cruelly destroyed.

Key Words: Revenge, drama, Ayckbourn.

*****

Revenge is often discussed in terms of whether the avenger has a moral right or
even a moral duty to avenge for the wrong that was done to them. Since the law
does not take sides on matters of affection, revenge may become the last resort
when the judicial system fails. Very often it is mainly the perspective of the
avenger that is being examined as well rather than the one of the victim, let alone
of those who are neither the avengers nor the victims therefore their impact is often
belittled. Regardless of the perspective, once put into motion revenge initially
affects everyone involved. The main focus of this paper is to examine why so
many have to be affected and must fall victim in the process of revenge even
though they may not necessarily be the ones at which the revenge is being targeted
at. Very often they find themselves involuntarily engaged in other people’s
conflicts. I would like to show that the number of victims and the extent to which
92 The Involuntary Casualties of Revenge
__________________________________________________________________
they are affected by the avenger is very much dependent on the very nature of
revenge itself and the way it progresses. In order to do so I will look at several
characteristics of revenge and demonstrate that regardless of the avengers’ reasons
or intentions revenge is bound to adversely affect more than just the avenger and
their targets. In my exploration of the topic, I relate to modern English Drama in
the writing of Alan Ayckbourn. In his play The Revengers’ Comedies, Alan
presents the corrupted results of vengeance and what effect it may have on those
involved; often unaware of the role they play in the process. Before I begin a basic
outline of the play is in order.
Two strangers, Henry and Karen, meet at one of the London’s bridges. Karen
has lost her lover, Anthony, who decides to go back to his wife, Imogen; Henry is
elbowed out from his job by Bruce Tick, but is also betrayed by his co-workers
with whom he worked for years and whom he considered to be his family. As a
result of their loss, they both intend to commit suicide by jumping into the Thames.
Luckily, Henry is interrupted by Karen’s failed attempt and by helping her
entangle the coat from the ironwork of the bridge, he pulls himself out of these
dreadful feelings. That crucial meeting results in a pact being made. Karen and
Henry swear to exact revenge for each other and even though Henry only seems to
sign up for the ride to enjoy the perks of Karen’s hospitality, Karen takes it more
seriously. Ironically, that suicidal interference of two people that, at least initially,
saves them from hurting themselves, in the end triggers a revengeful mechanism
that results in a number of lives being cunningly and at times cruelly destroyed.
Revenge is a powerful force but most importantly a very destructive one and
should not be justified in a society of high values and morals. In an ideal world the
victimiser would be punished for whatever harm they did, but once they escape
that justice, or the victim decides that too much leniency was given to their
offender, the victims may become the victimisers themselves. Even though they act
in the name of what they perceive as justice, the actions they take are not a result of
self defence but simply well calculated steps aimed to cause suffering. Social
psychologist, psychoanalyst and humanistic philosopher, Erich Fromm, suggested:
‘Revenge can be differentiated from normal defensive aggression in two ways: it
occurs after the damage has been done, and hence is not a defence against threat, is
of much greater intensity, and is often cruel, lustful and insatiable.’1 Fromm
separates these two: revenge and defensive aggression, and brings our attention to
the fact that revenge is a calculated mean of causing hurt rather than an instant
reaction to what someone has done to us. This is skilfully portrayed in the play.
Karen and Henry plan their revenge well in advance. Karen admits that herself and
Henry are ‘unquiet spirits, if you like, with unfinished business. The wrongs that
have been done to [them] have got to be put right. [They]’re never going to rest,
either of [them], until [they]’ve done that.’2 Exacting revenge for each other seems
like an excellent idea as this way they can easily escape justice. Karen admits: ‘It’s
brilliant. No motive. No trace. Cold, calculated revenge.’3 What follows is indeed a
Iwona Bojarska 93
__________________________________________________________________
calculated plan aimed to seek their victims’ weaknesses and teach their offenders a
bitter lesson by giving them ‘as much as they gave.’4
Karen does not waste time proceeding with her plan. She skilfully arranges for
the secretarial job description to include qualifications that make the position seem
less achievable. That reduces the number of applicants thus making her
introduction to Henry’s company much easier. At the interview Karen convinces
the only other applicant, Tracey, that the job is for ‘someone with glamour and
buckets of sex appeal.’5 Misinformed, Tracey tries to sustain the sort of image
matching Karen’s description, makes a horrible impression, and subsequently, is
turned down for the position. After being made a secretary to Bruce, Henry’s
detested ex work colleague who led to Henry’s wrongful dismissal, Karen quickly
manages to find his weak points. She leads Hilary (Bruce’s wife) to believe that he
is having an affair. Initially Bruce is unaware of what is going on especially that
Karen presents herself as a very unattractive woman therefore is of no interest to
Bruce. Hilary finally leaves Henry after finding a piece of lady’s underwear in
Bruce’s pocket, which ironically he empties out to give Hilary a present, but finds
Karen’s panties instead. As if that was not enough, Karen suggests that they all
meet and this way Hilary may find out for herself that Karen is of no threat to their
marriage. Bruce embraces the idea: they all meet but Karen turns up looking
attractive, even provocative, which only ascertains Hilary of her husband’s
adultery. Bruce finally realises he was being played all along. Not being able to
stand the pressure and as a result of his health issues, he collapses on the floor
gasping for air. At this point Karen reveals to Bruce who his true avenger is and
seconds later he dies. Bruce becomes Karen’s first deadly victim yet the immensity
of hurt she causes at this point is nothing compared to what she is capable of later
on, proving that revenge is never accidental, involves careful planning and always
involves innocent victims like Tracey or Hilary. Bruce’s death is Karen’s
achievement in the deal she made with Henry. Yet, it turns out that getting even
with Bruce is not satisfactory enough which leads me on to the next part of my
research.
Fromm describes revenge being of much greater intensity, which indicates that
victims are purely driven by emotion such as anger, hate, disappointment,
unreciprocal love etc. This is a key element when it comes to calculating the
number and a kind of victims involved in the revenge process. Once victims
become avengers their actions are purely based on these negative emotions, which
makes it very difficult, if possible at all, to reason with them. Revenge is therefore
more of a result of someone’s inability to process these emotions. Although the
way revenge is orchestrated may be a masterpiece in its form, it still comes from an
unstable mind. Such is the mind of Karen Knightly, a chief avenger and a trickster
in disguise, cunningly engineering for whom she sees as her enemy to be
destroyed. As Ayckbourn commented:
94 The Involuntary Casualties of Revenge
__________________________________________________________________
I just think [revenge] is a terribly strong emotion, it’s a
dangerous emotion, it’s as strong as love. It’s based on love
which turns to hate. It’s obsessive, it refuses to see reason. The
revenge of normal people lasts about 20 minutes. You have an
instinctive fury about what someone’s done to you, but with most
of us, thank God, the emotion passes. Otherwise there would be
very few people left alive.6

In case of Karen that emotion never passes. In fact, it gets stronger every time
her need for getting revenge is not sustained through Henry’s actions. Both Henry
and Karen hope that through their revenge they can regain their peace of mind, but
as they experience themselves, hurt and revenge cannot cancel each other out. This
can never happen as hurt, like any other emotion, has a sort of timeless quality.
Even though it may be weakened for a while by the act of revenge, it will come
back whenever the feelings of hurt are renewed. The process of delivering revenge
is therefore a way of rebalancing – the more guilt one feels, the stronger the need
for revenge; analogically the closer one is in getting even, his/her feelings of hurt
will lessen. This manifests itself in Karen’s behaviour and has a direct impact on
people around her.
Once revenge is delivered and Karen brings the news to Henry, instead of
seeing Henry celebrating, she sees him trying to back out. Karen’s need for
revenge is renewed and so she continues pursuing Henry’s ex co-workers. Within a
short time Karen manages to make another director die; Mr Seeds, a very nervous
man who comes back to work after a heart attack, rushes on the roof of the
building and jumps off as a result Karen communicating that they need to evacuate
as the whole building is on fire. Soon she takes another secretarial job within the
same company. It is Veronica Webb this time, a very shy and hard working girl,
that falls under Karen’s mischievous game. She is led to believe that her boss
Jeremy has fallen for her. As a result Veronica builds up strong feelings towards
Jeremy but when seeing Karen and Jeremy flirting she realises she was of no
interest to Jeremy, which basically breaks her heart. As much as we could try and
justify the way Karen deals with Bruce, it is hard to do so when it comes to the rest
of the company workers that become the involuntary victims of her actions. At this
stage it becomes very clear that Karen’s fury has no end and it is very doubtful she
will ever stop. The enormity of hurt that she causes in no way equals the hurt she
could have possibly received which becomes my next point of interest in this
paper.
People consider their own pain and suffering to have more meaning than other
people’s hence the need for the realisation of that pain, which can manifest itself in
the form of revenge. Applying the punishment makes the offence seem more
significant to us. It also makes others acknowledge the harm that was done to us.
Very often though, revenge carries more harm than the harm one experienced in
Iwona Bojarska 95
__________________________________________________________________
the first place, as is the case with Karen. Her reason for revenge is to make a
women pay for taking her lover, Anthony. It is not the men himself she blames, but
his wife, Imogen to whom he supposedly decides to come back after having a fling
with Karen. By protecting Anthony and blaming Imogen, Karen can both cling to
the idea that Anthony loves her and at the same time focus her negative emotion on
the easy target of revenge, which is Imogen. Knowing her reasons for getting even
and her inability to understand that she could be the one that is at fault, we can see
that there is no comparison between what she suffered and what she does to others.
Few scientists working at the Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology at University
College London have shown that we underestimate the amount of pain we inflict
on other people. They conducted an experiment during which patients were asked
to take part in ‘tit-for-tat’ situations. A fixed force was applied to one finger of
only one member of each group after which these were asked to apply the same
amount of force they received on their partners. The second group was
subsequently asked to apply that power back to the initial partners and that cycle
was carried out eight times. Scientists observed that by the end of the experiment
the force applied was 14 times greater than the original one. It turned out that in
some cases this amount doubled by 50% but still in most of them it went up by at
least a third. They observed that all participants consistently applied a greater force
when using their right index finger to directly match the externally applied target
force; they consistently underestimated the force they were applying because their
perception of the force was likely to be attenuated.7 This would partially explain
why so many fall victim of Karen’s hurt. She is not capable of keeping the level of
pain she endured same to the level of hurt she is inflicting on everyone else. Once
Henry announces his intentions towards Imogen have changed and that he now
plans on marrying Karen’s prime enemy, she feels defeated and betrayed. In her
rage, fury and disappointment, she sets fire to her house thus making herself, her
brother and her loyal servants homeless. In the end, she throws herself into the
Thames shouting ‘revenge’, which is the last word being said in the play. We could
only assume that by doing so Karen would hope to put some sort of curse on Henry
and Imogen’s new relationship. This only proves how strong and destructive
revenge can be and how far people will go with it, no matter who or what stands in
their way, even if it is themselves they eventually destroy. That finally brings me to
conclude on the subject of my paper.
Karen explains in the beginning of the play: ‘I’d kill myself when I had a very
good reason for doing so. A stronger reason than the reason I had for living. There
is a difference, I promise there is.’8 Regardless of the reasons one might have to
avenge and regardless of the way it is acted out, whether it is an instinctive act or a
well orchestrated plot, revenge becomes a fatal machinery aimed at the ones who
did us wrong, consuming many more along it’s way. Most importantly it comes
and is dependent on a human being who is very often corrupted, whose morale
may be questioned and whose actions are mostly based on anger and feelings of
96 The Involuntary Casualties of Revenge
__________________________________________________________________
hurt. While conducting their mischievous plan, the avengers would let others get
hurt in order to achieve the blissful satisfaction of getting even. Moreover
delivering revenge can never be enough in itself as even when served, the pain
remains. Revenge is therefore a short-sighted solution in dealing’s with one’s anger
and disappointment destroying the lives of anyone standing in its way, including
the avenger’s.

Notes
1
E Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, Penguin, London, 1990, p.
386.
2
A Ayckbourn, The Revengers’ Comedies, Faber and Faber, London, 1991, p. 20.
3
ibid., p. 21.
4
ibid., p. 22.
5
ibid., p. 52.
6
A Ayckbourn, ‘The Revengers’ Comedies Quotes By Alan Ayckbourn’, Daily
Mail. 07 October 1991, Viewed on 17 May 2010, http://therevengerscomedies.
alanayckbourn.net/TRC_AAQuotes.htm.
7
SS Shergill, G Samons, PM Bays, CD Frith & DM Wolpert. ‘Evidence for
Sensory Prediction Deficits in Schizophrenia’, AM J Psychiatry, December 2005,
viewed on 27 April 2010, http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/162/12/
2384.
8
Ayckbourn, op. cit., p. 11.

Bibliography
Ayckbourn, A., The Revengers’ Comedies. Faber and Faber, London, 1991.

—, ‘The Revengers’ Comedies Quotes By Alan Ayckbourn’. Daily Mail, 07


October 2001, Viewed on 17 May 2010, http://therevengerscomedies.alanayck
bourn.net/TRC_AAQuotes.htm.

Fromm, E., The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. Penguin, London, 1990.

Shergill, S.S. et. Al., ‘Evidence for Sensory Prediction Deficits in Schizophrenia’.
AM J Psychiatry, December 2005, viewed on 27 April 2010, http://ajp.psychiatry
online.org/cgi/content/full/162/12/2384.

Iwona Bojarska, University of Lodz, Poland. Interested in Modern British Drama


dealing with a wide range of psychological and social issues.
Revenge, American Cinema and Framing the
Decade of the 1970s

William Gombash, III


Abstract
This paper seeks to examine a number of factors that led to the popularity of
revenge in American films during the 1970s.The specific focus will be two films:
Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry (1972) and Michael Winner’s Death Wish (1974) due to
their similar approaches to political framing, the nature of the protagonists and the
urban locales. The analysis will draw from a variety cultural and political
references. As part of this examination I will focus on the following: How the
administration of President Nixon helped frame the political discourse in the 1970s
in relation to victimhood. How popular mass media adapted their messages to
coincide with the political and cultural zeitgeist of America in the 1970s. How both
Dirty Harry and Death Wish drew liberally from the Western film genre to
symbolically frame their heroes, locales, and enemies within the parameters of
traditional American values of both law and order and vengeance against the
milieu of the 1970s.

Key Words: Revenge, film, 1970s, victim, Nixon, framing, American Dream,
urban, crime.

*****

It is often said that revenge is sweet, but in the United States in the 1970s it was
better than sweet, it was a goldmine. Producers quickly discovered that they could
make revenge themed like Dirty Harry and Death Wish film with a small budget
and reap huge profits. Why were these films so popular? What was the responsive
chord that this subgenre of struck that made them resonate so powerfully within the
consciousness of the American people? Film theorist James Monaco best sums up
the relationship between the movies and vengeance in his 1979 book American
Film Now:

The mythic materials of paranoia and revenge, which certainly


dominate American movies in the 1970s, are the clearest signs
we have that all is not well in the Land of the Free and the Home
of the Brave, and that all of us - cops and addicts, private eyes
and beautiful widows, crazy taxi drivers and middle-level
executives, housewives, hookers, and journalists - are thoroughly
alienated from a political, social, and cultural system that is
either corrupt, moribund, ineffectual, or all of the above.1
98 Revenge, American Cinema and Framing the Decade of the 1970s
__________________________________________________________________
This paper seeks to examine a number of factors that led to the popularity of
revenge in American films during the 1970s. The specific focus will be two films:
Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry (1972) and Michael Winner’s Death Wish (1974) due to
similar their approaches to political framing, the nature of the protagonists and the
urban locales.
Many Americans in the 1960s and 1970s, felt out of control and a victim of an
America that had changed since the giddy days after the victories of World War II
when the country seemed all powerful where its citizen could walk the streets and
leave their doors unlocked. In the 1970s, many Americans believed they were at
war with their own country against other Americans they neither recognized nor
trusted. Thanks to the medium of television the race riots, the crime and the
rampant drug addiction afflicting mostly minorities and the poor in America’s
decaying urban centers seemed threateningly right on the doorstep of a group of
Americans that President Nixon referred to as ‘The Silent Majority.’2
‘The Silent Majority’ was a term coined by the presidential administration of
Richard Nixon. Very early in his administration Nixon sought to appeal to groups
of Americans whom he described as alienated from the political process. The
symbolism of ‘The Silent Majority’ was a deliberate attempt by the Nixon
administration to unite his traditional Republican political base with southern
Democrats who were feeling disaffected from their party because of former
President Lyndon Johnson’s ‘liberal policies’ of the Great Society. Strategically,
the goal was to portray the radical elements of the country who were protesting
against the war in Viet Nam, radical African-American organizations such as The
Black Panthers and anyone who advocated the illegal use of drugs as a dangerous
threat to the Nixon’s new political base. Americans labeled as ‘The Silent
Majority’ were portrayed as victims of a variety of nefarious criminal elements.
This was a means to mobilize public opinion for many of Nixon’s policies both
foreign and domestic.3
Nixon’s sounding call to ‘The Silent Majority’ was not just an attack on the
drugs or protesters or the inner city poor it was an attack on the liberals and
intellectuals who were at the core of the problem. Using Vice President Spiro
Agnew as a mouthpiece, the administration attacked intellectual dissent because it
was motivated by those who hated the country and wanted it to fail. In two
separate speeches in October 1969 Agnew inflammatory rhetoric attacked ‘liberal
intellectuals’ who he contended had a ‘masochistic compulsion to destroy their
country’s strength.’ Ten days later the Vice President aimed his strident words at
protesters whom he labeled ‘hard-core dissidents and professional anarchists’ and
‘ideological eunuchs’ who ‘overwhelm themselves with drugs and artificial
stimulants.’4
It was this mass media legerdemain that was used to create an imagined crisis,
centered primarily in America’s urban centers that could have led to the overthrow
of the America, the good and moral America from a bygone era. The threat were
William Gombash, III 99
__________________________________________________________________
radical blacks, drug induced teens, and antiwar protesters.5 Nixon and his
administration were seizing their vision of the moral and intellectual high ground.
They would marginalize anyone or any group that opposed their vision of morality.
This would be payback for the years of Roosevelt’s New Deal or even more recent
Johnson’s Great Society.
Politicians like Nixon have endeavored to define and frame the American
narrative in terms of fear and uncertainty. Popular entertainment often emulates
what it perceives to be that narrative and to form their popular narratives within the
framework of the popular narrative. How entertainment portrays political events,
through television shows or movies for example, is often directly related to public
perception of that event. ‘As thought processes on justice change in relation to
historical events such as 9/11; different culture representations arise.’6
After 9/11 American video store owners reported that the public wanted action
films where terrorist were disposed of by the most violent means ‘that in the face
of uncertainty they’ll flock to movies that offer them the illusion of control.’7 On
American television the controversial drama ‘24,’ with protagonist Jack Bauer as
an American hero and avenger took on terrorists with a no holds barred attitude.
The program became a lightning rod for political debate and ‘has arguably the
defining entertainment of the political moment, earning accolades from observers
as diverse as Frank Rich and Pat Buchanan. Rolling Stone just declared it ‘the
central moral-political drama of our time’.’8
Like 24 after 9/11, both Dirty Harry and Death Wish reflected the political
zeitgeist of the 1970s. Film critic Pauline Kael declared that ‘In the Heat of the
Night belongs to the Lyndon Johnson age as clearly as Dirty Harry belongs to the
heyday of the Nixon era.’9 In his review of Death Wish, New York Times film critic
Vincent Canby declared the film ‘exploits very real fears and social problems and
suggests simple-minded remedies by waving the American flag much in the same
fashion former Vice President Agnew used to.’10

During the sixties and seventies, with war in Viet Nam, political
assassinations, and the rise of urban crime, violence became part
of our everyday life. Inevitably, the movie screen became
bloodier, and while movies about bad guys and antiheroes were
still popular, vigilante films became equally successful.11

The symbol of the decay of the social and legal system in 1970s America was
its cities. Cities were perceived as centers of civil unrest fermented by African
American radicals. Public spaces such as parks once seen as a slice of sylvan peace
for families were being occupied by radical elements of society where the rule of
law no longer applied. To that end both Dirty Harry and Death Wish portray their
urban settings as an insane asylum or war zone. During one night patrol Callahan
100 Revenge, American Cinema and Framing the Decade of the 1970s
__________________________________________________________________
views describes the people on the streets as ‘loonies,’ and ‘they ought to throw a
net over the whole bunch of them.’
Death Wish was even more blatant with its framing of the city as a place where
innocent citizens were in constant danger of being murdered. When Kersey returns
to New York City from his Hawaiian vacation he learns from a co-worker the grim
statistics regarding the number of homicides that have occurred in the city during
his absence. The co-worker then proceeds to compare New York City to a war
zone and all of the criminals should be confined to concentration camps.
Be it insane asylum or war zone it was up to Callahan and Kersey to take their
cities back not just from the lunatics and enemy combatants who ruled the streets,
but also from the liberal legal and social policies of the 1960s that had empowered
them in the first place. Callahan and Kersey must, through any means, impose their
moral vengeance for sake of the innocent victims, ‘The Silent Majority’ who have
been made powerless by, to use the rhetoric of Vice President Agnew, ‘liberal
intellectuals’ who he had a ‘masochistic compulsion to destroy their country’s
strength,’ needed an avenger to clean up the streets of the cities because the liberal
legal system would not.
Traditionally, in revenge tragedies ‘Revenge is perceived as the only to address
wrongs at multiple levels.’12 These multiple levels are exemplified in The Spanish
Tragedy that ‘represents Hieronimo’s revenge which is partly that of a grieving
father and partly that of a political scourge, a terrible cleansing of a corrupt state.’13
Both Death Wish and Dirty Harry work at both levels in relation to the revenge of
the grieving father and the revenge of a citizen against a corrupt state.
Paul Kersey in Death Wish is the literal grieving father seeking revenge against
the criminals who broke into upper middle class apartment murdered his wife, and
brutally raped his daughter who survives the attack but in left in a catatonic state.
Her assault is filmed in exacting and sadistic detail. Although Kersey does not
witness the rape the audience must observe this innocent wide eyed white young
woman apparently forced to commit unspeakable acts. Although none of the
assailants are black, one of them, who looks somewhat Hispanic, carries a can of
spray paint that he uses to not only vandalize Kersey’s home with graffiti but also
spray his daughter’s buttocks with red paint. This symbolic act of sodomy goes
beyond the assault on one young woman. Kersey’s daughter is not just a young
white woman she is all young white women. In the large cities of the 1970s the can
of spray paint was often represented not just as a symbol of vandalism but of all
urban crime often committed by violent Hispanic or black criminals. Death Wish
engages the audience to identify with the victim on a personal and social level.
Kersey’s daughter is being sodomized by a not just by a young thug identified as
‘Spraycan’ in the closing credit but also permissive social system that created him.
Steven Spielberg in his film Munich (2005) deliberately manipulates ‘the model
of victimhood so as to expose the underlying trauma that supports it.’14 The
narrative of films that focus on victimhood ‘encourage identification with
William Gombash, III 101
__________________________________________________________________
victimhood, and thus indirectly, extreme acts of retaliation and aggression.’15
Thusly, the rape of Kersey’s daughter not only forces the audience to identify with
Kersey, the grieving father, but also Kersey the American citizen betrayed by a
legal and social system that will not offer him justice. When Kersey asks a police
detective about the probability that the men who murdered his wife and raped his
daughter the response is a rather impotent, ‘Just a chance. In this city that is the
way that it is.’ Kersey vindictive fury against the criminals of New York City is
both the acts of a vengeful father seeking personal retribution and a vengeful
citizen seeking political retribution.
Harry Callahan is not the literal father of fourteen year old Mary Ann Deacon
who was tortured, raped, and murdered by an evil serial killer. The audience never
sees her actual father. Callahan is the symbolic father who berates the district
attorney and a judge who rule that Mary Ann’s killer must be set free because
Callahan broke the law that was created to protect criminal suspects like the man
who killed her. Callahan angrily snaps back ‘Who speaks for her?’ and ‘The Law
is crazy.’ Like Kersey in Death Wish, Callahan commits vengeance for both
personal and political reasons. The audience identifies with both Callahan and
Mary Ann Deacon as victims of a corrupt legal system. Therefore the audience
begins to see themselves as victims and conclude that men like Kersey and
Callahan are to be cheered and venerated for their willingness to stand alone
against a corrupt system that forces them to be vigilantes in the 20th Century.
The vengeance themes in both Death Wish and Dirty Harry are deeply rooted
in the social and political philosophy of The American Dream. Both films also
draw liberally from the mythic conventions of that most uniquely American film
genre, the Western.
After the attack on his family, Kersey’s goes to Tucson, Arizona for a business
trip. It is there where he receives the gift of the gun that he will use to eventually
exact his vengeance in New York City. Kersey also receives a lesson from one of
Tucson’s citizens of the efficacy and value of the American Dream. In Death Wish
Tucson is portrayed as symbolic of the Old West style of frontier justice, where
every law abiding citizens helps keep the peace with their guns the way their
forefathers did in the 19th Century. Unlike New York City, Kersey is told you can
walk safely in the parks at night ‘muggers in this here parts get their asses blown
off.’
In Westerns, communities were often an isolated ‘arena where civilized meet
savage in an interminable mythic contest.’16 The savages in Death Wish are
narrowly drawn from a progressively dominant African-American amalgam of
‘muggers, vandals and kids who carry spray-paint cans (they should be eliminated
too) prefer knives most of the time and thus wouldn’t be able to shoot first or
back.’17
While Kersey fights many unnamed savages, Callahan has but one powerful
Savage. His savage is a wanton sociopathic serial killer who is unnamed and only
102 Revenge, American Cinema and Framing the Decade of the 1970s
__________________________________________________________________
referred to as Scorpio. Scorpio is a hippie-like creature with shaggy hair, colorful
clothing, and even a peace symbol for a belt buckle. He is Scorpio in terms of the
Age of Aquarius. This nameless sociopath is a hippie, love child symbolic of
lawlessness and permissive of the counterculture, the spawn of pagan gods who
has been allowed to mutate and wreak havoc on the innocent because of a lack of
law and order. Scorpio is a straw man, grounded not in the realm of logic but in
an emotional dystopia of a right winger’s nightmare. Pauline Kael attacked the
simplistic portrayal of Scorpio as ‘pure evil’ who ‘stands for everything the
audience fears and loathes. And Harry cannot destroy this walking rot because of
the legal protections, such as the court rulings on Miranda and Escobedo that a
weak, liberal society gives its criminals.’18
The cultural significance of Dirty Harry Callahan may have begun with the oft
quoted ‘Do you feel lucky?’ from Dirty Harry would morph into ‘Go ahead, make
my day’ from the fourth installment on the series Clint Eastwood’s Sudden Impact
(1983). This phrase of tough-guy avenging bravado would become so iconic that in
1985 President Ronald Reagan would use it when he threatened to veto a bill, he
thought too liberal, passed by Congress. Most of America cheered Reagan
doggedly avenging another symbol of the 1960s.

Notes
1
J Monaco, American Film Now: The People, the Power, the Money, the Movies,
Plume, New York, 1978, p. 287.
2
K Yuill, ‘Another Take on the Nixon Presidency: The First Therapeutic
President?’, Journal of Policy History 21, No. 2, April 2009, pp. 139-141.
3
D Conley & M Ryvicker, ‘Race, Class, and Eyes Upon the Street: Public Space,
Social Control, and the Economies of Three Urban Communities’, Sociological
Forum 16, No. 4, December 2001, pp. 718-759.
4
B D’Arcus, ‘Protest, Scale, and Publicity: The FBI and the H Rap Brown Act’,
Antipode 35, No. 4, September 2003, pp. 718-741.
5
K Yuill, ‘Another Take on the Nixon Presidency: The First Therapeutic
President?’, Journal of Policy History 21, No. 2, April 2009, pp. 138-162.
6
R Dean-Ruzicka, ‘Vengeance, Healing and Justice: Post 9/11 Culture Through
the Lens of CSI’, Quarterly Review of Film & Video 26, No. 2, March 2009, pp.
118-130.
7
J McEntee, ‘I’ll give you acts of God’: God, the Father, and Revenge Tragedy in
Three Billy Connolly Movies’, 49-71, Salisbury University, 2009, p. 52
8
C Orr, ‘Kiefer Madness’, New Republic 234, No. 19, May 22, 2006, p. 17.
9
P Kael, ‘Forward’, Reeling, Warner Books, Boston, 1976, p. 16.
10
V Canby, ‘Screen: ‘Death Wish’ Hunts Muggers: The Cast Story of Gunman
Takes Dim View of City’, New York Times, July 25, 1974, p. 27.
William Gombash, III 103
__________________________________________________________________

11
L Bourzereau, Ultra Violent Movies: From Sam Peckinpah to Quentin
Tarantino, Citadel Press, Secaucus. 1996, p. 127.
12
J McEntee, ‘I’ll give you acts of God’: God, the Father, and Revenge Tragedy in
Three Billy Connolly Movies’, Salisbury University, 2009, p. 53.
13
Ibid., p. 55.
14
R Brand, ‘Identification with Victimhood in Recent Cinema’, Culture, Theory &
Critique, No. 2, October 2008, p. 167.
15
Ibid., p. 165
16
T Schatz, Hollywood Genres: Formula, Filmmaking, and the Studio System,
McGraw-Hill, New York, 1981, p. 48.
17
V Canby, ‘Screen: ‘Death Wish’ Hunts Muggers: The Cast Story of Gunman
Takes Dim View of City’, New York Times, July 25, 1974, p. 27.
18
P Kael, ‘Saint Cop’, Deeper Into Movies, Warner Books, Boston, 1973, p. 486.

Bibliography
Bourzereau, L., Ultra Violent Movies: From Sam Peckinpah to Quentin Tarantino.
Citadel Press, Secaucus. 1996.

Brand, R., ‘Identification with Victimhood in Recent Cinema’. Culture, Theory &
Critique. No. 2, October 2008, pp. 165-181.

Canby, V., ‘Screen: ‘Death Wish’ Hunts Muggers: The Cast Story of Gunman
Takes Dim View of City’. New York Times. July 25, 1974.

Conley, D. & Ryvicker, M., ‘Race, Class, and Eyes Upon the Street: Public Space,
Social Control, and the Economies of Three Urban Communities’. Sociological
Forum. No. 4, December 2001, p. 759.
,p
D’Arcus, B., ‘Protest, Scale, and Publicity: The FBI and the H Rap Brown Act’.
Antipode. No. 4, September 2003, pp. 718-741.

Dean-Ruzicka, R., ‘Vengeance, Healing and Justice: Post 9/11 Culture Through the
Lens of CSI’. Quarterly Review of Film & Video. No. 2, March 2009, pp. 118-130.

Fernandez-Armesto, F., Ideas that Changed the World. Fall River Press, New
York, 2009.

Kael, P., ‘Forward’. Reeling. Warner Books, Boston, 1976.

—, ‘Saint Cop’. Deeper Into Movies. Warner Books, Boston, 1973.


104 Revenge, American Cinema and Framing the Decade of the 1970s
__________________________________________________________________

Lenihan, J.H., Showdown: Confronting Modern America in the Western Film.


University of Chicago Press, Urbana. 1980.

McEntee, J., ‘I’ll give you acts of God’: God, the Father, and Revenge Tragedy in
Three Billy Connolly Movies’. Salisbury University, 2009.

McGilligan, P., Robert Altman: Jumping Off the Cliff. St. Martins, New York,
1989.

Monaco, J., American Film Now: The People, the Power, the Money, the Movies.
Plume, New York, 1978.

Orr, C., ‘Kiefer Madness’. New Republic. No. 19, May 22, 2006.

Schatz, T., Hollywood Genres: Formula, Filmmaking, and the Studio System.
McGraw-Hill, New York, 1981.

Yuill, K., ‘Another Take on the Nixon Presidency: The First Therapeutic
President?’. Journal of Policy History. No. 2, April 2009, pp. 138-162.

William Gombash, III is Professor of Communication at Valencia Community


College in Orlando, Florida, USA. His great love is studying film then passing that
knowledge on to his students.
Maternal Revenge and Redemption in Postfeminist
Rape-Revenge Cinema

Claire Henry
Abstract
Recent rape-revenge films such as Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003/
2004) and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Park Chan-Wook, 2005) display a post-
feminist emphasis on maternity, which impacts the nature of their revenge
narratives. In these contemporary variations on the 1970s exploitation genre,
revenge is never just revenge for rape – the heroine’s construction as ‘mother’ adds
an additional layer to raise the stakes and justify her acts of vengeance. At the same
time, her return to motherhood requires a transformative journey of redemption,
which results in an ambivalence towards revenge.

Key Words: Revenge, rape, postfeminism, maternal, Kill Bill, Lady Vengeance.

*****

Recent rape-revenge films such as Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2 (Quentin Tarantino,
2003/ 2004) and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Park Chan-Wook, 2005) display a
post-feminist emphasis on maternity, which impacts the nature of their revenge
narratives. In these contemporary variations on the 1970s exploitation genre,
revenge is never just revenge for rape – the heroine’s construction as ‘mother’ adds
an additional layer to raise the stakes and justify her acts of vengeance. At the same
time, her return to motherhood requires a transformative journey of redemption,
which results in an ambivalence towards revenge.
While the classic rape-revenge narrative transformed the heroine from victim to
avenger, these contemporary variations focus on the heroine ‘becoming mother’.
This reverse transformation from avenger to mother is presented as a redemptive
journey in which the former femme fatale (sexual, violent and a neglectful mother)
gives up on her vengeance mission when her maternal instincts kick in. The
satisfying closure that an eye for an eye once brought for rape avengers is now
disavowed.

1. Kill Bill
The premise of Tarantino’s two-volume epic is the revenge by heroine Beatrix
(Uma Thurman) on her five former fellow assassins. Beatrix is raped multiple
times, shot in the head by Bill (David Carradine), betrayed by her fellow assassins,
buried alive, and worst of all, separated from her child (whom she believes to be
dead). This plethora of injustices is an example of how ‘maternal revenge
continues to be subject to… additional legitimating devices and/or punishment’.1
This gender double standard may partly explain the pressure Tarantino felt from
106 Maternal Revenge and Redemption
__________________________________________________________________
his audience after Vol. 1 to elaborate on the story in Vol. 2 (giving Beatrix a deep
maternal motivation in addition to the rapes and murder attempts). Kill Bill,
particularly Vol. 2, is more than an action, samurai, or Western flick with a basic
revenge plot; it becomes an interesting variation on the rape-revenge flick by
layering a maternal transformation narrative into Tarantino’s genre bricolage.
Through the course of this Oedipal epic, our heroine Beatrix does not only take
vengeance upon her former colleagues, she metamorphoses from warrior to
mother.
Beatrix’s maternal transformation can be summarized by looking at the
contrasting first and last scenes of the epic. Chapter 1 establishes Beatrix as pre-
maternal warrior, trashing a domestic space in her fight with redeemed warrior and
mother to Nikki, Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox). With postmodern irony, a primal
scene plays out. Vernita is the Mother, penetrated by Beatrix’s knife; Beatrix is the
Father, in obvious phallic imagery she withdraws her knife from Vernita’s chest
and returns it to the sheath at her hip (emphasized in a close-up); and Nikki
(Ambrosia Kelley) and the spectator represent the child who witnesses this
intercourse or act of aggression by the father. For the child/spectator, the opening
primal scene has induced sexual arousal, castration anxiety, and laid the foundation
for an Oedipal drama to play out as the film continues. This scene establishes
Beatrix as masculine hero. In the role of the Father, she separates mother and child.
In the Last Chapter of Kill Bill, Beatrix meets her own four year-old, BB (Perla
Haney-Jardine), when she goes to confront Bill. It is only this - meeting her child,
whom she believed dead - that can finally disarm Beatrix. She has a second chance
at ‘becoming mother’. She had been castrated; now her child stands before her
alive. The motif of castration is iconic in the rape-revenge genre but usually
appears as the rapists’ punishment. Here it plays out on the body of the mother.
The castration anxiety which arguably underpins the genre now takes the form of
the mother’s loss of her child. Beatrix does not castrate as revenge, she takes
revenge for castration (the removal of her child from her body). The reunion of
mother and child resolves this castration anxiety and takes away her need for
revenge.
The importance to Beatrix of ‘becoming mother’ is reinforced in flashback as
she recounts to Bill the moment when she got a positive result to a pregnancy test.
She tells Bill that she is now motivated completely by wanting to protect her child.
This resorting to an essentialist assumption about all women having a maternal
instinct rings false within the world of the film. After journeying with Beatrix
through multiple deaths and resurrections, sharing in her trauma and her tough
training with Pai Mei (Gordon Liu), and celebrating her triumphant acts of
revenge, her sudden and extreme sacrifice in changing her life so completely
because ‘the strip turned blue’ is narratively (and to me, politically) disappointing.
A pre-feminist vision of the gendered separation of public/private spheres is
nostalgically reinforced.
Claire Henry 107
__________________________________________________________________
The issue is perhaps that Kill Bill is not just a revenge story, or even a narrative
of resurrection and transformation - Tarantino also seeks to make it a narrative of
redemption. By enforcing redemption, Tarantino affects a sort of reverse
transformation, similar to that identified by Jacinda Read in the maternal (proxy)
rape-revenge film.2 In maternal avenger films such as In My Daughter’s Name (Jud
Taylor, 1992) and Eye for an Eye (John Schlesinger, 1996), the mother of the rape
victim undergoes a transformation from mother to aggressor (a variation on the
classic transformation from victim to aggressor). The protagonists in Kill Bill and
Lady Vengeance undergo the reverse transformation - from aggressor to mother -
which is presented as a redemptive journey.
The problem with Beatrix’ redemption from a feminist film theory perspective
is that it is similar to that of the femme fatale’s limited choices in film noir. Noir is
‘often concerned with investigating and establishing the guilt of a woman’3 and she
must be either punished or redeemed for her transgressions as a sexual and violent
woman and a neglectful mother. It is worth keeping in mind here Mary Ann
Doane’s arguments that the femme fatale is ‘the antithesis of the maternal’ and not
a feminist figure so much as a figure of male fears about feminism.4 However, in a
postfeminist context she may be both. The redemption narrative can be read as
charting a contemporary feminist reclamation of maternity, a metaphor for the
feminist movement’s changing position on motherhood. At the same time, the
redemption narrative can be read as part of a trend of ‘representations returning…
to the idealization of woman in the home, which embodies patriarchal need to
control and restrict woman’.5 Post-9/11 American cultural, political, and religious
factors have likely also helped to determine the femme fatale’s fate here. The
femme fatale protagonist of Lady Vengeance similarly faces patriarchal and
religious forces pushing her to redemption, but negotiates her designations as
mother and sinner (within the narrative and Korean society) differently to Beatrix.

2. Lady Vengeance
Where Lady Vengeance differs from, or extends on, Kill Bill (as well as Park’s
previous revenge films, Old Boy (2003) and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002))
is the heroine’s search for atonement. This was Park’s intention, as he commented
in an interview while working on Lady Vengeance: ‘The third film in the trilogy
will be about a character who longs for salvation and atonement rather than anger,
vengeance and violence’.6
Lady Vengeance opens with Geum-ja (Yeong-ae Lee) being released from
prison after thirteen years served for the murder of six year-old schoolboy Won-mo
(Ji-tae Yu), a crime she was framed for by Mr Baek (Min-sik Choi), who
threatened to kill her newborn daughter if she did not confess. Where Beatrix’s
revenge came to an end with her maternal redemption, Geum-ja rejects the
redemption offered to her by a Christian minister and seeks redemption her own
way - via vengeance on evil child killer Mr Baek.
108 Maternal Revenge and Redemption
__________________________________________________________________
Before the introduction of her daughter Jenny (Yea-young Kwon), there are
several ways Geum-ja is constructed as mother. She takes on a maternal role in
prison, donating a kidney to one fellow inmate, and poisoning a rapist in a
calculated act of proxy vengeance for another. The only actual act of rape-revenge
by Geum-ja is against this female rapist in prison, reflecting a postfeminist
perspective on rape, which asserts that men are not the enemy and that women can
rape too. Geum-ja’s gradual poisoning of the rapist is a maternal, benevolent act,
saving her fellow inmate from further abuse; her actions are not impulsive,
emotional, or a selfishly motivated personal vendetta.
A key turning point occurs in the vengeance narrative when Geum-ja realises
that Mr Baek continued to kill children while she was in prison. She gathers
together the parents of all the victims, screens videos of their children being killed,
and conducts a community meeting to decide how to deal with Mr Baek. Typical
of vengeance cinema, the aggrieved decide they cannot place their faith in the law
and choose violent retribution. Pragmatically dressed in raincoats, the parents sit in
a row and wait their turn, each careful not to go too far and kill Mr Baek until
everyone has had a piece of him. Our heroine mobilizes the community to take
revenge on Mr Baek, but communal revenge is linked with premeditation and
challenged as a valid response through the ethical and spiritual questions raised.
The tone of the following scene, in which the parents hold a birthday celebration
for their dead children, hardly feels like a celebration. This reflects director Park’s
perspective on vengeance, for while he understands it is a strong human desire and
difficult to resist, he states that vengeance can never be justified.7 Taking the
pleasure or satisfaction out of the act of revenge underscores this moral point,
questioning the righteousness of their act.
For Park, the victim to aggressor transformation (the transformation which
underpins rape-revenge) produces a sense of guilt, as opposed to a sense of justice,
triumph, empowerment, righteousness, or balance restored through an eye for an
eye. Park describes all of his protagonists in the revenge trilogy as suffering from a
sense of guilt, but it is in this third film with a female protagonist that the theme is
more fully explored, and guilt is linked to the heroine’s maternity and femininity.
The guilt attributed to Park’s avengers is exacerbated in Geum-ja’s case by her
construction as mother, reflecting Jacinda Read’s analysis of earlier Hollywood
maternal avengers: ‘these narratives constantly work to construct the mother not as
morally justified but as guilty’.8 Read attributes this construction to the deployment
of the codes and conventions of classic melodrama and its narrative drive that
pushes women back into the domestic sphere of home and family, legitimating a
backlash politics.9 Park appears to be drawing on (or playing on) the tradition of
South Korean melodramas in which ‘motifs of Christian redemption are mobilized
in ambivalent narrations of imperilled and sometimes fallen femininity’.10 It is
difficult to pin down an origin for the construction of Geum-ja as guilty because
the cultural archetypes of the madonna versus the slut, the self-sacrificing mother
Claire Henry 109
__________________________________________________________________
versus the neglectful working mother, and the femme fatale in need of redemption,
are so prevalent and film buff Park has clearly drawn on a range of these well-worn
images in creating Geum-ja.
The film can considered as part of what Kim Kyung Hyun calls ‘The
Remasculinization of Korean Cinema’ in his 2004 book of the same name. Kim
finds that in contemporary Korean films by directors such as Kim Ki-duk, women
are still objects ‘predicated on the patented image of mother and whore’.11 The
author asks: ‘Could a story ever be conceived in Korean cinema that focuses on a
self-centering woman who is freed from her duties as a mother or a wife, without
framing her in the convention of a vamp?’12 Park does not conceive of such a story
with Lady Vengeance, in fact the persistent archetypes are supported by Park’s
concept of gendered vengeance. He describes the male vengeance in Sympathy for
Mr. Vengeance and Old Boy (the other two films in the trilogy) as impulsive,
messy, and based on emotion, whereas Geum-ja’s vengeance is cold and
calculated, based on intellect more than emotion.13 Park condemns acts of
vengeance as ‘idiotic’ but sees value in Geum-ja’s motivation of redemption (in
contrast to the motivations of the male protagonists in the first two films). He
wanted to go against stereotypes of women as emotional or acting on emotion, but
consequently invokes stereotypes of the cruel mother or beautiful ice queen bitch,
which Damon Smith sees evoked ‘in terms of the color palette and the themes of
ice - the iciness of the revenge impulse paired with white, snow, and the idea of
purity. All of these revolve around the ways women have always been
characterized as particularly catty and vengeful’.14
The spectator is positioned to judge Geum-ja’s success (redemption) or failure
(guilt) by alignment with the victims - Geum-ja’s daughter, Jenny, and to a lesser
extent, the ghost of Won-mo. Geum-ja feels guilt for her role in Won-mo’s death
but the focus within the narrative is the sin of abandoning her daughter. Via the
abandoned daughter (the victim) Geum-ja is made to answer for this sin. Jenny tags
along as Geum-ja prepares her revenge, playing witness to her choices and actions,
as do we the spectators. She confronts her mother in a letter, insisting that she
apologize, and Geum-ja’s reply (read to Jenny in Korean and translated into
English by Mr Baek) illustrates the dynamic between mother, daughter, and
spectator.
Far from the reunion with her daughter ending her revenge mission (as in Kill
Bill), this face-to-face encounter demonstrates that Geum-ja will pursue her
revenge mission (and continue to try to justify it) even at the cost of alienating the
child and spectator. However the face-to-face encounter between Geum-ja and Mr
Baek in the following scene, which also heavily uses looks to camera, depicts
Geum-ja unable to bring herself to take her long-awaited vengeance and shoot
him.15 While she is battling out her internal conflict, Mr Baek’s phone rings,
leading Geum-ja to find the children’s charms he has collected. This is the turning
point in which her personal vendetta ends and she hands over the job of revenge to
110 Maternal Revenge and Redemption
__________________________________________________________________
the aggrieved collective. This pushing away of Jenny/the spectator in Geum-ja’s
letter precipitates the need to see her maternal redemption, her self-sacrifice in
helping other mourning parents take revenge. While at this point the spectator may
still desire to see Mr Baek punished, we are not invested in seeing Geum-ja
personally take the pleasure in it.
The spectator’s (ethical) relationship to the protagonist is fostered through these
face-to-face encounters. In analysing the films of Kim Ki-duk, Steve Choe draws
on Emmanuel Levinas, for whom ‘the question of ethics is emblemized by the
face-to-face encounter, a moment that discloses to the I the infinite separation
between itself and other’.16 This separation is played out visually and narratively in
the scene when Geum-ja reads her letter. It is a potentially traumatic separation for
the daughter/spectator as it entails an acknowledgement of independence between
self and other, mother and child, protagonist and spectator. Jenny/the spectator is
invited to make ethical judgement when she comes face-to-face with Geum-ja, and
again when Geum-ja is face-to-face with Mr Baek and finds that she cannot kill
him. No matter if vengeance is desired so strongly that one dreams about it (as
Geum-ja does), its justification is ethically questioned - perhaps ethically
impossible - in a face-to-face encounter.
Direct to camera looks are frequent in Lady Vengeance and the other two films
in Park Chan-wook’s revenge trilogy, particularly by the protagonists. As in the
scene discussed above, this technique invites the spectator into an ethical
intersubjective relationship with the protagonist and to engage with themes of
revenge and redemption. Where Kill Bill uses Hollywood film language to direct
the spectator to identify with the protagonist, Lady Vengeance uses direct address
to align you with the child who is brought face-to-face with Geum-ja in their
reunion, and like Jenny, the spectator seeks justification and atonement from
Geum-ja. The way that the face is exposed and vulnerable and challenging in these
face-to-face looks unsettles the spectatorial desire for vengeance, making the
revenge mission more ethically complex.
The ethical complexity of revenge in Lady Vengeance, like the emphasis on the
cyclical nature of revenge in Kill Bill, contributes to the image of the maternal
avenger as being in need of redemption. In the 1980s and 1990s proxy maternal
avenger films, the maternal layer added a new right ideology of family values into
the genre and diverted the subversive feminist politics seen in other rape-revenge. 17
As my discussion of Kill Bill and Lady Vengeance has sought to demonstrate, this
ideological project has been perpetuated in twenty-first century articulations of the
genre.
Claire Henry 111
__________________________________________________________________
Notes
1
J Read, The New Avengers: Feminism, Femininity, and the Rape-Revenge Cycle,
Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2000, p. 236.
2
Ibid., 2000, pp. 205-40.
3
Ibid., 2000, 221.
4
MA Doane, Femmes Fatales: Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis,
Routledge, London, 1991, p. 2.
5
EA Kaplan, Motherhood and Representation: The Mother in Popular Culture and
Melodrama, Routledge, London, 1992, p. 215.
6
R Cline, ‘Humour in Revenge: A Chat with Korean Filmmaker Park Chan-wook’,
Shadows on the Wall, 2004. Accessed 15/01/2010, http://www.shadows.wall.net/
features/sw-park1.htm, p. 1.
7
P Chan-wook, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, DVD interview.
8
Read, op. cit., 2000, p. 226.
9
Read, op. cit., 2000, p. 18.
10
N Abelmann & K McHugh, ‘Introduction: Gender, Genre, and Nation’, South
Korean Golden Age Melodrama: Gender, Genre, and National Cinema, Wayne
State University Press, Detroit, Michigan, 2005, p. 9.
11
KH Kim, The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema, Duke University Press,
Durham and London, 2004, p. 9.
12
Ibid., 2004, p. 9.
13
P Chan-wook, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Park Chan-Wook, 2005), DVD
interview.
14
D Smith, ‘Acts of Revenge: Director Park Chan-wook Discusses Lady
Vengeance and More’, Bright Lights Film Journal, Iss. 53, August 2006. Accessed
19/3/2010. http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/53/parkiv.php
15
Note that Mr Baek does not undergo any such confrontation with his conscience.
Despite that Geum-ja played a lesser role in the death of Won-mo, the film
continues the common trope in patriarchy, postfeminism, psychoanalysis, film noir
and melodrama, of directing anger and blame toward the mother figure and seeking
her redemption.
16
S Choe, ‘Kim Ki-duk’s Cinema of Cruelty: Ethics and Spectatorship in the
Global Economy,’ Positions, Vol. 15 iss. 1, 2007, p. 66.
17
Read, op. cit., 2000, p. 216.

Bibliography
Abelmann, N. & Choi, J., ‘‘Just Because’: Comedy, Melodrama and Youth
Violence in Attack The Gas Station’. New Korean Cinema. Edinburgh University
Press, Edinburgh, 2005.
112 Maternal Revenge and Redemption
__________________________________________________________________

Abelmann, N. & McHugh, K., ‘Introduction: Gender, Genre, and Nation’. South
Korean Golden Age Melodrama: Gender, Genre, and National Cinema. Wayne
State University Press, Detroit, Michigan, 2005.

An, J., ‘Screening the Redemption; Christianity in Korean Melodrama’. South


Korean Golden Age Melodrama: Gender, Genre, and National Cinema. Wayne
State University Press, Detroit, Michigan, 2005.

Choe, S., ‘Kim Ki-duk’s Cinema of Cruelty: Ethics and Spectatorship in the Global
Economy’. Positions. Vol. 15, Iss. 1, 2007, pp. 65-90.

Cline, R., ‘Humour in Revenge: A Chat with Korean Filmmaker Park Chan-wook’.
Shadows on the Wall. 2004. Accessed 15/01/2010, http://www.shadows.wall.
net/features/sw-park1.htm.

Coulthard, L., ‘Killing Bill: Rethinking Feminism and Film Violence’.


Interrogating Post-Feminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture. Duke
University Press, New York, 2007.

Doane, M.A., Femmes Fatales: Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis.


Routledge, London, 1991.

Forna, A., Mother of All Myths: How Society Moulds and Constrains Mothers.
HarperCollins, London, 1998.

Gombeaud, A., ‘Joint Security Area’. The Cinema of Japan and Korea. Wallflower
Press, London, 2004.

Kaplan, E.A., Motherhood and Representation: The Mother in Popular Culture


and Melodrama. Routledge, London, 1992.

Kim, K.H., The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema. Duke University Press,


Durham and London, 2004.

Le Cain, M., ‘Tarantino and the Vengeful Ghosts of Cinema.’ Senses of Cinema,
vol. 32, July-Sept 2004. Accessed 19/3/2010. http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/
contents/04/32/tarantino.html.

Lee, H., Contemporary Korean Cinema: Identity, Culture and Politics.


Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2000.
Claire Henry 113
__________________________________________________________________

Read, J., The New Avengers: Feminism, Femininity, and the Rape-Revenge Cycle.
Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2000.

Schwarzbaum, L., ‘Sweet Revenge (Lady Vengeance)’. Entertainment Weekly. Iss.


877, May 19 2006, p. 58.

Smith, D., ‘Acts of Revenge: Director Park Chan-wook Discusses Lady Vengeance
and More’. Bright Lights Film Journal. Iss. 53, August 2006. Accessed 19/3/2010.
http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/53/parkiv.php

Filmography
Eye for an Eye (John Schlesinger, 1996).

In My Daughter’s Name (Jud Taylor, 1992).

Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003/2004).

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Park Chan-Wook, 2005).

Claire Henry is a PhD candidate in Film Studies at Anglia Ruskin University,


Cambridge, UK, writing her doctoral thesis on contemporary rape-revenge cinema.
Revenge as Cultural Catharsis in
Moya Henderson’s Opera Lindy

Timothy McKenry
Abstract
The death, during a camping trip in central Australia, of the nine-week-old baby,
Azaria Chamberlain, and the subsequent trial, imprisonment and eventual
exoneration of her mother, Lindy, for the murder of the child was a seminal event
in recent Australian social history. The issues raised by this event, including
sexism, racism, sectarianism and the abuse of power, left deep scars on the
Australian psyche as the reaction of the Australian public throughout the incident
diverged from the prevailing view of Australian identity as one characterised by
‘mate-ship’, egalitarianism, and a ‘fair-go’. This paper examines how Moya
Henderson’s opera Lindy, functions not only to tell and reinterpret the story
through a fragmented postmodern narrative, but also as an act of ‘cultural revenge’.
In celebrating this retelling of the story through opera, one segment of Australian
society is given the opportunity to punish, marginalise and re-educate another.
Through an examination of the circumstances surrounding the commissioning and
development of the opera, structural aspects of the narrative style employed in the
opera, and the critical reception of the opera, the paper posits that Lindy represents
a cultural tool that enables a catharsis through vengeance.

Key Words: Opera, culture, identity, Australia.

*****

1. The Chamberlain Case and Australian Identity


The death, during a 1980 camping trip in central Australia of the nine-week-old
baby, Azaria Chamberlain, and the subsequent trial, imprisonment and eventual
exoneration of her mother, Lindy, for the murder of the child was a seminal event
in recent Australian social history. The issues raised by this event, including
sexism, racism, sectarianism and the abuse of power, left deep scars on the
Australian psyche as the reaction of the Australian public throughout the incident
diverged from the prevailing view of Australian identity as one characterised by
‘mate-ship’, egalitarianism, and a ‘fair-go’. Moya Henderson’s opera, Lindy, is one
of several portrayals of the incident that, along with the books (both subsequently
made into films1) Evil Angels and Through My Eyes, serves a purpose beyond
merely documenting an event in recent Australian history. The book Evil Angels by
John Bryson, first published in 1985 while Lindy Chamberlain was still in prison,
presented a summary of the events surrounding the case and helped sway public
opinion in her favour. This, along with the discovery of new evidence that
supported Lindy’s version of events2, led to her release from prison. The film
116 Revenge as Cultural Catharsis in Moya Henderson’s Opera Lindy
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adaptation of this book followed in 1988 and, with Lindy’s account of the event in
her autobiography, Through My Eyes, functioned to humanise her in the eyes of the
Australian public. Both represent an attempt to construct a more positive corporate
memory of the event. In spite of these attempts, significant public figures including
journalist Derryn Hinch3 and the Attorney General who eventually enabled her
release from prison, Marshall Perron,4 continue to express doubts about her
innocence.5
The Chamberlain case has generated much scholarship devoted to the legal and
social implications of the episode, and academics from a range of disciplines have
highlighted the significance of the case to issues of Australian identity. Literary
critic Kerryn Goldsworthy interprets the initial public reaction to Lindy
Chamberlain as an example of a Madonna-Whore complex writ large in the
Australian community. In vocally proclaiming her innocence, rather than deferring
to her husband or male defence council to speak for her; in failing to embody
societal expectations of a grieving mother in her dress and demeanour; and by
becoming pregnant prior to her trial in 1982, Goldsworthy suggests that Lindy
‘represented for Australian society a disturbing and unresolvable contradiction and
therefore a threat to complacently held beliefs.’6 Goldsworthy goes on to assert
that, regardless of the content of the prosecution’s case against her, had Lindy
conformed to an accepted norm of Australian womanhood, she would have
avoided imprisonment.7
Culture theorist Jennifer Craik suggests the case draws attention to fault lines in
the Australian community related to race. In Blind Spot or Black Hole in
Australian Cultural Memory?, Craik suggests the case ‘exacerbated the nascent
debate about indigenous rights and integrity of indigenous culture that was
circulating at the time.’8 Evidence given by Indigenous trackers that confirmed
Lindy’s story that a dingo was responsible for Azaria’s death, but contradicted
white canine ‘experts’ who claimed that dingoes were incapable (in terms of
behaviour and physiology) of harming humans was at first ridiculed and later
ignored. The treatment of these witnesses revealed that while the referendum of
19679 may have been seen as endowing Indigenous Australians with the legalities
of ‘personhood’, this did not extend to a social agency that enabled them to
challenge the authority of a white man.
In Innocence Regained, scholar and theologian Norman Young concludes that
the combination of a bigoted public and malaise bordering on corruption in
Australia’s law enforcement and legal institutions were responsible for the abuses
that Lindy Chamberlain suffered:

The failures in the legal system, the multitudinous forensic


errors, the public’s hostility, and the media’s irresponsible
reporting all resulted from a prejudicial disbelief in the dingo
story and a ready acceptance of the Chamberlain’s guilt.10
Timothy McKenry 117
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Young also suggests that in being members of a non-mainstream religion (Seventh-
day Adventist), Lindy and her husband Michael were gleefully cast as members of
a cult by the Australian community.11 Claims that the name Azaria meant ‘sacrifice
in the wilderness,’12 and that Lindy had murdered her daughter by slashing her
throat with a pair of nail scissors as a religious atonement were readily reported in
the media and believed by a significant portion of the public. The case revealed an
Australian community characterised by a suspicion of outsiders and an intolerance
of difference, standing in stark contrast to prevailing positive views of Australian
identity: the literature points to a disjunction between what Australian society is
and what it claims to be.

2. Composing Lindy: 1991 to 2002


It was into this context that, in 1991, composer Moya Henderson and librettist
Judith Rodriguez commenced a commission from Opera Australia to compose an
opera based on the event. The score of the opera was not completed until 1997 and,
with the exception of two scenes that were staged in a ‘workshop’ performance in
1994, the opera was not performed until 2002. The five-year gap between the
completion of the opera and its first performance is accounted for in different
ways: Janet Healey, the author of the notes that accompany the recording of the
2002 production of the opera, cites neglect, suggesting the opera needed to be
‘rescued’ from a filing cabinet by the then new music director of Opera Australia,
Simone Young;13 journalist Joyce Morgan points to a more tumultuous journey to
the stage revealing in a 2002 article for The Age newspaper that first the director,
Ros Haring, and then the conductor Richard Gill resigned from the production. Gill
ultimately agreed to return, but cited overwhelming ‘argy-bargy and to-ing and fro-
ing’ as the reason for his initial departure, and the ‘significance’ of the piece as the
reason for his return.14
Example 1: The Structure of Lindy – 1997 Score vs. the 2002 Production
1997 Score 2002 Production
Act I Act 1
Prologue: The Mother i. Dingo
i. The Rock ii. Mother
ii. The Dingo iii. Kill
iii. The Kill iv. Blood
Act II v. Trial
iv. The Blood Act II
v. The Trial i. Jacket
Act III ii. Inquiry
vi. The Jacket
vii. The Inquiry
118 Revenge as Cultural Catharsis in Moya Henderson’s Opera Lindy
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Example 1 shows the removal of the scene The Rock and the re-ordering and
merging of Acts I and II. In addition there are excisions, some significant, from
every scene apart from Mother. Neither the opening nor the ending intended by the
1997 score remains intact: in the 2002 production, an aria15 from the end of scene
vi replaces the original ending of the opera. The difficulties revealed by Morgan,
along with the changes shown in example 1, suggest that the ultimate realisation of
the opera represents a corporate creative vision rather than one that resulted from a
composer and librettist working in isolation. Furthermore, many of the alterations
from 1997 to 2002 are revealing in understanding the cultural instrument that Lindy
ultimately functions as.

3. The Construction of Lindy: An Instrument of Revenge


While opera has a long tradition of using revenge as a plot device, often in a
manner that renders it a pivotal aspect of the drama, it is not the plot of Lindy that
constitutes the vengeful act, but rather the mode of storytelling; it is the choices
made by the creators and the motivations behind the opera itself that reveal it as an
instrument of revenge. Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan of 1651 provides a succinct
definition of revenge: ‘desire, by doing hurt to another, to make him condemn
some fact of his own,’.16 Acts of vengeance therefore, are motivated not merely by
a desire to punish or inflict harm, but also by a desire to re-educate the offending
party: Lindy seeks both to punish those responsible for victimising the
Chamberlains via straightforward negative characterisation and parody, and to
engender a re-imagining of Australian society firstly by presenting an
interpretation of events that removes any doubt as to the veracity of the guilt of the
dingo, and secondly by requiring its audience to condemn those failings of the
Australian psyche that led to this miscarriage of justice.
Act I of Lindy interprets the Chamberlain case through a fragmented narrative
that presents the timing of events in a non-linear manner: the first scene of the
2002 production, Dingo, shows Lindy and her family in 1980 admiring Indigenous
rock paintings at Uluru hours prior to Azaria’s death; the second scene, Mother,
jumps forward to 1986 to show Lindy, now in prison, being told of the discovery
of Azaria’s matinee jacket: the new evidence that secures her release; the third
scene, Kill, returns to 1980 to depict Azaria’s death; and the fourth and fifth
scenes, Blood and Trial, show events leading up to and including the 1982 murder
trial. Act II employs a linear narrative, charting Lindy’s release from prison to the
inquest where she is exonerated.
Non-linear time aside, the storytelling seeks to be verismatic with a libretto
replete with Australian accent and idiom, and courtroom scenes feature text taken
directly from trial and inquest transcripts. This attempt at dramatic realism is offset
by the use of seven singers dressed as dingoes who function as a kind of Greek
chorus, commenting on events and acting alternately as a ‘hungry’ media pack and
a condemning public. The dingo chorus works to regularly remind the audience of
Timothy McKenry 119
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the vilification suffered by Lindy. In scene ii, Mother, the chorus provide a series
of contemporary readings of the case, quite independent of the action of the scene.
For example, the chorus asks the audience to ‘remember it was ‘sacrifice in the
wilderness’’ when Lindy is questioned as to why she was at Uluru. The dingo pack
accentuates, through straightforward reprise, the motivation of the prosecuting
council, the antagonist of the opera, who is a composite character based on several
lawyers. This works to reinforce the judiciary’s bias against Lindy and highlights
the state’s pragmatism in seeking to secure a conviction regardless of the weakness
of the case.
The opera also lambasts the police, depicting them as buffoons whose
incompetence contaminates evidence. This is achieved through a pseudo-
pantomime where a forensics police sergeant makes an exaggerated play of putting
on plastic gloves to handle Azaria’s matinee jacket, only to drop everything on the
ground a moment later. The Australian public’s treatment of Lindy is highlighted
in a brief vignette that interrupts the static music setting of the trial transcript, just
prior to the judgement against Lindy in scene v. The courtroom is briefly
transformed into a fancy-dress ball where every dancing couple is disguised as
Michael and Lindy Chamberlain; each Lindy is dressed to depict a grotesque
exaggeration of her pregnancy and the vignette ends with a drunk proclaiming in a
thick Australian accent: life’ll be fuckin’ awful if Lindy gets off the hook! In
drawing attention to Australia’s beer-drinking culture and in using an accent
typically associated with rural and working-class Australians, the opera is seeking
to condemn the ‘ocker’17 stereotype.
As a contrast to these negative depictions, the opera heaps praise on the
character of Lindy, depicting her as a courageous and forthright woman and giving
her the opportunity, through dialogue with her husband, to explain the behaviours
that allowed the media and public to so easily paint her as a cold-hearted murderer
(such as filing her nails during her murder trial and wearing clothes seen as
inappropriate for a grieving mother). The opera also presents the defence council in
a positive light and the composer openly states that in giving the role to a woman
(Lindy’s lawyers were all men) she is translating ‘expectations for future gender
equality into the present.’18

4. Honing the Instrument


The revenge enacted through negative characterisations of the ‘ocker’
Australian public, the media, the police and the judiciary ultimately creates an
interpretation of the story that, like the books and film before it, marginalises and
‘punishes’ anyone who would continue disagree with Lindy’s innocence. Not
surprisingly, the Australian reception of the opera was shaped as much by the
sensitivities surrounding the Chamberlain case as by an assessment of the
aesthetics of the piece. Critic Peter McCallum writing for the Sydney Morning
Herald typifies the Australian response. Apart from expressing some discomfort
120 Revenge as Cultural Catharsis in Moya Henderson’s Opera Lindy
__________________________________________________________________
about the structure of the opera, McCallum’s review presents a positive assessment
of the piece and suggests it is an ‘uncomfortable triumph...in the mirror it holds up
to us.’19 Australian David Gyger, reviewing Lindy in Opera Canada, notes the
piece’s pro-Lindy stance, but also raises concerns about the dramatic effectiveness
of the opera, claiming that aspects of the story are unstageable and that the scenes
in the jail and courtroom are lacking physicality, requiring audience interest to ‘be
maintained through an eloquence not achieved in the libretto.’20 Non-Australian
reviewer, Harvey Steiman, perhaps unencumbered by a cultural connection to the
events of the opera, is somewhat more critical: he suggests the opera is one-
dimensional; that the ‘composer didn’t trust her music to carry a scene for long;’
and that the supporting characters are weakly drawn: ‘there is little emotional
drama because the mob is only a caricature.’21
Considering each critic cites the structure of Lindy as a weakness, an
examination of the rationale behind the structural changes from the 1997 score to
2002 production is warranted. This examination reveals that the 2002 production is
the result of cutting, altering and re-ordering aspects of the 1997 score: very little
new material is added. It can be posited that the choice of what was cut and altered
demonstrates not simply a desire to shorten the opera, but also a desire to shape a
specific reading of the material. For example, the 1997 score features two
Indigenous characters, Nuwe Ninyintirri and Barbara Tjikadu, based on the
trackers who gave evidence supporting Lindy’s version of events that was later
ignored. These characters are missing from the 2002 production, but have
significant roles in the 1997 score. In The Rock, the voices of Nuwe and Barbara
function as the ‘spirit’ of Uluru: Nuwe sings a passage that uses Indigenous
language and features a descending melodic contour commonly associated with
some Indigenous Australian repertoires.22
Example 2: The Rock, Nuwe – vocal line23, bars 152-159, 1997 score.

In The Inquiry, Barbara and Nuwe present evidence in person (in the 2002
production, the defence council quotes an abridged version of this evidence) and a
lively confrontation between Barbara and the prosecuting council ensues (an
exchanged based on an actual transcript). Finally, Barbara and Nuwe feature in the
Timothy McKenry 121
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original ending of the opera, immediately prior to a final duet between Lindy and
Michael Chamberlain. Here, the two Indigenous trackers sing of the shortcomings
of the white-man’s law versus what they claim is the ‘grounded reality’ of
Indigenous law: White people’s law of paper/not much good to us/not much good
to Lindy: paper thin!24
Particularly in the final scene, the inclusion of these characters would have
broken up a static passage of exposition by the defence council and perhaps
mitigated some of the flaws identified by those critiquing the opera. While the
creators25 of the opera have not made public references to the rationale behind
these changes, sensitivities related to the depiction of Indigenous people and the
appropriation of Indigenous language and musical rhetoric most likely influenced
the decision. There is a tradition in Australian art music of appropriating
Indigenous music in an attempt to forge an ‘Australian’ musical identity. The
discourse that surrounds this repertoire has, particularly over the last twenty years,
been scathing of white composers who appropriate actual Indigenous music or
attempt to write pseudo-Indigenous music. In addition, the depiction of Indigenous
characters would have been problematic for the opera company. The roles written
for Nuwe and Barbara require trained opera singers: in the absence of classically
trained Indigenous singers, Opera Australia would have needed to resort to non-
Indigenous singers made up to appear Aboriginal. Such a gross example of cultural
insensitivity would have undercut the moral authority of the piece and the excision
of these sections, while perhaps weakening the dramatic effectiveness of the piece,
hones the opera as an instrument of revenge.

5. Conclusion
In seeking to operate as an instrument of vengeance, the opera Lindy serves a
cultural purpose that transcends simple storytelling or entertainment. The
lambasting of those responsible for Lindy’s ordeal is representative of
‘punishment’ being meted out to the ‘deserving’; the persistently noble
characterisation of Lindy and the defence council represents an attempt to create
new ‘correct’ cultural memories of the event. The transformation of the opera from
1997 to 2002 also highlights a deliberate self-censoring with regard to culturally
sensitive Indigenous issues: an instrument of vengeance cannot be ‘tarred with the
same brush’ as that which it seeks to punish. In spite of what some reviewers saw
as the dramatic flaws in the work, the piece ultimately provides Australian culture
with a catharsis: a means of incorporating the event into a corporate cultural
memory with ‘justice’ not only for Lindy, but also for those aggrieved by what the
event revealed about Australian society in the 1980s.
122 Revenge as Cultural Catharsis in Moya Henderson’s Opera Lindy
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Notes
1
The 1983 film, Who Killed Baby Azaria? predates the portrayals listed here. This
film is a reflection of contemporary public opinion during Lindy Chamberlain’s
murder trial and aligns itself with the later debunked prosecution case.
2
Namely Azaria Chamberlain’s matinee jacket, discovered at the base of Uluru in
1986.
3
Email correspondence with Derryn Hinch, 25 May 2010.
4
Perron later became Chief Minister of the Northern Territory
5
‘Premiers Past – Michael Perron’, Verbatim, radio program, Radio National,
broadcast 16 July 2005.
6
K Goldsworthy, ‘Martyr to Her Sex’, The Chamberlain Case: Nation, Law,
Memory, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2009, p. 38.
7
Goldsworthy, p. 38.
8
J Craik, ‘The Azaria Chamberlain Case: Blind Spot or Black Hole in Australian
Cultural Memory?’, in The Chamberlain Case: Nation, Law, Memory, Australian
Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2009, p. 273.
9
The 1967 referendum enabled changes to the Australian Constitution that brought
Indigenous people under the auspices of Federal law and enabled them to be
counted in the national census. Over 90% of Australians voted in favour of the
changes.
10
N Young, Innocence Regained: The Fight to Free Lindy Chamberlain, The
Federation Press, Sydney, 1989, p. 286.
11
Young, p. 283.
12
J Bryson, ‘Against the Tactician’, The Chamberlain Case: Nation, Law,
Memory, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2009, p. 278.
13
J Healey, [CD Liner Notes], Moya Henderson’s Lindy, ABC Classics, 2005, p.
14.
14
J Morgan, ‘Rock Opera’, The Age, http://www.theage.com.au/articles/
2002/10/26/1035504923144.html, 26 October 2002. Accessed 10 May 2010.
15
The final aria of the 2002 production is sung by Lindy and is titled My Family
Stands Steadfast to Receive Me.
16
T Hobbes, Leviathan, Dent, London, 1914, p. 26.
17
‘Ocker’ is an Australian colloquial term that refers to an individual whose speech
and behaviour is uncultured. Depending on the user, the term is employed in both a
pejorative and a positive manner: for some it is an insult, for others a ‘badge of
honour’.
18
M Henderson, ‘The Composer ‘on the Spot’ about Lindy’, [CD Liner Notes],
Moya Henderson’s Lindy, ABC Classics, 2005, p. 8.
19
P McCallum, ‘Lindy, Opera Australia’, Sydney Morning Herald, http://www.
smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/27/1035683304577.html, 28 October 2002, Accessed
10 May 2010.
Timothy McKenry 123
__________________________________________________________________

20
D Gyger, ‘International: Australia – Sydney [Opera Review]’, Opera Canada,
vol. 44:1:174, 2003, p. 40-41.
21
H Steiman, ‘International Opera Review: Lindy’, Seen and Heard International,
http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2002/Aug02/lindy.html, 08/2002,
(accessed 10 May 2010).
22
N Drury, Making Australian Society: Music and Musicians, Thomas Nelson
Australia, West Melbourne, 1980, p. 50.
23
Anangu: an Indigenous people of Central Australia; Irititja: an Anangu
Dreamtime reference related to the stories and lore of the Dreaming; Tjukurpa: an
Anangu Dreamtime reference relating to traditions of etiquette and law.
24
M Henderson & J Rodriquez, Lindy, [Unpublished Music Score] 1997, scene vii,
bar 883.
25
Remembering that the ultimate structure of the opera was the result of a
collaborative effort extending beyond composer and librettist.

Bibliography
Bryson, J., ‘Against the Tactician’. The Chamberlain Case: Nation, Law, Memory.
Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2009.

Craik, J., ‘The Azaria Chamberlain Case: Blind Spot or Black Hole in Australian
Cultural Memory?’. The Chamberlain Case: Nation, Law, Memory. Australian
Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2009.

Drury, N., Making Australian Society: Music and Musicians. Thomas Nelson
Australia, West Melbourne, 1980.

Goldsworthy, K., ‘Martyr to Her Sex’. The Chamberlain Case: Nation, Law,
Memory. Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2009, pp. 34-38.

Gyger, D., ‘International: Australia – Sydney [Opera Review]’. Opera Canada,


Vol. 44:1:174, 2003, pp. 40-41.

Healey, J., [CD Liner Notes], Moya Henderson’s Lindy. ABC Classics, 2005.

Henderson M. & Rodriquez, J., Lindy. [Unpublished Music Score], 1997.

Henderson, M., ‘The Composer ‘on the Spot’ about Lindy’. [CD Liner Notes].
Moya Henderson’s Lindy. ABC Classics, 2005, pp. 7-9.

Hobbes, T., Leviathan. Dent, London, 1914.


124 Revenge as Cultural Catharsis in Moya Henderson’s Opera Lindy
__________________________________________________________________

McCallum, P., ‘Lindy, Opera Australia’, Sydney Morning Herald,


http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/27/1035683304577.html, 28 October
2002, Accessed 10 May 2010.

Morgan, J., ‘Rock Opera’, The Age, http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/


10/26/1035504923144.html, 26 October 2002, Accessed 10 May 2010.

Steiman, H. ‘International Opera Review: Lindy’. Seen and Heard International,


http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2002/Aug02/ lindy.htm, 2002,
Accessed 10 May 2010.

Young, N., Innocence Regained: The Fight to Free Lindy Chamberlain. The
Federation Press, Sydney, 1989.

Timothy McKenry is lecturer in music at the Australian Catholic University. His


research interests include an examination of the narratives used to account for style
change in contemporary art music, Australian art music and post common-practice
tonal functions.
PART IV

Various Perspectives on Revenge


The Writer Seeking Vengeance: Blognovelism and Its
Relationship with Literary Critics

Daniel Escandell Montiel


Abstract
Digital literature creates new ways of dialogue between the writer and the readers,
both ‘common’ readers and those who see themselves as ‘the chosen ones’: the
literary critics. A case in point is that of the Argentinean writer Hernán Casciari,
who wrote the blognovel Más respeto que soy tu madre. This new way of creating
a story within the field of digital literature soon made an impact among Spanish
literary critics, especially on one nicknamed Borjamari, in his very own blog. From
his weblog Borjamari published an article about the abovementioned blognovel
and its then unknown author. He harshly criticised the author’s work, and tried to
uncover the masquerade. Casciari took revenge of his not-so-correct asseverations
and accusations about the not yet revealed real writer of the blognovel: the critic
became a character in his story, being portrayed as a homosexual embalmer or,
more specifically, as a beautician in a funeral parlour who displays signs of mental
illness, thereby spoofing the literary critic, specialized in weblogs. In this paper, we
take this example as the starting point to study the approach of the writer in his
personal revenge against this critic in the context of the digital world and revenge,
therefore analysing this new relationship among writers, readers and critics in a
three-way charade between blogs into the cyberspace.

Key Words: Hernán Casciari, blognovel, blogfiction, literary critics, Más respeto
que soy tu madre.

*****

The relationships established between writers and literary critics have been
characterized, as in any other artistic expression, by the disagreements which have
arisen between the creative front (without forgetting the difference of opinion
among writers themselves) and those who are professional critics, especially as
literary criticism gained importance in the industrialization of the literary market.
As a consequence of the negative criticism, or of those critiques perceived as
negative, authors have employed those resources available to get their own back
for what they did not like, usually focusing on the critic himself, more than on his
discourse. Of course, the writer’s main tool has been his pen, canalized by means
of new literary works or the written press, given the high number of authors who
are also journalists or the journalists who pretend to be men of letters. Although the
transcendence of the confrontation between author and critic is made more obvious
in other cultural industries, literature is not oblivious to these circumstances and,
even if they may be more popular in the theatre world, poets and novelists have
128 The Writer Seeking Vengeance
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also had much to say against their critics, whether they belonged to their own
profession, or they were professional critics, with confrontations and oppositions
that were either ignored or magnified by the studies of the history of literature.
The exchange of rude words or demonstrations of wit derived from these
circumstances proves of no interest in most cases, despite illustrious examples such
as the dialectic scuffle between Quevedo and Góngora in the Spanish Golden Age.
It is not common that the disagreements trespass in such a palpable way the
borders of narrative fiction and permeate the author’s creative work, as the
traditional publishing systems are slow and there is not the chance for a real
dialogue. However, the shift towards digital literary publishing on the Internet and
the quick dissemination of the work by means of this kind of edition is providing
new relevance to the response (or, what is the same thing, the revenge) of the
author who uses his pen -the keyboard- to oppose what literary critics have said.
In this paper we will subsequently study those measures taken by the
Argentinean (though living in Spain) blognovelist Hernán Casciari so as to respond
to negative -and moreover unfounded and wrong- criticism written about his work
Diary of a Fat Woman [Diario de una mujer gorda],1 which won the Best of Blogs
2005 award granted by Deutsche Welle, and which was edited as a book under the
title Show me more respect, I am your mother [Más respeto que soy tu madre]. In
order to do so, we will first establish the conceptual limits of the blognovel which
are essential to understand the criticism that this work received and how Casciari
achieved his revenge.
According to the existing tendency in Spanish literature and to the conception
of the very same authors in their own works,2 a blognovel is understood to be a
novelized narration structuralized as a weblog, written in the first person, and
whose plot unfolds in real time, that is, in sequential time, determined by the real
world in which there is no turning back. The protagonist of the novel is the owner
and author of the blog, behind whom is the writer, who embodies at all times the
role of the abovementioned protagonist, assuming his existence and granting the
character a life outside the novel, which implies that he has to interact with the
readers through the comments on the site.
The writer is then the protagonist, personifying the role as would an actor in a
process of assimilation which transforms the main character in an avatar.3 There is,
hence, a strong hoax component in the narration and creation of the protagonist so
as to deceive the reading public, always masking the writer: to hide his identity,
and to convince the public that what they are reading is actually being written by
an anonymous blogger, just as any else, are some of the main artistic objectives of
the blognovel, which we cannot and must not confuse with the serial novels
published in blogs.
The character’s I or self is, therefore, absolutely domineering in this kind of
narrative in detriment of the author’s I or self; the latter is only revealed -and only
if the author wishes to do so- when the narration is over. There have been cases in
Daniel Escandell Montiel 129
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which clever readers have managed to uncover the writer’s identity: this has as a
consequence blognovels being aborted or continuing with the open complicity of
its readers, who, once they have unveiled the mystery, have decided to continue
playing the narrative game in open and public collaboration with the author.
However, this creates a new narrative game in which the public/reader assumes an
active role in which he ‘fights’ against the author/avatar to take off his mask,
something considered legitimate by many blognovelists. Nevertheless, this causes
many mistakes, failed attempts to uncover its real authorship, and, of course, critics
have not remained indifferent to this tendency.
Although digital literary criticism continues to focus, above all, on works edited
in a traditional fashion, despising the digital medium of which they themselves
took pride as they chose to write online, they are paying an increasing attention to
the digital narrative in its different forms and genres. In the same way, if the
popularity of blogs has opened the way for the creation of specific literary forms
and for a greater dissemination of amateur authors (or at least anonymous ones)
due to the open digital field, it is also true that it has increased the diffusion of
amateur or anonymous critics without the support, nor the pressure, of big
corporations, as happens in the media.
We still do not know who was hiding under the pseudonym of Borjamari, but
between the year 2003 and 2007 he was actively devoted to literary criticism
through his blog Borjamari: Only personal opinions [Borjamari: Sólo opiniones
personales].4 Casciari defined his work as a critic in the following terms: ‘His
characteristics were long headings, texts with literary pretensions, and blue stars
(from one to five) which graded the works’.5 However, his opposition to this critic
did not end there for, as Cascari himself admitted, the homonymous character in
his blognovel was a parody of that same critic to whom he attributes, at least, ‘a
great audience’.6
In any case, Borjamari published several reviews related to Casciari’s work,
even when it was still not known -though it was clearly sensed- that it was a work
of fiction by a writer and not by an anonymous middle-aged Argentinean blogger,
called Mirta Bertotti, who was in charge of a dysfunctional family with a
homophobic and rude husband, a homosexual older child, a teenage daughter who
earns money using her webcam to perform peep-shows online, a younger child
whose greatest success in life is to create what he considers sculptures with his
faeces, and a father-in-law who is a recurrent drug-user.
Borjamari’s main article -after several references in his blog to Cascari’s work-
makes reference to the fact that the visit statistics have been erased of the site (the
statistics were represented as a home-delivery pizza business in the context of the
narration) and tries to unveil the story’s real authorship. He believes that the
disappearance of the statistics responds to the fact that these ‘have started to
decrease to less than one thousand a day (the true reason behind the existence of
130 The Writer Seeking Vengeance
__________________________________________________________________
this soap-opera)’,7 which ‘has started to worry some of the members of its ever-
diminishing fan club’.8
Of course, there exists a space for pure literary criticism:9

They are not happy with just boring us with endless repetitions of
foreseeable stories that have lost their original freshness, he also
has to bare-facedly plagiarise others so as to try to be funny and
because of the lack of his own ideas.10

However, we can sense that what bothers Casciari the most about Borjamari’s
criticism is that he asserts that:

It’s a bad business for the advertising agency that is behind the
whole thing and that prepared everything looking forward to the
appearance of a novel based on the characters of the blog. Not
even the recurrent advertising forced to fit in ‘yonkis’ or ‘el
rellano’11 seems to be working this time.12

As the literary author detaches himself from the blognovel so the avatar
character assumes the role of both narrator and protagonist, there was not an open
exchange between Casciari and Borjamari, but, as we have mentioned before, the
former achieved his revenge by introducing the latter in his novel, to the great
affront of the portrayed critic.
In chapter 89, entitled ‘A dinner that went on for too long’ [‘Una cena
demasiado larga’], dated November 27th 200313, the protagonist’s homosexual son
invites his new love, Borjamari, who works as a makeup artist in a funeral parlour,
to have dinner and eat some pizzas, as the family business is a pizza restaurant. It is
at that moment when his own criticism is ridiculed in the strange conversation that
unfolds over dinner; the conversation arriving, through the humour that permeates
the story, to an ontological discussion on pizza itself:

-So you didn’t like the pizza, honey? –say I, slightly


disillusioned.
-Taking into account that all of you pretend to own a pizza
restaurant in Argentina when you are in fact an advertising
agency which is trying to impose a novel on the Spanish
publishing market, I must admit that, at least, you have prepared
the food yourselves.
-Oh, my little Borja, what the devil are you saying? –said Nacho,
who I have the impression is little by little falling out of love.
-Fatty, come with me to the pantry for a sec’- Zacarias told
Borja- cos’ I’ve got a little present for you. Let’s go, come on…
Daniel Escandell Montiel 131
__________________________________________________________________
-Zacarias, stay where you are –I order my husband, because you
can tell when he wants to bite the people that annoy him
-Come on, lady, -said Borja, giving me a funny look-, tell the
truth: you are not Mirta Bertotti, you are a group of Catalonian
authors and these walls are false, everything is a set, everything
is false! Why did you remove the statistics the week you sold
less than a thousand pizzas a day? You are all obsessed with me,
everything is false, it is a Catalonian advertising agency!14

At this point, Borjamari experiences a psychotic outburst and starts to mess up


the whole house, turning everything upside down. This episode ends with the
whole family (which is dysfunctional but nevertheless organised when it comes to
tackling the undertaker) detaining the poor man. Borjamari is then placed, as we
will discover the following day, in the hands of a hypnotist who, by means of a
bribe from grandfather Bertotti, convinces him that he is a hen.
However, Casciari’s revenge is not limited to a ridiculous and incoherent
discourse, or to the extreme situations that Borjamari’s character experiences, but
moves beyond to the very portrait that is made of him. Besides his homosexuality,
special emphasis is placed on his work as a funerary makeup artist and on his
obvious mental instability. To all this we must add the fact that every character in
the blognovel is assigned a profile which appears as a pop-up window every time
we pass the mouse over its name on the body of the text. Borjamari is presented
with a picture of a fat, pale man with sunglasses and a receding hairline, together
with a description written by the protagonist/avatar, which states:

He is a [sic] very sensitive boy who owns the funeral parlour


From Post Mortem to Post Mortem. In general he speaks but
little and goes out frequently at night, like the vampires. Rumour
has it that he spends his life foretelling illnesses because they
need people to die in order to keep up the business. I always
greet him because he has a very self-sacrificing job, poor thing.15
132 The Writer Seeking Vengeance
__________________________________________________________________

Figure 1. Borjamari’s profile in the blognovel

Casciari’s revenge is successfully accomplished and is supported by the usual


readers’ comments. These readers know who hides behind Borjamari’s portrait
and, at the same time, accept that the work is purely fictional but they nevertheless
desire to maintain the fictional pact established with the author and to continue
reading the adventures of the Bertotti family. It is for this reason that the revenge
takes place within the work in a chapter clearly conceived as metablognovelistic,
so as to satirise the accusations and critiques that appeared, transforming them in
the discourse of a mad, sinister and ridiculous man who ends up believing to be a
hen.
We can neither forget that the critic’s assessment of the authorship is wrong:
Casciari, though living in Barcelona, is actually Argentinean, and this blognovel
was conceived as a way to express his nostalgia for his country and is oriented
towards making some of his intimate friends laugh. Casciari said: ‘It’s a funny
little book, very dear to. It’s about shared feelings, about nostalgia and loss’.16
However, its fame grew little by little, in some measure because of the good
diffusion of it that was made in virtual communities, and also because of the
creation of other parallel -though less popular- blognovels to advertise Casciari’s.
An example of these blognovels would be Letizia Ortiz’s Diary [El diario de
Letizia Ortiz],17 which took advantage of the appeal in Google of the then fiancée
of the Spanish Prince. At that time, Casciari did not have the support of any
publishing house nor of any advertising companies.
The revenge is accomplished in the literary field, but with the immediacy
characteristic of the digital era by means of the three-directional dialogue between
the critic, public/audience (both of the critic and the criticised author) and the
Daniel Escandell Montiel 133
__________________________________________________________________
author/avatar, which reaches its peak in the integration of Borjamari in the novel.
In Casciari’s own narrative domains his discourse is deformed, highly ridiculous,
and reverts to insults or ignominies of a more childish kind, such as those
concerning his sexual preferences. Ridiculing and humiliating the critic’s
reflection, Casciari finds his satisfaction and catharsis through this purely literary,
but also online, revenge. It is the definite answer in a dialogue between author and
critic in which the strain between them has sprung both on a professional and a
personal level, and it is the man of letters who has employed the tools offered by
blognovelism to give the last stroke in this battle, as the ultimate response to what
had been said on his work -and himself.

Notes
1
http://mujergorda.bitacoras.com.
2
Casciari studies the main characteristics of blognovels in some of his papers, such
as ‘El blog en la literatura. Un acercamiento estructural a la novela’ and ‘La ficción
on line. Un espectáculo en directo’, both of them in opposition to Arranz Lago’s
paper ‘Los tortuosos caminos de la blognovela’; all of them are key works to
understand what a blognovel is. For further reading in this topic, see Choi’s paper
‘La literatura en el mundo virtual: los escritores y el ‘blog’ en América Latina’ or
Sánchez-Mesa’s works, such as ‘Las nuevas fronteras de la literatura: La narrativa
electrónica’.
3
D Escandell, ‘El escritor convertido en actor: El blogonovelista en su teatrillo’.
Despalabros, Vol. 4, 2010, pp. S39-S44.
4
http://borjamari.blogspot.com.
5
H Casciari, ‘Una cena demasiado larga’ in Más respeto que soy tu madre, 27
November 2003, Viewed on 5 May 2010, http://mujergorda.bitacoras.com/cap/
000098.php.
6
ibid., <http://mujergorda.bitacoras.com/cap/000098.php>.
7
Borjamari, ‘Nos cuentan que...’, Borjamari. Sólo opinones personales, November
2003, Viewed on 5 May 2010, http://borjamari.blogspot.com/2003/11/nos-cuentan-
que_20.html.
8
ibid., http://borjamari.blogspot.com/2003/11/nos-cuentan-que_20.html.
9
There is an obvious doubt about the authorship, as Borjamari uses indistinctly
‘they’ and ‘he’.
10
Ibid., http://borjamari.blogspot.com/2003/11/nos-cuentan-que_20.html.
11
Both of them are popular Spanish websites among youngster, with humour,
kinky content and weird stories: See both sites http://www.yonkis.com,
http://elrellano.com.
12
Ibid., http://borjamari.blogspot.com/2003/11/nos-cuentan-que_20.html.
13
Casciari, op. cit., http://mujergorda.bitacoras.com/cap/000098.php.
14
Ibid., http://mujergorda.bitacoras.com/cap/000098.php. Original Spanish text:
134 The Writer Seeking Vengeance
__________________________________________________________________

- ¿Entonces no te gustó la pizza, nene? -digo yo, un poco desencantada.


- Teniendo en cuenta que todos vosotros fingís tener una pizzería en Argentina,
cuando realidad sois una agencia de publicidad que está intentando imponer una
novela en el mercado editorial español, debo reconocer que por lo menos habéis
preparado la comida vosotros mismos.
- Ay, Borjita, ¿qué carajo estás diciendo? -dice el Nacho, que de a poco me parece
a mí que se iba desenamorando.
-Gordo, vení un cacho al galponcito del fondo conmigo -le dice Zacarías al Borja-
que tengo un regalo para vos. Vení, dale...
-Zacarías, quedáte quieto ahí -le digo yo a mi marido, que se le nota cuando quiere
morder a la gente que le cae mal.
-Venga ya, mujer -dice el Borja mirándome muy raro-, diga la verdad: usted no es
Mirta Bertotti, es un conjunto de autores catalanes, y estas paredes son falsas, todo
es un decorado ¡todo es falso! ¿Por qué quitó las estadísticas la semana que vendió
menos de mil pizzas al día? Todos vosotros estáis obsesionados conmigo, ¡todo
esto es falso, es una agencia de publicidad catalana!
15
Ibid., http://mujergorda.bitacoras.com/cap/000098.php. Original Spanish text:
Es un un [sic] chico muy sensible, que tiene la funeraria De Post Morten en Post
Mortem. Por lo general habla poco y sale mucho de noche, como los vampiros.
Según las malas lenguas se pasa la vida prediciendo enfermedades, porque
necesitan que la gente se muera y así mantener el negocio. Yo siempre lo saludo
porque tiene un oficio sacrificado, pobre.
16
‘El exilio en clave de humor’ in Clarin.com, 13 November 2007, Viewed on 3
April 2010, http://clarin.com/diario/2007/11/13/conexions/t-01539095.htm.
17
http://letizia-ortiz.blogspot.com.

Bibliography
Arranz-Lago, D. F., ‘Los tortuosos caminos de la blognovela’. Literaturas del texto
al hipermedia. Romero López, D. & Sanz-Cabrerizo, A. (eds), Anthropos, Madrid,
2008.

Borjamari, ‘Nos cuentan que...’. Borjamari: Sólo opiniones personales. November


2003, Viewed on 5 May 2010, http://borjamari.blogspot.com/2003/11/nos-cue
ntan-que_20.html.

Casciari, H., Diario de una mujer gorda. 2003-2004, Viewed on 5 May 2010,
http://mujergorda.bitacoras.com.

–––, ‘El blog en la literatura. Un acercamiento estructural a la blogonovela’. Telos.


Cuadernos de comunicación, tecnología y sociedad, Vol. 65, 2005, pp. 95-97.
Daniel Escandell Montiel 135
__________________________________________________________________

–––, El diario de Letizia Ortiz. 2004, Viewed on 5 May 2010, <http.//letizia-


ortiz.blogspot.com>.

–––, ‘La ficción online. Un espectáculo en directo’. La blogosfera hispana:


pioneros de la comunicación digital. Cerezo, M. (dir), France Telecom, Madrid,
2006, pp. 171-179.

–––, Más respeto, que soy tu madre. Plaza & Janés DeBOLS!LLO, Barcelona,
2005.

Choi, Y., ‘La literatura en el mundo virtual: los escritores y el blog en América
Latina’. Espéculo: Revista de Estudios Literarios. Vol. 33, 2006, Viewed on 20
June 2009, http://www.ucm.es/info/especulo/numero33/blogam.html.

‘El exilio en clave de humor’. Clarin.com. 13 November 2007, Viewed on 3 April


2010 http://clarin.com/diario/2007/11/13/conexiones/t-01539095.htm.

Escandell Montiel, D., ‘El escritor convertido en actor: El blogonovelista en su


teatrillo’. Despalabros. Vol. 4, 2010, pp. S39-S44.

Sánchez-Mesa Martínez, D., ‘Las nuevas fronteras de la literatura: La narrativa


electrónica’. Escrituras digitales. Tecnologías de la creación de la era virtual.
Tortosa, V. (ed), Servicio de Publicaciones Universidad de Alicante, Alicante,
2008, pp. 215-242.

Daniel Escandell Montiel is a Spanish teacher and Ph.D. Candidate at the


University of Salamanca. He is currently conducting research on digital narrative
and blognovelism in the Spanish literature. He is also a published playwright.
Treatment of Vengeance in Ferdowsi’s
The Shahnameh: Book of Kings

Leyli Jamali
Abstract
The Shahnameh or Book of Kings is the grand national epic of Persia written by the
great Iranian poet Ferdowsi in the 10th century. Containing 60,000 rhyming
couplets this magnificent masterpiece recounts the history of Iran, beginning with
the creation of the world by Kayumars progressing through Iranian legend to
historic times, tracing the reigns of the Sasanian Emperors and ending with the
Arab conquest in 641. Though ostensibly historical, mostly revolving around the
kings of Persia and the heroes who served them, the Shahnameh’s stories are full
of myth and legend, fairies and demons, packed with love stories, tragedies, and
moral obligations faced by the warrior-heroes who must in time also display a
capacity for vengeance, among other virtues, in their battle for truthfulness.
Vengeance for Ferdowsi’s warrior-heroes is not an act of passion but rather an act
of justice baring moral values. The emphasis on ethical aspects of vengeance and
portraying conditions that could make acts of vengeance virtuous are, however,
mainly confined to the beholders of codes of honour and moral authority. The
rationality of vengeance looses its persuasive grip when it turns into a hostile
response in favour of the evil forces illustrating a barbaric sentiment. Moreover,
vengeance seems to be a crucial narrative tool for Ferdowsi who through its
conscious application justifies the causal logic behind the event running in his
grand scale epic. The present paper aims to examine the concept of vengeance in
the Shahnameh, exposing different kinds of vengeance and revenge which connect
its events tracing the logic and motivation behind them.

Key Words: Vengeance, honour, virtue, justice, The Shahnameh, Ferdowsi.

*****

1. Introduction
Literature on revenge has discussed vengeance and revenge terms as synonyms.
Indeed many authors used both concepts interchangeably and there is no consistent
usage of these terms in the literature.1 Seemingly any definition of the word is
linked to religious background and codes of honour and to the undeniable role of
culture in shaping the notion. In its broadest sense vengeance is defined as an
infliction of punishment or injury in return for perceived wrong.2 Many scholars,
however, have outlined distinctions between vengeance and other similar concepts
of negative reciprocity such as retaliation, hostility and retribution. As Zourring
maintains:
138 Treatment of Vengeance in Ferdowsi’s The Shahnameh: Book of Kings
__________________________________________________________________
Revenge is different from retaliation in terms of rationality,
affect and behavior goal. ... Furthermore, revenge differs from
hostility in that the justification and motivation for vengeful
aggressive acts rest on the perception of having being wronged
rather than undifferentiated feelings of hostility toward others. ...
Moreover, revenge differs from retribution because of its greater
emotional and behavioral intensities.3

Based on such differentiations and in spite of the fact that most moral philosophers
reject vengeance as a barbaric sentiment, from the very early times nations have
wielded vengeance as a legal tool for obtaining justice. As Ho asserts, ‘clearly, for
many, vengeance is justice and the pursuit of justice, is exacting vengeance on the
offender.’4
Peter French, in The Virtues of the Vengeance takes a similar stand while
examining concepts relevant to vengeance. For French, revenge ‘is the technology
of moral empowerment’5 and vengeance can stand as an alternative source for
moral order.6 Making convincing case for the central moral importance of
vengeance, honor and retribution, French exposes important distinctions between
types of moral theories (karmic and non-karmic). Concentrating on the conditions
that could make acts of vengeance virtuous, he investigates the use of vengeance
themes in literature and popular culture by scrutinizing literary examples from
Iliad to Hamlet. As touched by French justice as revenge and getting even has
occupied the storytellers and philosophers for so long. Indeed, ‘the articulation of
these concepts lends itself to narrative more than dry legal formulations. Thus,
literature from Homer’s heroic epics to modern popular fiction has been a site for
human inquiry into the morality of retribution.’7
As one of the world’s greatest literary masterpieces the Shahnameh also
presents magnificent tales of vengeance. As Talebian illustrates the theme of
vengeance is at the heart of almost %7 of the stories in the Shahnameh.8 Sarami
also argues that ‘if the central idea of romances [in the Shahnameh] is love, the true
essence of war tales is vengeance.’9 According to Fazlollah ‘vengeance, revenge,
and warfare are the major themes in the Shahnameh yet they are totally different
from what one encounters in Buddhism, Christianity or Sufi literature.’10 Finally,
Ghafoori maintains that ‘vengeance is one of the three main reasons for the
outbreak of wars in the Shahnameh, the other two being defending the motherland
and obtaining justice.’11

2. Discussion
Ferdowsi Tousi, (935 -1020) was a well-educated member of a social class
called dehghans (the noble landowners) who completed his Shahnameh in 30
years. With 62 stories, 990 chapters, and some 60,000 rhyming couplets, the
Shahnameh is more than seven times the length of Homer’s Iliad consisting of
history of Iran complied and cast into verse based on sources such as Khodynameh,
Leyli Jamali 139
__________________________________________________________________
Pahlavi texts, Persian myths, religious texts and the oral stories related by learned
dehghans.
The whole epic can be divided into three parts; The Mythical Age, as the
shortest section, gives an account of the creation of the world and the story of the
first man/king Kayumars. As the largest section, almost occupying two-thirds of
the grand epic is The Heroic Age, which retells the events from the reign of
Manuchehr to the conquest of Alexander the Great. This section is packed with
incidents about gallant hero-worriers of the Persian Empire especially Rostam. The
Historical Age, as the final section, changes from mythology and legend to
romanticized history and relates the epoch making events from the time of
Alexander the Great to the Arab invasion and the death of the last Iranian king
Yazdgerd III in 641.
The theme of vengeance is apparent in all the three sections of the Shahnameh,
starting in The Mythical Age with the revenge of Syamak, running through, as well
as, composing the main portion of The Heroic Age, culminating in the revenge of
Seyavash, and ending in The Historic Age when Bijan the Turk avenges Mahovi
Sori the killer of Yazdgerd III.
Ferdowsi’s treatment of revenge throughout the entire work centers on the
ancient Persian ideology, which sees vengeance as an instrument of divine justice.
For the ancient Iranians vengeance was not an individual business, but rather a
divine duty to restore impersonal justice. Considered as a virtuous act and a holy
commitment, vengeance of the oppressed was an inevitable responsibility laid
upon all members of society by the providence. Consequences of disobedience
were horrible and the sinner would, in the dooms day, be questioned and punished
by eternal damnation.
Actually, the very first order for vengeance in the Shahnameh is given directly
by Ahurmazd, the god of light, when at the opening of the first section, Syamak,
the son of Kayumars is killed by a monster send by Ahriman, the god of evil who
could not bear Kayumars’s eminence on earth. Ahurdmazd orders Hooshank to
avenge the monster promising to reveal the secret of fire to the earthlings in
reward. Thus the first act of vengeance as a divine duty is ordered to the mortals
and a celestial reward is bestowed to the avenger as a heavenly precedent set for all
the righteous kings if they wished to have the glory or the Farr of Ahurmazd.
The model of glorified or exalted vengeance is followed by all the heroes
through conscious choice of pursuing the course of revenge as an especial
inspiration and a way to fulfil the providential justice. Venting revenge against the
enemies of the selected kings was thus thought to be a divine calling from heaven.
In the Shahnameh, ‘god chooses to exercise his controlling authority through
the institution of monarchy’12 and ‘therefore to challenge the Shah is to challenge
god himself.’13 Moreover, Iran is the holy land, which is chosen to be protected by
the god, and the Iranians are the chosen nation. Iran is, actually, the holy land
which is engaged in a long-lasting mythical battle with Turan, which is known as
140 Treatment of Vengeance in Ferdowsi’s The Shahnameh: Book of Kings
__________________________________________________________________
the embodiment of evil. The fight between Iran and Turan is ‘in fact a
manifestation of primordial fight between good and evil; Ahurmazd and
Ahriman.’14
Acting not as private persons but as instruments of divine retribution the
Iranian heroes followed certain principals in their battles. Never once in the
Shahnameh the Iranians are shown to attack or occupy other lands beyond their
borders or to commence war to expand their territories. ‘Wars are never launched
to rob a country of it wealth or for converting other nations to Iranian religion.’15
The only reason for the initiation of war is the protection of national sovereignty
and avenging the unjust killings.
Throughout his grand epic Ferdowsi condemns war, killing and excessive greed
which leads to bloodshed. In all his stirring narratives he expresses his distaste and
resentment of those who follow the path of evil and pursue their own passions and
desires to kill and destroy. However, when war and killing take the form of
vengeance for the bloods that are unjustly shed he grants his full support regardless
of devastating consequences which might even lead to mass killings.
Although the old sage of Tous has a tender heart, which gives him away in
lines where he strongly condemns bloodshed and denounces the values of war, ‘he
describes the revenge scenes with extraordinary passion and the fullest details.’16 It
is indeed within these descriptive lines and a close reading of the tales of
vengeance that one can see how the concept of inevitability of fate is artfully
woven into the texture of these verses.
The theme of inevitability of fate and the futility of man’s resistance to it is
present in every step made by the kings and heroes especially at the heart of their
acts of vengeance. Although Fredowsi was a Muslim and believed in a single
almighty God, the prevalent idea ruling over his grand epic is seemingly
Zoroastrian. Thus, instead of a single God two powers of good and evil- Ahurmaz
and Ahriman- are present through their perpetual conflict. Another controlling
element, which manifests itself as the eternal and unchangeable power, is fate,
which has its roots in Zarvanism. This philosophy, which existed before
Zoroastrianism, sees the will of endless time or Zervan as the controlling power
over peoples’ destinies and a power that hovers beyond good and evil.
Ferdowsi evokes a powerful sense of fatalism in versification of his tales
making the Shahnameh an amalgam of Zervanist duality and the presence of a
single God. Ferdowsi mixes these two features together so that the God’s choice
becomes the unchallengeable fate, which is not for any man to question. This
philosophy is also at heart of the tales where the Iranian kings, as the divine
symbols of national sovereignty and justice, have to pursue their holy duty by
executing revenge. These kings, however, ‘never attend the wars for vengeance in
person.’17 Although the honour of every victory belongs to the king, it is the hero-
worriers who have to accomplish the revenge missions.
These heroes are motivated by the love of protecting the mother land and
avenging all its enemies embracing what fate offers in full obedience. As
Leyli Jamali 141
__________________________________________________________________
summarized in Bahman Shah’s speech the history of Iran is constructed by the
hands of hero’s that have carried out seven grand acts of revenge in the name of
their kings. These acts of vengeance were of course bound to strict rules and
rituals. Firstly, the act of vengeance worked on the bases of cause and affect
grounded on fate. Secondly, venting vengeance was a duty, which did not wear out
or fade away by time and the spilled blood, forever hot and fresh, waited to be
cleaned by the avenger. Thirdly, executing vengeance was a father son contract and
any son or father who failed to avenge was socially disgraced and stigmatized with
everlasting shame. Moreover, the responsibility to avenge passed from one
generation to the other and all the male kin inherited the duty. In addition, wielding
vengeance had to be carried out man to man, far from the war scene without any
person’s assistance.
Apart from the aforementioned facts, wielding vengeance in times acquires
especial characteristics in the Shahnameh. For instance, whenever justice is
violated and an innocent blood is shed, a plant grows out of the spot standing as a
sign to remind people of their duty. This happens in the story of Syavash, from
whose blood the plant of Syavooshan rises. In other cases, vengeance is carried out
in some symbolic manners. Like when the avenger weilds the vengeance at the
same spot that the killing has been occurred (Kaykhosro pleads to avenge Afrasyab
where Syavash has been murdered), or when the avenger washes his hands in the
blood of the avenged, or even drinks the blood of the man he has killed (Goodarz
cups his hand to drink Prian’s blood). Other brutal methods are also visible like
hanging the body of the avenged from the victor’s horse, mutilation as in the case
of Mahovi, lynching as with Faramarz, and of course burning alive as with
Shaghad or even crucifixion as with Zahak. Swards, spears, arrows, daggers, and
clubs are the deadly weapons that the avengers use very freely to fulfil their divine
duties in restoring justice.
Mass killings in the name of vengeance are also seen in some tales, or the
selective killings of those who had had a hand in the death of an innocent. Rostam,
for example, slays Sodabeh, Syavash’s stepmother, whose prohibited love was the
reason for his being behead. In contrast, in some cases a single person is avenged
for the sake of a group, which has been unjustly killed, like when Ghoodarz
avenges Piran clearing the blood of 70 young heroes from his family. Rostam is the
only person in the Shahnameh who gets the chance to vent his own vengeance
against his brother Shaghad by a deadly arrow before meeting his end in his
brother’s trap. Rostam is also the hero who decides to avenge himself when after
unknowingly killing his son Shorab aims to starve himself to death. Heroes of
vengeance tales sometime use disguise to gain their aims. Rostam and Gorgin dress
themselves like merchants to pass the borders of Turan. Deception and
cunningness is also fair in executing vengeance. For example, when Rostam sees
himself trapped in the hands of Sohrab he tricks the inexperienced worrier by
142 Treatment of Vengeance in Ferdowsi’s The Shahnameh: Book of Kings
__________________________________________________________________
telling him that the true heroes never take the lives of their rival in the first round
and sets himself free only to kill the young worrier.

3. Conclusion
From what has been discussed above it could be concluded that Ferdowsi’s
treatment of vengeance centres around two contrasting types of revenge; the just
and the unjust. Indeed, the foundation of the Shahnameh, as the grand Persian epic,
is based on the battle between the good and evil, and the light and darkness. The
dark forces of deception, destruction, greed, envy, and ambition are nourished by
Ahriman, the god of evil, and are represented by ‘natural disasters, demons and
Turanians.’18 The noble and moral values, such as love, loyalty, justice, on the
other hand, are represented by the noble kings and heroes of Iran. Rostam, the
gallant hero of the epic, not only symbolizes the Iranian virtue but also embodies
the resistance and resilience of the Iranian nation against the evil forces. For him
and all the other worriers all the enemies who attack the motherland and shed the
bloods of the innocent and defenceless countrymen are the soldiers of evil and
must be destroyed and avenged. The resentment felt for the enemy is the same as
the hatred felt for the unjust, and vengeance is the act taken to restore justice. Thus
all the ‘wars launched by the Iranians are in the name of justice.’19
Under such circumstances the Shahnameh’s heroes are encouraged to yield to
what has to happen but at the same time to be fair during the wars that are fought in
the name of justice revenge. No harm is to be done to the common, innocent
members of the enemy’s household and no damage caused to their cities.
Forgiveness should be bestowed to those who repent as far as they were not
directly involved in the bloodsheds. All along Ferdowsi reminds his heroes to be
receptive and enjoy what life has to offer and beware that life is a wheeling cycle
which stops where it had started.
This worldview which is based on the circular and not linear progression of the
events is actually the holding pin that binds all the stories of the Shahnameh
together. And attached to these binding pins are Ferdowsi’s tales of vengeance.
Indeed every act of revenge causes the plot to progress it self being a cause for the
next incident thus leading to the completion of the circle which forms the plotline
of Ferdowsi’s grand epic and provides him with a skeleton upon which he can
model his creation.
As Sarami notes ‘the Shahnameh is a progression of man from nothingness
towards nothingness and perhaps this is the uniting point of the beginning and the
end which gives the opening and closing of this grand epic a complete overlap.’20
The Shahnameh opens when Syamak is murdered by Ahriman and closes with the
murder of Yadgerd by Mahovi. ‘Yazdgerd is actually Syamak killed by the
representative of Ahriman. Both killings are followed by vengeance and the
methods of the killings and acts of vengeance are identical.’21 This similarity might
be the best disclosure to explain that killing and vengeance are too close to be the
two separate sides of a same coin. And this is what Ferdowsi offers to the ones
Leyli Jamali 143
__________________________________________________________________
who wish to see beyond the unforgettable narratives of his masterpiece the
Shahnameh.

Notes
1
H Zourring, J Chebat & R. Toffoli, ‘Consumer Revenge Behaviour: A Cross-
Cultural Perspective’, Journal of Business Research, Vol.62, 2009, p. 995.
2
N Stuckless & RGoranson, ‘The Vengeance Scale: Development of a Measure of
Attitude towards Revenge’, J Soc Behav Pers 7, 1992.
3
H Zourring, 995.
4
R Ho, ‘Justice versus Vengeance: Motive Underlying Punitive Judgments’,
Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 33, 2002, p. 365 .
5
P French, The Virtues of the Vengeance, University Press of Kansas, 2001, p. xi.
6
French, p. 63.
7
A Loney, Syllabus Design for CLST 180 Special Topics: The Poetics and Ethics
of Revenge Themes of Retributive Justice in Literature.
8
Y Talebian, ‘The War between Good and Evil: The Theme of Ferdowsi’s the
Shahnameh and the Narrative Archetypes’, Journal of Literature of Mashhad
University, Vol. 158, 2007, p.106.
9
G Sarami, From the Colour of the Flower till the Pain of the Thorn, Science and
Culture Publications, 1998, p.468.
10
R Fazlollah, A Study on Ferdowsi, Science and Culture Publications, 2005, p. 5.
11
M Ghafoori, Narratology of the Shahnameh, Ostad Motahari Publications
Ghom, 2009, p.158.
12
I Dibaj, ‘Hunchback Fate in Tragedy of Rostam and Shrab in Shahnameh,
http://www.elam.com/articles/fate-in-poetry/, Viewed 5 May 2010.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid.
15
M Riyahi, Frdowsi, Tarhe No Publiction, 2001, p.198.
16
Sarami, p. 465.
17
Masse, p. 218.
18
Riyahi, p.189.
19
Ibid.
20
Sarami, p. 102.
21
Ghafoori, p.128.

Bioliography
Dibaj, I., ‘Hunchback Fate in Tragedy of Rostam and Shrab in Shahnameh,
http://www.elam.com/articles/fate-in-poetry/. Viewed 5 May 2010.

French, P., The Virtues of the Vengeance. University Press of Kansas, 2001.
144 Treatment of Vengeance in Ferdowsi’s The Shahnameh: Book of Kings
__________________________________________________________________

Ferdowsi, A., The Shahnameh: Moscow Edition. Elm Publication, 2005.

Ghafoori, M., Narratology of the Shahnameh. Ostad Motahari Publications, Ghom,


2009.

Ho, R., ‘Justice versus Vengeance: Motive Underlying Punitive Judgments’.


Personality and Individual Differences. Vol. 33, 2002, pp. 365 – 377.

Loney, A., CLST 180 Special Topics: The Poetics and Ethics of Revenge Themes
of Retributive Justice in Literature. Spring 2009, Viewed on 10 May 2010
http://poeticwordpress.com.

Masse, H., Firdouci et L’Epopee Natioale. Tabriz University Press, 1996.

Riyahi, M., Ferdowsi. Tarhe No Publication, 2001.

Sarami, G., From the Colour of the Flower till the Pain of the Thorn. Science and
Culture Publications, 1998.

Stuckless, N. & Goranson, R., ‘The Vengeance Scale: Development of a Measure


of Attitude towards Revenge’. J Soc Behav Pers 7. 1992, pp. 25 -42.

Talebian, Y., ‘The War between Good and Evil: The Theme of Ferdowsi’s The
Shahnameh and the Narrative Archetypes’. Journal of Literature of Mashhad
University. Vol. 158, 2007 pp. 106 – 116.

Zourring, H., ‘Consumer Revenge Behaviour: A Cross-Cultural Perspective’.


Journal of Business Research. Vol.62, 2009, pp. 995 – 1001.

Leyli Jamali is Assistant Professor of English Literature at the Islamic Azad


University-Tabriz Branch, Iran. She is the member of the Executive Committee the
Research Centre at the university and her research interests cover a range of topics
from feminism to comparative literature on which she has presented and published
many papers.
Unlikely Heroines: Self-Destructive Sexuality and Narrative
Identity-Building in the Fiction of Joyce Carol Oates

Jenaeth Markaj
Abstract
This paper addresses the unique contributions of Joyce Carol Oates to
contemporary women’s fiction. Although her voluminous body of work has
received considerable critical acclaim, the explosive sexuality and violence
depicted frequently in her writing, in addition to the apparent passivity of her
female characters, have drawn harsh criticism. Feminists in particular have
condemned her narratives for condoning female victimization. While at first
glance, such an interpretation might seem justified due to the graphic nature of the
subject matter, it neglects a crucial redemptive pattern that surfaces repeatedly in
her writing. Oates posits and demonstrates narration as a cathartic process of
identity development that initiates the emergence of authentic, autonomous female
voice. Her writing affirms the importance of considering not only the events
unfolding in the course of a novel, but the narrative process by which the author
articulates these events when considering the nature of a work’s significance to
gendered experience and authorship. This generative process, when considered as a
means of redefining personal identity, emerges as a more fulfilling, in essence,
more substantive form of retaliation than the type of revenge traditionally played
out in the narrative setting –catharsis for the title character in the form of a
triumphant and violent act may appear the epitome of vengeance in the context of
the novel. But how much more unapologetic and revolutionary is a woman’s
refusal to depict rebellion in service to the reader’s desire for a satisfying
conclusion in favor of a more understated and sincere testament to self-fulfillment
through narration?

Key Words: Narration, redemption, voice, identity.

*****

1. Introduction
Joyce Carol Oates is an extraordinarily prolific, contemporary American
author, having published numerous poems, essays, short stories, plays, and novels
since the early 1960’s. Her fiction has received much critical attention for its
explosive sexuality and violence and has been criticized by feminists for the
passivity of her female characters. Although these elements factor into Oates’
presentation of the world, an interpretation of her works as approving of female
victimization neglects a redemptive pattern that surfaces repeatedly in her novels in
which constructive narration succeeds characters’ self-destructive experiences with
sexuality.
146 Unlikely Heroines
__________________________________________________________________
In many of Oates’ works, a first-person female narrator relates her story
beginning with childhood; the family structure is profoundly unstable, composed
of unreliable or inappropriate, often sexual relationships. The girl matures in
isolation, developing a low self-image and unnaturally strong attraction to
members of the opposite sex. Sexual desire becomes sexual dependency; the young
woman will endure condescension, humiliation, insult, and pain in her
relationships with men in an attempt to exonerate herself from the boundaries of
memory and personality, barriers to the stability she seeks.
Sexuality, used as the sole instrument of release for women, represents a
violent effort to destroy the self. However, this tactic necessarily fails because
sexual release is a gendered form of self-obliteration. Oates’ depictions of sexual
experience highlight the differences between male and female physicality,
emphasizing the manner in which sexuality creates distinct roles for man and
woman. Thus, the woman fails to destroy her identity because sexual experience
affirms her essentially female characteristics. The woman reaches a crisis point,
generally involving extreme violence, that consists in a recognition of dependence
on sexual involvement. This newfound self-awareness, in turn, initiates her
transition to narrative redemption and self-creation. The woman begins to reflect
upon her situation, integrating past memory with present reflection to construct a
personal narrative. And it is through this act of confession that true redemption
occurs; by writing or telling her story, the woman creates her own identity.

2. Pursuit of Stability through Escape from Identity


To understand how Oates’ female characters develop through sexuality and
narration, it is first necessary to ask why they seek release through self-destructive
behaviour. According to Robert H. Fossum, this tendency, often associated with
the pursuit of stability, represents ‘a struggle to control their own lives against the
forces of ‘accident,’ circumstances, [or] other people.’ 1 In certain instances,
stability also becomes attractive as a remedy for internal imbalance. In both cases,
the desire of Oates’ female characters for constancy becomes evident through their
mental preoccupations and actions aimed at eradicating conflict, whether this state
of turbulence arises from internal strife or a contentious relationship with another
individual. These characters view death as a form of stability as it represents a
cessation of emotion, conflict, and will.

3. Self-Destructive Sexuality as Escape


One such character is Enid Stevick of You Must Remember This (1987) who
demonstrates a powerful attraction to the idea of stability through her fascination
with death. The correlation between death and stability stems from the idea that
obedience to the dictates of individual will gives rise to turmoil, an inherently
hateful state of consciousness. Enid comes to perceive sexuality as a kind of self-
directed violence and a means of approaching, simulating, or actually achieving
Jenaeth Markaj 147
__________________________________________________________________
death. As a result, she begins to experience sexual involvement as her primary
means of release. During incestuous encounters initiated by her uncle, Felix, Enid,
‘sometimes felt her mind drift free, and break.’ 2 Here Enid articulates a distinct
separation between two aspects of her identity; this divorce of soul from body
represents death. She seeks out this experience of mind-body separation as both an
approximation of death and a tantalizing step closer to the stability she craves.
4. Heightened Awareness of Gender Difference Through Sexuality
The connections established between sexuality and death in You Must
Remember This demonstrate the means by which Oates’ female characters engage
in sexual relationships in an attempt to escape all facets of identity. These attempts
are successful to a certain extent, allowing the women to experience a measure of
release or liberation. However, sexuality fails to eradicate one essential aspect of
identity: gender. Instead of refuting the uniquely female aspects of a woman’s
body, sexual affairs in Oates’ fiction heighten their importance.
This idea factors significantly into Oates’ presentation of Ingrid Boone’s
sexuality in Man Crazy (1997). Ingrid shares Enid’s intense sexual appetite as well
as her commitment to destroying personal identity. Notably, Ingrid’s involvement
with satanic cult leader, Enoch Skaggs, affirms the contention that sexuality relies
on and heightens her awareness of gender difference. Ingrid initially relives her
first sexual contact with Enoch by describing his penis:

Thick as my wrist was Enoch Skaggs’ cock, blood engorged and


alive giving off a humid radiant heat. Never kissed any guy like
this before, never once sucked off any guy before, the disgust of
it, the shame. But now no turning back, I started to choke when
Enoch gripped my head tighter and tighter jamming his cock into
my mouth, too weak to fight him off, his steely fingers ready to
snap my neck like he could snap a cat’s neck. . .pumping himself
into me like he wanted to kill me.3

Here Ingrid draws attention to divergent physical images of men and women
through descriptive language. She characterizes the male sexual organ as a
threatening physical instrument, and her perception of Enoch becomes explicitly,
almost exclusively phallic. While Enoch materializes through his penis as ‘thick,’
‘blood-engorged,’ and ‘alive,’ Ingrid presents herself as a fragile dumping ground
for violent attack.
Later in the same scene, Ingrid provides a more comprehensive picture of her
appearance, describing herself in the third person as ‘a naked blond girl skinny
assed, bruised breasts no larger than pears, ribs showing through her skin...’ 4 Each
descriptive phrase in this statement directly conflicts with some aspect of Ingrid’s
recollection of Enoch. Ingrid previously claims that he remained clothed during
their interaction, hesitating only to unbutton his pants.5 This presents a direct
148 Unlikely Heroines
__________________________________________________________________
contrast to Ingrid’s nakedness. Ingrid’s hair is blond, while Enoch boasts ‘long
straggly dead-black hair.’ Ingrid is skinny, while Enoch is thick and ‘sinewy-
muscled.’ 6 The ‘bruised breasts’ of Ingrid’s self-portrait suggest injury and
vulnerability far removed from the impenetrable strength implied by the ‘bronze
mask’ of Enoch’s face.7 Finally, where Ingrid’s ribs protrude through her flesh,
Enoch is a wall of solid muscle. While the characteristics involving hair colour and
body composition are not gender specific, they do enhance Ingrid’s awareness of
the differences between herself and Enoch. The knowledge of gender difference,
heightened through participation in sexual acts, becomes more dramatic through
Ingrid’s recognition of these similarly opposing physical traits.
Gender difference resides not only in structural characteristics but in the type of
behaviour exhibited during intercourse. With Enoch, Ingrid’s sexual passivity
emerges on a dramatic scale: ‘her silly doll head gripped in a man’s big hands and
he’s pumping pumping pumping himself into her mouth, her mouth pried open so
her face is near to splitting, she’s choking, gagging…’ 8 Most significant here is the
opposition established between the actions of the two individuals. Ingrid’s
repetition of ‘pumping’ dramatizes the intrusive role assumed by her sexual male
partners, while she functions as the passive recipient of his violent aggression.
Oates frequently portrays gender difference by presenting male initiatives as
invasive and foreign. Female sexuality, contrarily, is characterized by compliance.
Women characters such as Ingrid and Enid subjugate their bodies in hopes of
escaping personal identity. This behaviour, however, sharpens their awareness of
their gendered selves and ultimately chains them to the very identities they hoped
to elude through the strictures of the gendered experience. Thus, the women’s
sexual experiences ultimately subvert their desire to achieve an elusive, escapist
form of stability, the impulse that lies at the heart of these relationships.

5. Recognition of Dependence -Incentive to Transform


Through an examination of several female narrators, it has become clear that
sexual encounters awaken these women to a heightened cognisance of their
gendered selves. This newfound self-awareness typically culminates in a crisis
point, or a recognition of dependence on damaging sexual interaction that spurs
their desire for autonomous life and voice.
This crisis point plays out dramatically in Oates’ novella, Beasts (2002), in
which the female narrator, Gillian, is coerced into a toxic sexual relationship with
her English professor, Andre Harrow, and his wife, Dorcas. Significantly, the first
time that Mr. Harrow kisses Gillian, he contextualises the encounter, precluding
the possibility that she could form an independent analysis of or response to the
incident. She recalls, ‘He would provide the narration, the interpretation for what
had happened, as, in his lectures and workshops, he controlled such information.’ 9
Mr. Harrow understands that the articulation of his views on their encounter, in
effect, prevents Gillian from asserting her vision of the relationship. In this way, he
Jenaeth Markaj 149
__________________________________________________________________
assures his own dominance and her lack of control in the sexual realm and in the
larger context of their shared life experience.
The first time that Andre and Gillian have sex, he prefaces the meeting by
denying her the opportunity to express herself through writing. Gillian remembers
this incident, stating, ‘Mr. Harrow…. was wholly in control. ‘May I come inside,
Mr. Harrow?’ I asked. He said, ‘Sure. But not to discuss your schoolgirl poetry.’’ 10
Mr. Harrow speaks dismissively of Gillian’s writing because, as he so clearly
understands, the narrator possesses the power of autonomy and a method for
asserting control over her actions and interactions. An independent Gillian would
undermine Mr. Harrow’s despotic quest for complete domination. Consequently,
Mr. Harrow encourages and exploits Gillian’s self-destructive sexual impulse for
his own personal gain, to the detriment of her fledgling narrative aspirations.
Ultimately, however, Gillian’s relationship with Mr. Harrow culminates in a
crisis point that provides the impetus for her transformation. After yet another
demeaning encounter with Mr. Harrow and Dorcas, Gillian burns their house
down, as they lie sleeping in bed. Among the many items destroyed in the fire is a
totem resembling Gillian that was shaped and defined by Dorcas, who previously
describes the totem as a brainless beauty, commenting, ‘ ‘She has no brain –she is
bete –but belle, yes?’’ 11 The totem modeled after Gillian is completely lacking in
intelligence and will.
Recognizing her complete dependence on her sexual relationship with the
couple and the extent to which they have symbolically renamed and refashioned
her as a ‘doll’ for their purposes, Gillian seizes the opportunity for transformation
by destroying them in the very bed that has become emblematic of her
subservience and debasement. Significantly, as the couple burns, Gillian returns to
her own bed and begins to write of her experiences in a journal. In essence, she
destroys Mr. Harrow and Dorcas to gain the ability to speak her own story.

6. Revenge: Creation of Identity through Narration


Oates’ Man Crazy demonstrates the process of the narrator’s successful attempt
to create herself in language. Man Crazy opens with a suggestion of the healing
power of narration in which Ingrid outlines the origins of her memoir: ‘And him
saying in that slow kind pushy voice like something prying a shell open tell me of
your life, Ingrid. We want to make you well.’ 12 By asking Ingrid to tell her story,
he encourages her to construct identity; she must select those events that contribute
most significantly to her development, describe people who figure most
prominently in her memory, and articulate ideas that guide her behavior. This
subjectivity and arbitrary construction comprise a self-evaluation that negates
Ingrid’s former escapist tendencies. The doctor makes one error, however, in his
entreaty; he takes responsibility for Ingrid’s well-being. Although he recognizes
the positive potential of the narrative process for his patient, he underestimates her
capacity for self-determination. As a result, Ingrid initially refuse to speak with
150 Unlikely Heroines
__________________________________________________________________
him, beginning her narrative not in direct response to his questions but as a
separate document.
The doctor’s questions to Ingrid occur in a prologue to the novel entitled, ‘Tell
Me Of Your Life,’ as he repeatedly attempts to initiate conversation with his new
patient.13 Ingrid remains silent during these sessions, satisfying none of his
requests during the prologue. The section ends with one of these pleas: ‘Will you
speak to me, then? No?’ 14 Ingrid makes no reply but subsequently begins a new
chapter that constitutes the beginning of her narration. This technique cements
Ingrid’s autonomy as the author of her own salvation. She never verbally consents
to share her life with the doctor, suggesting that her decision to narrate is not a
response to outside initiative but an independently formed decision.
Ingrid begins the narrative with an affirmation of her desire to speak and a brief
description of setting, saying, ‘This story I want to tell began in upstate New York,
in the Chautauqua Mountains, in August 1972.’ 15 This verbal acceptance of her
role as narrator supports the hypothesis of the text as a self-definitive effort rather
than an assumed responsibility initiated by the doctor. Ingrid embraces the task of
storytelling because she recognizes its constructive potential, not because she feels
obligated to please others. Her understanding of narration’s power is also evident
in her inclusion of specific locales and dates in the introduction. The inclusion of
verifiable information lends a sense of historical permanence and truth to the
document that simultaneously cements her individuality.
Writing symbolizes a re-appropriation of existence for Oates’ female
characters. Self-generating and unpredictable, they create themselves through
language, subverting victimization and patterns of abuse through the
transformative power of narration.

7. Conclusion
Joyce Carol Oates examines, in steely, unflinching prose, horrific
circumstances of physical abuse and sexual victimization that can be difficult to
digest. The shocking nature of these situations has at times overshadowed a
defining quality of her fiction; the depiction of subjugated women initiating and
pursuing the excruciating process of forging new identities by way of narrative
confession.
Perhaps it would be fruitful to re-examine the true meaning of revenge and how
this plays out in the context of narration posited as a mechanism of survival and
identity-building. It is because violent, particularly sexually violent aggression
toward women seeks to suppress the victim’s autonomy and self-worth that the
narrative act constitutes such a subversive and singularly triumphant statement.
Oates dramatizes the potential of revenge to become a positive, redemptive process
rather than a destructive enterprise. The power of an individual to harness the
inherent possibility of revenge lies in her ability to transform its very meaning, its
Jenaeth Markaj 151
__________________________________________________________________
essence into something more fulfilling, cathartic, and lasting than the most fitting
retaliatory act could dream.
Possibly the most significant point related to the social significance of Oates’
writing is that the salvation achieved by her narrators through writing invites
emulation. At a time in history in which many women of the world are deprived of
the opportunity to defend themselves against victimization or exact justice upon
the perpetrators of such abuse, her writing suggests methods by which women can
surmount oppression and recreate themselves through language. Narration, as
modelled in Oates’ fiction, represents a higher form of revenge, an instrument of
empowerment that crosses cultures to touch all classes, races, and generations of
women in its redemptive and generative function.

Notes
1
R Fossum, ‘Only Control: The Novel of Joyce Carol Oates’, Studies in the Novel,
Vol. 7, 1975, p. 286.
2
JC Oates, You Must Remember This, Harper and Row, New York, 1987, p. 185.
3
JC Oates, Man Crazy, The Penguin Group, New York, 1998, p. 212.
4
Ibid., p. 213.
5
Ibid., p. 212.
6
Ibid., p. 213.
7
Ibid., p. 213.
8
Ibid., p. 213.
9
JC Oates, Beasts, Carrol & Graf Publishers, New York, 2002, p. 62
10
Ibid., p. 85.
11
Ibid., p. 26.
12
Oates, Man Crazy, op. cit., p. 5.
13
Oates, Man Crazy, op. cit., p. 1.
14
Oates, Man Crazy, op. cit., p. 6.
15
Oates, Man Crazy, op. cit., p. 7.

Bibliography
Cixous, H., ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’. New French Feminisms. Schocken Books,
New York, 1981.

Curti, L., Female Stories Female Bodies. New York University Press, New York,
1998.

Davis, A., Blues Legacies and Black Feminism. Vintage, New York, 1998.
152 Unlikely Heroines
__________________________________________________________________

Dike, D., ‘The Aggressive Victim in the Fiction of Joyce Carol Oates’. Greyfriar:
Siena Studies in Literature. Vol. 15, 1974, pp. 13-29.

Fossum, R., ‘Only Control: The Novels of Joyce Carol Oates’. Studies in the
Novel, vol. 7, 1975, pp. 285-297.

Giles, J., ‘Destructive and Redemptive ‘Order’: Joyce Carol Oates’. Marriages and
Infidelities and The Goddess and Other Women’. Ball State University Forum,
1981.

Goodman, C., ‘Women and Madness in the Fiction of Joyce Carol Oates’. Women
and Literature. Vol. 5, Issue 2, 1977, pp. 17-28.

Johnson, G., ‘Fictions of the New Millennium: An Interview with Joyce Carol
Oates’. Michigan Quarterly Review. Vol. 45, Issue 2, Spring 2006, pp. 387-400.

Oates, J. C., Beasts. Carrol & Graf Publishers, New York, 2002.

–––, Foxfire. The Penguin Group, New York, 1993.

–––, I Am No One You Know. HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 2004.

–––, Man Crazy. The Penguin Group, New York, 1998.

–––, The Faith Of A Writer. HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 2003.

–––, You Must Remember This. Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1987.

Petite, J., ‘ ‘Out of the Machine:’ Joyce Carol Oates and the Liberation of Women’.
Kansas Quarterly. Vol. 9, Issue 2, 1977, pp. 75-79.

Steinberg, S. ‘Prolific Oates’. Publishers Weekly. Vol. 251, Issue 37, 2004, pp. 54-
55.

Wesley, M., ‘Reverence, Rape, Resistance: Joyce Carol Oates and Feminist Film
Theory’. Mosaic. Vol. 32, September 1999, pp. 75-86.

Jenaeth Markaj, Independent Scholar, is interested in the contributions of


contemporary women writers to modern scholarship as well as the ways in which
intercultural processes shape and arise in contemporary literature.
Experiences of Revenge as Reflected in the Contemporary
Pashto Short Story

Anders Widmark
Abstract
Approaching a decade of US/NATO military engagement in Afghanistan, the
scholarly interest over the area has gradually reawakened. However, emphasis has
though mainly been directed towards the political and social implications of war,
while cultural functions and expressions still remain by and large unexplored. This
is especially true about the Pashtun community.1 Research has suggested that
revenge, included under the Pashto concept of badal, is an essential element
constituting Pashtun identity. Badal, which is part of a larger set of unwritten tribal
codes of honour called pashtūnwalī, does not apply to a neutral conception of
revenge but is more related to the ‘defence of honour’. Previous studies, as well as
the media, have often emphasised this idea rather incautiously, stressing desire of
revenge or vindictiveness to be a main characteristic of this group’s collective
identity. Far from being a static phenomenon, pashtūnwalī displays great variation
of observance depending on both temporal and local context. This study engages
the contemporary Pashto short story genre, being the most popular and widely
practised type of modern narrative prose fiction among the Pashtuns, and explores
how the concept of revenge is formulated upon within this type of texts. The study
delves into the question whether revenge, considering that modern Pashto literature
is mainly an urban reality, is narrated according to its traditional denotation of
‘defending honour’, or if a more neutral or materialistic type of revenge may be
discerned. It will also investigate whether revenge is a typical characteristic of
Pashtun life, as has been proposed in prior descriptions, or if it is a theme of only
peripheral occurrence. Searching for keywords related to ‘revenge’ in Pashto short
stories published on the Internet followed by a close reading analysis of each
entrance, an assessment of the urban Pashtun view upon revenge may be deduced.

Key Words: Pashto, Pashtun, pashtūnwalī, literature, short story, revenge, badal,
honour, Taliban, Afghanistan, Pakistan.

*****

1. Introducing Pashto and Pashtun


Early references to Pashtun, and studies thereof, are jointly marred by the fact
that they only consider one side of the coin. There is a tendency to emphasise the
dark side of the Pashtun, to accentuate attributes which define him as being rigidly
unruly, primitive and warmongering, something of which examples are abundant;
‘Trust a snake before an harlot, and an harlot before a Pathan’2 and ‘The Pathans
are strange people. They have all sorts of horrible customs and frightful revenges.’3
154 Experiences of Revenge
__________________________________________________________________
Although somewhat taken out of context, these accounts are in fact
symptomatic for how the Pashtuns have been portrayed throughout the times.
Though these particular citations belong to an older generation, we may even today
distinguish similar stereotyped descriptions, especially in the media but also in
fictive expressions, in the West as well as in the East.
Having this said, and to which much more could be added, we are now ready to
approach the core subject matter and proceed with the definition of Pashto and
Pashtun. Pashto is spoken by approximately 40 million speakers mainly distributed
along the Afghan-Pakistani border. The preservation and practice of Pashto is an
important element of a broader Pashtun identity. Apart from designating a
language, you can also ‘have’ Pashto or ‘do’ Pashto. Having or doing Pashto thus
suggests commitment to the Pashtun code of honour, i.e. to pashtūnwalī. This code
is based upon a set of concepts all of which are essentially related to honour
(‘izzat). It ‘sets up ideal standards of behaviour and acts as a constant yardstick to
measure normative or deviant behaviour’.4 Although pashtūnwalī covers an
abundance of subsidiary elements, it is often summarised in three main categories,
or principle duties; revenge (badal), hospitality (melmastiā), and forgiveness
(nanawatai). The primary meaning of badal is ‘retaliation’ but it can also signal
‘exchange’ (in marriage arrangements) or indicate ‘change’ more generally.
According to the code, the Pashtun is obliged to avenge any insult upon one’s
honour. To leave an injury unsettled will bring shame upon the offended. There is
an often cited proverb that says: ‘See! After a hundred years a Pakhtun takes his
revenge, and he says, Still I have taken it quickly’,5 though one should also
consider that: ‘Pathan culture is not only or essentially composed of strict codes of
revenge, blood-feud and aggressive hospitality, as anthropology has sometimes led
us to believe’,6 and that the virtue of forgiveness, mercy, and reconciliation are
equally important elements of the code.

2. Contextualising Revenge

Consider what might compel a man


To kill himself, or another.

Does oppression not demand


Some reaction against the oppressor?7

Before approaching the primary material it may be fruitful to discuss revenge


more generally, reflecting upon the concept in a wider Afghan-Pakistani context.
Readings within such a context show that revenge, as a topic, appears in
contemporary narratives throughout the area. Years of conflict have nurtured a
general sentiment of injustice and we meet a complex constellation of causes and
effects, i.e. of what or who the wrongdoers are and in what way one seeks and
Anders Widmark 155
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accomplish restitution. Among these narratives, a tendency may be discerned in
how male and female narratives differ in their attitude towards revenge. First of all
it must be recognised that due to limitations of women’s access to the public space
in general, female narratives are less frequent in comparison with male ones.
Female exclusion from the literary space is even more apparent. The female voice
is mainly articulated through a male proxy narrator, i.e. women are generally
depicted and represented by male authors from an inevitable masculine (imagined
feminine) perspective. The few instances when their own voice is heard, it is
limited by societal taboos and self-censorship, or is adapted to a male style of
expression. Male and female narratives relating revenge are both linked to honour
and justice, though expressed with a different focus. Female narratives upon
revenge tend to be formulated within a discourse of female empowerment and
emancipation, as an act of revenge for male, societal and institutional oppression.
In the short story ‘La revanche’, by Safia Haleem,8 we meet such a situation.
The leading character, Mariam, lives a life of luxury and ease. However, she is
mentally tormented by the knowledge of her husband’s love affairs, which he
brushes aside saying that: ‘I swear, these women are not worth one of your
hairs…I live for you; you are the light of my house’,9 and when she asks for
permission to start working, her husband quickly dismisses her idea by posing a
counter-question: ‘Do you want to dishonour my family? Such a thing has never
occurred at our home’.10 It is also related that she has been forced into the marriage
against her will, as a transaction to safeguard the honour of the family. The
revenge, as it develops, is open to interpretation; at a funeral ceremony, people
congregate and the women are busy debating fashion. Mariam withdraws from the
crowd under the pretext of performing her prayer; in the ablution room she notices
a wristwatch that has been left behind by one of the other women. She puts it in her
purse as an act of revenge, though, the question remains; revenge for what? In
agreement with the characteristics of the short story genre, the open ending
presents us with a wide range of interpretative possibilities as regards the
hypothetical destiny of Mariam and her intent behind her action. The best way to
look for an answer is probably to ask what the revenge is not. The act can neither
be said to have been inspired by a single specific incident, nor can it be seen as
related to the defence of honour, at least not in the context of pashtūnwalī. The act
of revenge appears to be symbolical, and even irrational, since her involvement in
the theft is never revealed. The act of revenge gives rise to a personal and unilateral
sense of satisfaction, a symbolic and silent statement directed towards all the
inequalities of life; against masculine superiority, the yoke of tradition, the
superficiality of modernity, and certainly also against her husband’s mistresses.
Within the folk poetic tradition of the Pashtuns, the most popular verse form is
the landəy, an unrhymed couplet that is composed anonymously, often by women.
Traditionally sung and composed at the gudar, a place on the bank of a river
wherefrom water is taken by the women, one of the few places rural women can
156 Experiences of Revenge
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meet and socialise outside their homes. Nowadays the landəy is found also in other
contexts; in ‘higher’ literature, as lyrics in popular music as well as topic of
discussion in the social media. Anonymity and the fact that the verses are sung
mainly among fellow women present ‘an opportunity to express feelings about
sexuality’11 and about other taboo topics.
In a setting where the saying ‘for a woman either the home or the grave’12 can
be a reality, the landəy provides a means for women to express discontent with
their situation, criticising prevailing ideologies of masculinity. A major theme that
reverberates throughout this genre is the arranged marriage and the misalliance.
Here, the landəy materialises as songs of vengeance against a despicable husband,
‘the little horror’, who has been forced upon her in marriage. In accordance with
the mechanisms of folk literature, these narratives circulate and are re-created in
space and over time. As such, they will transcend the strictly feminine context in
which they once were created and enter a collective mind, and their message will
ultimately reach an addressee.
Thirty years of war and crisis have resulted in a disintegration process of tribal
culture and its networks, as well as in the formulation of new identities in new
settings. A general observation coming from readings of contemporary narratives
engaging the concept of revenge is how these tend to differ depending on who the
narrator is; journalists and scholars commenting from the ‘outside’ insist on
deriving every act of revenge from a tribal discourse, while Pashtuns, or Afghans
and Pakistanis in general, either dismiss the connection completely, or discuss
revenge as an effect coming from assaults on universal principles, human values
and justice, rather than from tribal codes. In the autobiography of his, Abdul Salam
Zaeef, a former Taliban member, states that: ‘Many Taliban belonged to the same
ethnic group, and often people get confused by this and say that tribal heritage was
important to the movement. In reality, it was purely incidental; the movement
started in the birthplace of the tribe, but even though the tribe assisted in its rise it
never played a role later on’.13 Readings of contemporary Afghanistan and
Pakistan display a confusion of contradicting opinions, a situation in where
everyone appears to be angered, or feels mistreated by another, nourishing a state
of revenge and counter-revenge. The Pashtuns feel that they are being stigmatised,
almost metonymised as being Taliban or terrorists by misleading descriptions such
as ‘Afghanistan’s Pashtun tribes (a.k.a. Taliban)’.14 In Pakistan, the Pashtuns feel
slighted over governmental language policies etc., and are angered by the large
number of civilian casualties caused by the Pakistani army and U.S drones. The
Taliban, on the other hand, feel that they were unlawfully removed from power by
the U.S. to avenge September 11 and do not look upon themselves as offenders,
but as victims. There is a widespread belief that the British engagement in
Afghanistan is nothing but a pretext to avenge their fathers and grandfathers who
fought in the Anglo-Afghan wars. In a poem entitled ‘Kasāt’ [Revenge] signed by
the penname Khpəlwāk [The Independent], the core rhetoric of the Taliban is
Anders Widmark 157
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manifested. It depictures the international forces in Afghanistan as avengers,
justifying a call for counter-revenge:

/…/ A Buddha is [re]built in the home of the idol-breaker,


It is evident that they are avenging the Somnath temple. /…/ The
prostitution market will be kept busy,
Our traditions and customs will be taken away. /…/
The nation will be denied an independent economy,
And be forced to take alms from the PRT’s.
The sign of the cross will appear everywhere,
As they are taking revenge for the Ayyubids. /…/. 15

3. Reading Revenge
In the initial quantitative phase of this study the number of keyword hits was
surprisingly high. However, the analysis showed that a majority of these was
related to the secondary meanings of the word badal, that is ‘exchange’ and
‘change’, and not to its denotation of ‘revenge’. Two short stories make explicit
reference to revenge in their titles. In ‘Kasāt’ [Revenge] by Muhammad Nu’mān
Dost,16 the scene is set to a graveyard. The anonymous main character relates that
‘when I approached the cemetery, it screamed, as if it was expecting me. The
graves heaved and then, the lids began to open, and I did not now what to do. I
could have tried to run, but my legs were exhausted and I did not have the power to
move. I was surrounded by skeletons coming from all directions and some of them
were running against me.’ The story turns out to be a nightmare; the dead arise
from their graves and approach the main character saying: ‘Why did you kill us?
What made you a merchandiser of our youth? Why did you orphan our children?’
When he wakes up everybody in the house surrounds him whereupon he says:
‘Thank God I am not a leader.’ The title of the story thus alludes to the kind of
divine revenge that awaits the unjust leader in the afterlife. In ‘Mīna aw Intiqām’
[Love and Revenge] by ‘Asmatullāh Latīfī,17 a recollection of a past memory is
narrated, an eternal triangle drama with all the necessary ingredients, two men and
a woman; love, revenge and death.
Besides these two examples, reference to revenge could only be found in a
dozen of short stories. Readings of these display several types of revenge which
can be categorised into different revenge situations. Honour-based revenge related
to pashtūnwalī proved to be of most frequent occurrence. These situations take
place in a rural setting and are most often triggered by a murder, resulting in a
demand for blood revenge. However, this demand for retribution does not always
lead up to an ‘eye for an eye’ situation, but can be settled by other means. In
‘Parday Petay’ [The Stranger’s Insult] by Sulamal Shīnwārī,18 a woman’s honour is
at stake when a stranger insults and touches her. She urges her husband to avenge
the stranger saying: ‘are you still sitting here, stand up and take revenge for me,
158 Experiences of Revenge
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and should you feel the slightest doubt, let it be my blood that is spilled’. A jirga,
i.e. a council of tribal elders, is called for to settle the dispute; however, the
narrative does not reveal the final destiny of the offender.
In the context of pashtūnwalī, not only murder provoked calls for revenge. The
narratives also related scenarios where men’s sense of honour, or virtue of chivalry
(ghairat), was under threat, resulting in a revenge situation. In the fable-like short
story ‘Dwa Kalī’ [Two Villages] by Nūr Muhammad Lāhū,19 another aspect of
pashtūnwalī is addressed. The main plot revolves around a conflict between two
villages over water. The inhabitants of one of the villages suffer from shortage in
their water supply due to a severe drought. As an act of submission, they decide to
visit the elders of the other village as a plea for help and assistance. However, since
the request is refused, ignoring the obligation to assist someone in need, a violation
upon the Pashtun honour code has been committed, which leads to a demand for
revenge.
Also other revenge situations are related in the narratives. Common to all of
these is how they are evoked in a context of conflict and war. Also in these
situations, demands for vengeance are most often derived from an unjust killing of
a person. However, here the connection with pashtūnwalī is less transparent than it
was in previous situations and invites us to a more neutral interpretation of
revenge; as a natural response to the conditions of life in war and crisis, and to
violations of universal and human principles.

4. Final Comments
Initially, this study addressed the problem of how the Pashtuns have been
depicted in previous works, and how this has come to infect many contemporary
narratives related to this particular group. In references to pashtūnwalī, the
obligation of retaliation is often given primary focus, while other important aspects
of the code are mentioned only in the passing. This, together with a one-sided
focus upon the rural Pashtun, is certainly some of the main reasons why the
Pashtun continues to be characterised as revenge-driven and vindictive.
Considering the fact that revenge situations only could be found in fourteen
short stories, and that most of these did not speak on the subject in any detail, the
analysis of the material cannot claim to present us with any general truths.
However, what it can tell us is how, and under what circumstances, revenge as a
subject or theme is narrated in contemporary Pashto short stories. The analysis
showed that a majority of the revenge situations took place in a rural setting, in a
context of pashtūnwalī. In the revenge situations that took place in an urban milieu,
violation of honour in its tribal sense proved to be of minor importance. Narratives
that problematised the concept and function of revenge in a Pashtun setting were
few and do not stand out as typical in the analysed material.
Anders Widmark 159
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Notes
1
A reduced and modified version of the LOC transcription system of Pashto words
has been used here. No distinction will be made between polygraphemes, i.e.
different graphemes representing one phoneme, such as (‫ ض – ظ‬- ‫ )ز – ذ‬all
representing the phoneme [z] in Pashto. Retroflex consonants have been
underlined.
2
R Kipling, Kim, MacMillan & Co Ltd, London, 1960 (1st ed 1901), p. 252.
3
WS Churchill, My Early Life: A Roving Commission, Thornton Butterworth
Limited, London, 1930, p. 144.
4
AS Ahmed, Millennium and Charisma among Pathans: A Critical Essay in
Social Anthropology, Routledge, London, 1976, p. 57.
5
MN Tair & TC Edwards, Rohi Mataluna: Pashto Proverbs, Revised and
Expanded Edition, Resource Publications, Eugene, Oregon, 2009, p. 69.
6
M Banerjee, The Pathan Unarmed: Opposition & Memory in the North West
Frontier, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001, p. 208.
7
SA Muslim Dost, ‘They Cannot Help’, Poems from Guantánamo: The Detainees
Speak, M Falkoff (ed), University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, 2007, p. 34.
8
S Haleem, Confiture d’orange: nouvelles, Caractères, Paris, 2004, pp. 55-67.
9
Ibid., p. 62.
10
Ibid.
11
W Heston, ‘Landạy’, South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia, Routledge, New
York, London, 2003, p. 351.
12
MN Tair & TC Edwards, op. cit., p. 227.
13
AS Zaeef, My Life with the Taliban, Hurst & Company, London, 2010, p. 116.
14
E Margolis, ‘U.S. Stirs a Hornet’s Nest in Pakistan’, Winnipeg Sun [Online], 17
May 2009.
15
Khpəlwāk, ‘Kasāt’ [Revenge], http://www.shahamat1.org, 23 April 2010, cached
copy retrieved 4 May 2010. ‘The Idol-Breaker’ is an allusion to Mahmud of
Ghazni. He attacked India several times during the first half of the 11th century (the
Somnath temple in 1024). PRT is an abbreviation for Provincial Reconstruction
Team. The reference to the Ayyubid dynasty most certainly alludes to Saladin and
The Capture of Jerusalem in 1187.
16
M Nu’mān Dost, ‘Kasāt’ [Revenge], http://www.benawa.com, 10 November
2009, retrieved 20 January 2010.
17
‘I Latīfī, ‘Mīna aw Intiqām’ [Love and Revenge], http://www.benawa.com, 27
August 2009, retrieved 20 January 2010.
18
S Shīnwārī, ‘Parday Petay’ [The Stranger’s Insult], http://www.baheer.com, 20
August 2007, retrieved 2 November 2009.
19
NM Lāhū, ‘Dwa Kalī’ [Two Villages], http://www.benawa.com, 22 August
2009, retrieved 26 January 2010.
160 Experiences of Revenge
__________________________________________________________________

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Social Anthropology. Routledge, London, 1976.

Banerjee, M., The Pathan Unarmed: Opposition & Memory in the North West
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Anders Widmark 161
__________________________________________________________________

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Zaeef, A.S., My Life with the Taliban. van Linschoten, A.S. & Kuehn, F. (trans. &
ed), Hurst & Company, London, 2010.

Anders Widmark is a PhD student at Uppsala University, Department of


Linguistics and Philology. Besides teaching Persian and translating Dari/Pashto
literature, he is writing a thesis with the working title Voices at the Borders, Prose
on the Margins: Exploring the Contemporary Pashto Short Story.

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