Authors: Ronald B Tobias
F
rancis Bacon called revenge a wild justice. In literature the dominant motive for this plot is loud and clear: retaliation by the protagonist against the antagonist for real or imagined injury. It's a visceral plot, which means it reaches into us at a deep emotional level. We bristle against injustice and we want to see it corrected. And almost always, the retaliation is outside the limits of the law. This is the wild justice that Bacon spoke about. There are times when the law cannot properly dispense justice, so we take the matter into our own hands. We have a Biblical precedent that we've heard quoted so many times that we can recite it in our sleep: "An eye for an eye, tooth for tooth; hand for hand, foot for foot" (Exodus 21:24). In the throes of righteousness it's easy to overlook Jesus' response: "If any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles." Fine sentiments, but obviously not human nature. If you hit me, I will hit you back. (There have been some fine stories about people who cling to their faith when tempted by revenge, but they're better people than most of us are.)
Revenge is vigilante justice, which has as much power today as it had a thousand years ago.
The theme of revenge was a favorite among the Greeks, but it
reached its highest expression in seventeenth-century Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedy.
Thomas Kyd's
The Spanish Tragedy,
written about 1590, is about Hieronimo, who wavers on the verge of madness after his son is murdered. Between his spells of madness, he discovers who has killed his son and why, and he plots revenge. Sound familiar?
Not yet? Then two more clues. The ghost of the murdered son calls for his father to carry out the revenge. Hieronimo then stages a play in which the murderers are killed. Figure it out yet?
Antonio's Revenge,
you say? In this play by John Marston, Antonio's murdered father appears as a ghost and begs his son to avenge his murder, which he does during a court ball.
Or maybe you thought of George Chapman's
The Revenge of Bussy d'Amboise,
when Bussy's ghost begs his brother to avenge his murder? Or was it Henry Chettle's
Tragedy of Hoffman?
Or Cyril Tourneur's
The Revengers Tragedie?
Most likely it was Shakespeare's
Hamlet,
which is probably the most famous revenge story ever told. (Remember what I said earlier about Shakespeare's originality?) Sure, others told the same story, but none told it so well. The talking ghost crying out for revenge, the feigned madness, the play-within-the-play and the carnage at the end were all stock devices used in the revenge tragedy.
Most of our contemporary revenge stories don't have the range of character and feeling that Shakespeare brought to
Hamlet.
Still, the pattern of the revenge plot hasn't changed in the last three thousand years. At the heart of the story is the protagonist, who is generally a good person forced to take vengeance into her own hands when the law won't give satisfaction. Then there's the antagonist, the person who has committed the crime, who for some quirk in the natural progress of events has escaped punishment for his crime. Last, there's the victim, the person whom the protagonist must avenge. As a character, the victim obviously is expendable; his purpose is to arouse our sympathies, for him and for the protagonist (who has been denied love, companionship or the like). Sometimes the victim is the protagonist himself. The more heinous the crime (rape, murder, incest), the more the protagonist is justified in seeking vengeance. We don't expect the character to go on a campaign of revenge for someone having shoplifted a quart of beer out of her store or for claiming an undeserved deduction on his income tax form.
The first rule of revenge is that the punishment must equal the crime—thus the concept of "getting even." The Bible's warrant doesn't allow us to exceed that which has been received. "An eye
for an eye; a tooth for a tooth. . . ." And with our primitive sense
of justice, we are content to exact that same punishment. No more, and no less.
The basic dramatic structure of the plot has changed very little over time. Its three dramatic phases remain consistent from early Greek tragedy to modern Hollywood melodrama.
THE FIRST DRAMATIC PHASE-THE CRIME
The first dramatic phase consists primarily of the crime. The hero and his loved ones are established when suddenly an awful crime intrudes, terminating the hero's happiness. The hero is unable to defend against the crime. Either he's not present or he's restrained (and forced to watch, which adds to the horror).
In some stories, such as the older ones I've cited, a murder has been committed before the story begins. Hamlet's father is already murdered. Generally it's good advice for any writer to start a scene late and get out early; that is, don't drag your reader through every detail leading up to the action, and don't "hang around" after it. Confine your writing to the core of the scene. But I don't recommend cutting the scenes so tightly that the audience doesn't witness the crime, because it may be an important element for the reader to experience emotionally. If someone commits a wrongdoing against me or my family, and I want others to share in my outrage, the most effective way for me to gain your empathy is to make you witness the crime. These scenes are not only powerful because of their content, but because they create a strong bond between the audience and the victim. We feel for the victim. We are as outraged as she is, and we want justice as badly as she does. If the crime occurs before your readers enter the story, they are less inclined to feel empathetic. Sympathetic, maybe, but not empathetic. One of your primary goals in this plot is to build a strong emotional bridge between your readers and your main character.
The hero may rely on justice from other sources, such as the police, but that almost never gives satisfaction. He then realizes that if there is any justice to be had, he must dispense it himself.
THE SECOND DRAMATIC PHASE-REVENGE
The second dramatic phase starts as the hero makes his plans for revenge. He prepares for action. If the vengeance involves a single antagonist, the second phase may deal with pursuit (finding) as well as preparation for revenge. In the case of serial revenge, in which several people must pay for the crime, the hero may start dispensing justice in this phase. There is often a third party (to complete the triangle), who tries to stop the hero from achieving his intention. In
Death Wish
it's the police officer investigating the case. In
Sudden Impact
it's Harry Calahan investigating the case. In both cases, the police are sympathetic to the hero's cause and end up helping in some way. In
The Outlaw Josey Wales,
the third arm of the triangle is an old Indian, who adds both a comic touch and historical proportion, since he too has been a victim.
THE THIRD DRAMATIC PHASE-CONFRONTATION
The third dramatic phase deals with the confrontation. In the case of serial revenge, the final criminal to get his due is the most important: Either he's the ringleader, or the most psychopathic, or whatever. This is the moment of triumph for the protagonist. Her motivation has been single-minded all along. She either succeeds or fails. In the case of
Ulu,
the powerful revenge film from New Zealand, the hero is a Maori man who finds his entire village massacred by the British army. He swears "ulu"—traditional revenge—and wages his own war against the British. One man against an army. His serial revenge is successful until the third phase, when he's captured. He's executed, but his death is heroic. In popular literature, however, the protagonist is almost always successful, and once the vengeance is accomplished, she can return to "normal" life.
Revenge is an emotionally powerful motivation; it tends to almost possess the hero. The drama has hard edges and can make some readers uncomfortable with the violence that it entails. Although violence isn't a prerequisite of this plot, classical revenge usually involves violence, and an informal survey of stories in this category will show violence is a common motif.
But revenge can take nonviolent forms as well. What happens, for instance, when you want to write a comedy in this form? As with plots that incorporate violence, the punishment in a comedy must fit the crime. There are lesser crimes, crimes that don't require violence to settle the score; for example, it would be appropriate for a con man to be conned in return, such as in the "sting" story. Not all sting stories are revenge plots, but many are. The Pulitzer-Prize winning dramatist David Mamet is famous for his stories about stings and con artists. However, the best example of the sting as a revenge plot is the 1973 film by the same name starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Sting stories get their energy and appeal from elaborate cons that take a long time to set up (and usually don't go as planned). These intricate inventions developed in the second dramatic phase delight us; they are complicated, unwieldy and seemingly impossible.
Unfortunately, well-crafted revenge stories are the exception rather than the rule. Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado" is a wonderful exception. The story has only two characters, Montressor and Fortunato. Because it's a short story, Poe had the flexibility to bend the basic formula.
Fortunato commits the crime. Montressor is the victim. The crime? An insult. Montressor tells the story, and we never find out what the insult was. He tells us, "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge." We suspect the man has a screw loose.
Montressor plans his revenge. It must be perfect, one in which his victim will know exactly what is happening to him. During a carnival, a time of "supreme madness," Montressor lures Fortunato into his wine cellar to taste some amontillado. He chains Fortunato to a wall and then entombs him behind a wall of stone, where he will wait for his death in darkness, repenting for his crime.
Fortunato, of course, is as much in the dark as we are. This revenge is for an imaginary insult or an insult so blown out of proportion that the punishment also is blown out of proportion.
One reason the tale works so well is that it's told in the first person. Montressor assumes we will condone his actions and share in the grotesque perfection of revenge. Although he sounds sane for most of the story, he reveals his true self at the end, when Fortunato starts to scream from behind the wall that Montressor is building. He unsheathes his sword, thrusts it about in the air and starts to scream himself, drowning out the screams of his victim.
It's a sketch of madness, little more. Diabolical, chilling and clever. But we can't sympathize with Montressor; we quickly despise him. It would have been next to impossible to pull off this story as a novel. Poe's four pages is about as far as he could go.
Euripides went further with
Medea.
Master Plot #18, "Wretched Excess," arguably could be the logical place for Medea because the title character takes revenge to all-time extremes. But the plot is still revenge, and therefore I keep it in this category.
If Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Medea is the personification of the scorned woman. When her husband deserts her for another woman, she swears revenge. But like Montressor, she has no sense of proportion, and she violates the first rule of revenge: She punishes her husband (and herself) far more than the crime would allow. Medea pays the price for her severity, but even so, she never becomes a sympathetic character.
Medea
is a cautionary tale that warns against excess of emotion and decries the price of bitterness.
Medea's plan is to murder her husband, Jason; his new wife, Glauce; and Glauce's father. But, like Montressor, she wants Jason to suffer for his crime against her. Killing him would be too easy. So she decides to kill Glauce, Glauce's father, and her own children, thereby denying Jason everyone he loves.
Medea apologizes to Jason for her earlier outburst and asks if she can send her children with gifts for his new wife as a sign of her repentance. Jason is pleased, of course, and agrees.
Medea's gift to Glauce is a beautiful golden robe, a present from her grandfather, Helios, god of the sun. But before she gives
the robe to her children to give to Glauce, she douses it with a deadly drug.
When Glauce tries on the robe the drug sears her flesh and she dies in agony. Her father tries to save her and is himself contaminated and dies the same death.
Meanwhile, Medea's children return to her. She has second thoughts about killing them, as her maternal instincts momentarily interfere with her plan of revenge. But, as Euripides points out, Medea isn't a Greek—she is a barbarian—and she takes a sword and slaughters her children.
Jason is insane with grief and, as he pounds on the doors to Medea's house, she appears at the balcony holding the bodies of her dead children. Medea escapes in a chariot sent by Helios, and as she carries away the bodies of the children, she taunts Jason with the loneliness and grief that await him. Even though she must suffer the same fate, it will always be tempered by the sweetness of her revenge.