One rainy, spring afternoon I noticed a flashing light and a loud, booming sound outside my bedroom window. I quickly grabbed my raincoat and rushed outside to see what was going on and before I knew it, blinding lights beamed me up inside a strange object. I had never seen anything like it and then it dawned on me that I must be inside a spaceship! Strange-looking, blue creatures appeared before me and began asking questions about human feeling and emotion. They seemed to be harmless, yet curious as to what I could tell them about revenge. So I began by saying, revenge is the act of inflicting hurt or harm on someone in hopes of getting even with them for wronging somebody else. Revenge is spiteful and often people retaliate because of anger or hatred. Humans have a tendency to want to be hateful to those who have wronged us. Revenge is done for a number of reasons: someone hurt you or someone you love, sometimes it is done to be malicious, and other times because somebody took advantage of you. There are three different ways to explain the idea of revenge. Through a short story, poem, and a play, I will attempt to explain revenge. The short story is “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe, the poem is “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning, and the play is “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare. All of these writings encompass this broad idea of revenge, yet at the same time they show different sides of revenge and the circumstances behind their actions.
“The Cask of Amontillado” features revenge and secret murder as a way to avoid using legal means for justice. Law is nowhere on Montresor’s radar screen. Fortunato’s constant insults fuels Montresor’s hate so he names himself judge, jury, and executioner of Fortunato. It is obvious...
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Works Cited
Carey, Benedict. "Payback Time: Why Revenge Tastes So Sweet." The New York Times, 27 July 2004. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. .
Cummings, Michael J. "My Last Duchess." Cummings Study Guides. N.p., June 2012. Web. 27 Apr. 2014. .
Mays, Kelly J. “The Cask of Amontillado”. 11th ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2013. 165-171. Print.
Mays, Kelly J. “Hamlet”. 11th ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2013. 1709-1804. Print.
Mays, Kelly J. “My Last Duchess”. 11th ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2013. 1334. Print.
Price, Michael. "Revenge and the people who seek it." N.p., 2009. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. .
Revenge is a fairly strong emotion; it’s wanting to retaliate towards those who wronged you. Revenge is such an uncontrollable way of retaliation that it can result in a destructive outcome or carried out successfully. Although the results may vary, revenge sums up to one thing which is pain of some sort, affecting both parties or just one. Throughout history we see many tales of revenge and redemption. Often revenge does leave the one carrying it out feeling victorious but this can suddenly change as the process of karma generally begins in some tales.
Evil exists naturally in the world, and there are many acts that are considered evil. As a result, evil is often a theme in literature. “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” by William Shakespeare, and “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe each rely heavily on evil to portray a message. Out of all of the evil acts that exist, exacting revenge is the evilest act that a person can make, for a person’s rash decision to exact revenge will ruin their sense of morality. The characters of Hamlet and Laertes in “Hamlet” each commit terrible acts of revenge, as does Montresor in “The Cask of Amontillado.”
While revenge may feel sweet at times, in most cases it is destructive to yourself and those around you. The article “Revenge:Will You Feel Better?” makes one contemplate this, and draws the question “is revenge really worth it?” Well, in the article, Karyn Hall suggests that “Revenge can be a strong urge, but you may not feel better if you act on it.” In fact, in a study performed by Kevin Carlsmith showed that “...the students that got revenge reported feeling worse than those who didn't…” With this, one may see that revenge is pointless, and in most cases leaves you feeling worse than the people you performed it
Many people percieve revenge to be something that falls under justice, as they are driven by emotions, while others consider getting the police involved as serving justice. Moreover, some people find revenge to be pleasing and satisfying, but to argue the point that just because something is more satisfying does not mean it is
Benton, Richard P. "The Cask of Amontillado: Overview." Reference Guide to Short Fiction. Ed. Noelle Watson. Detroit: St. James Press, 1994. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 3 Dec. 2010.
"The Cask of Amontillado" is one of Edgar Allan Poe's greatest stories. In this story Poe introduces two central characters and unfolds a tale of horror and perversion. Montresor, the narrator, and Fortunato, one of Montresor's friends, are doomed to the fate of their actions and will pay the price for their pride and jealousy. One pays the price with his life and the other pays the price with living with regret for the rest of his life. Poe uses mystery, irony, and imagery to create a horrifying, deceptive, and perverse story.
Have you ever met someone so clever, determined, and cruel to leave a man to die over an insult? Montresor is the perfect example of these character traits. In “The Cask of Amontillado”, by Edgar Allan Poe, Montresor uses all of these character traits to get revenge on Fortunado for insulting his family name. Montresor’s clever planning, determination for revenge, and cruel murder are the perfect combination for his unequaled revenge.
The Cask of Amontillado is a short tale of revenge, written by Edgar Allan Poe. The two main characters in the story are Montresor, who is the murderer, and Fortunato who plays a wine connoisseur and the victim. In this dark story, we can see a lot of irony, hate and revenge coming from the main character who has been planning this all along. In this essay I will analyze, examples of irony and foreshadowing used by the writer, symbols and themes, among other things. (Hasanbelliu)
The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe describes how Montresor confesses the sequence of his well-designed or nearly flawless murder or revenge against Fortunato due to he is a threat to him. In his confession of a perfect crime, Montresor, who “vowed revenge” because of Fortunato’s “thousand injuries,” first say that his “heart grew sick” and then immediately add, “ it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so because he believes Fortunato insults him many times that his hatred against him become bigger and bigger. This makes him cannot stand for Fortunato’s behavior anymore as well as the setting completely makes everything prefect as he believes Fortunato deserves the punishment. The nature and family hold a significant role
I would like to write an essay over. In my personal preference I chose revenge as my motif.
Revenge is considered part of human nature because it is a survival instinct. Humans are inclined to commit acts of savagery because people are delicate beings. The Oxford English Dictionary defines revenge as, “the action of hurting or harming someone in return for an injury or wrong suffered.” Two good examples involve Montresor from the Cask of Amontillado and the unknown narrator from the Tell- Tale Heart. Montresor murders a fellow wine connoisseur because he insulted Montresor in a manner that could not be exonerated. The narrator of the Tell-Tale Heart enacts revenge by murdering an old man for provoking the narrator’s worst fears in the form of a “ vulture eye”. In both of these works by Edgar Allen Poe, the need for revenge consumed their internal fears and insecurities to perform those cruel acts. In the end though, both of the people discussed showed signs of remorse that in a way formed the character.
Norms of Revenge. 4. Blackwell Publisher, 1990. 862. eBook. . Bar-elli, G. and Heyd, D. (1986), Can revenge be just or otherwise justified?.
It is the idea of revenge that sends a cool shiver down the spines of justly men when they begin to question as to why someone would stoop to such a level. But yet it is still more than an idea for revenge has been carried out in various forms along all the eras of history side-by-side of that of novels and tragedies. Even so, revenge is still a dark scheme; an evil plague of the mind per se. It is such a plague that will turn even the greatest persons of the brightest, optimistically capable of minds into lowly, as well as lonely, individuals. Thus, revenge will, and can, only end in despair and agony of the mind. Therefore, provided that all that has been said is true, revenge would appear quite unseemly to the observant onlooker. However, taking an in-depth insight into revenge you can uncover quite a compelling feature, which is best summed up into one word. Pride. Pride is the one clear motivational proprietor needed to push a protagonist into the downward spiral of personal vendetta. Without pride, revenge is no more than a mindless massacre of flesh and bone ending in the obliteration of any hope for reconciliation.
Revenge is such an enormous part of a being human. It is something that no matter how much you try to avoid part of you will persistently lust for it. When you are hurt in any way your natural instinct will always tell you to make the one who hurt you feel just as bad if not worse as how you felt. It is such a natural and powerful feeling, that when revenge is incorporated into a story it makes it so much stronger. Revenge will make you see so many more sides of characters and make them seem much more complex. Revenge can give fictional characters a more human quality. That is why so many writers use it as their theme.
My personal experience with revenge isn’t much, and it concerns little things. Revenge can simply be when a person draws on your book, and in spite you would draw on their book as well. It might as well occur in a game, for example my friend plays a lot of game online and this game is to simply ‘kill’ other opponents. Once, her character got attacked by another opponent but she was not prepared for the attack and she lost. Because of this, she was angry and wanted to seek revenge. She then got all her other friends to ‘gang’ up and attack the opponent. Since it wasn’t a very fair battle, the opponent lost. This act might seem childish and trivial, but this is the act of revenge.