What goes around comes around. Although many of us believe in the basic Buddhist theory of Karma, we often fail to be patient and seek revenge on those who have hurt. Revenge works in a cycle, Transgression after transgression. As seen in Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Revenge in every aspect including its cycles and displacement can cause harm to the one seeking revenge, the target of the revenge, and innocent bystanders. With so many ways it can hurt, why would we even seek revenge against others?
To fully understand the effects of revenge and the reasons behind it we must first understand what revenge is. “Revenge is defined as “an aggressive, often violent, response to intentional harm that has been inflicted on the avengers and their
“Victims tend to view transgression and more harmful than do perpetrators.” (Witvlet, 446).The only thing they may ever feel is guilt. It doesn’t really hurt the perpetrators, but others may be affected in the avenger’s attempts to hurt them. This type of revenge is known as displaced revenge. “Displaced revenge can be defined as retributive reactions toward a prior transgression that are not directed against the original transgressor(s) but rather against uninvolved targets. “(Sjöström & Gollwitzer. 192). Although initially directed at the perpetrator revenge can hurt others, just like the way Hamlet unintentionally hurt Ophelia in Act 3 scene 1 of the play. He took out his frustrations and wanting to hurt his mother out on her and created a stereotype about all women because of it. “Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell.” (Shakesphere). Ophelia not even apart of him and his family’s issues felt the wrath and cruelty of his
“When a victim exacts revenge, the original perpetrator often perceives the revenge as greater than the original offense and may retaliate to settle the score, thereby perpetrating a vicious cycle of vengeance.” (Witvlet, 447). After the original victim revenge on the aggressor, the aggressor may return it with more wrongdoings and like in any cause and effect situation the initial action leads to more, hurting more and more people and the original aggressor still isn’t effected as much as the original victim. An example from Hamlet is in his attempts to hurt his uncle and playing crazy, his mother, Ophelia and Polonius all died, before him even to to hurt the king. Even then the king wasn’t really affected by any of these, but hamlet hurt more. “Cycles of revenge are exceedingly destructive, and, indeed, forgiveness can offer a way of terminating the cycle.” (Gower 116). If we would simply forgive wrongdoing against us, we would eliminate others feeling the same pain we felt or people uninvolved getting hurt. Like the bible verse Mark 11:25 says “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” Not only will we be forgiven in heaven, our lives here on earth will be way more
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.
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
Justice and revenge are two completely different things but are sometimes incorrectly used interchangeably. Many people get them confused with each other. Justice tends to be very rational, impartial, impersonal, and by definition fair. Whereas, revenge is emotional, personal, and generally people acting out based on their negative emotions. First, revenge tends to be much more brutal, where justice is more along the lines of moral correction and someone getting arrested for their wrong doings.
For the meek, vengeance pleasures the soul; however, it is only temporal. Like an addictive drug, revenge soothes anger and tension by sedating the mind with ephemeral comfort. Despite the initial relief, pain ensues and conditions seem worse than before. Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of the non-violence movement in India, stated once that “an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” There is no such thing as a sweet revenge.
Revenge is best served cold or so says the well-known expression. This idea of revenge that they seek is usually to restore balance and take an “eye for an eye” as the Bible says. Revenge, if by chance everyone were in Plato’s perfect utopia, would be in a perfect form, where justice and revenge would be one, and the coined phrase “eye for an eye” would be taken literally. By taking an eye for and eye, and punishing those who did wrong equally as they did wrong, there is justice. However, this revenge sometimes goes too far and is consequently not justice.
Revenge is defined as harming someone for the wrong doings that they commit. Revenge is the key ingredient to hundreds of the most loved and action packed movies, books, and shows of today. Because of the fact that there is so much vengeance played out in entertainment media, society encourages revenge as necessary to those seeking retribution. Works of art such as Kill Bill and “Killings” are prime examples of stories that are about revenge.
The definition of revenge: “to punish somebody who has harmed you or harmed a friend” (Revenge, web).
Revenge, on the other hand, refers to an action taken by an individual as a response to an act of injustice. The principle of revenge is “an eye for an eye”…. Can revenge be justified and be as equally part of justice if they both seek retribution for a wrongdoing? The universal distinction between justice and revenge is quite distinctive, is there more beyond their differences? Revenge is retaliation by a wronged party against the person or people they see as having caused the wrong.
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.
In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare the theme of revenge is heavily embedded into its frame work, seeing it follows Prince Hamlet in his task of avenging the mysterious death of his father. After encountering the ghost of his father Hamlet was lead to suspect that his uncle Claudius, who took over as king of Denmark after marrying Hamlet’s widowed mother, was the father’s murder. So although by simple glance it may seem that Hamlet was in search for revenge throughout the play, Hamlet took many precautions to insure that the action of removing his uncle from power was truthfully deserved. So, Hamlet ultimately sought justice for the murder of his father, but through strong emotions hamlet did commit several uncivil acts that played an
I do agree that revenge does have an effect on the story, but not as strong as conflict does. An example is the plot that follows the battle of Hamlet and Claudius. Hamlet wants revenge on Claudius, killing his father (Shakespeare, 39). Claudius wants Hamlet out of the picture in any way possible before that kid spoils his plan. That conflict, that revenge, that fight between them causes events like people dying or Hamlet gets shipped away.
Revenge almost always has the makings of an intriguing and tragic story. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a perfect example of how revenge unfolds and what it unveils. The play tells the story of Hamlet, the prince of Denmark. Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle, marries his mother soon after his father’s death. Hamlet greatly disapproves of the hasty marriage and suspects foul play. His suspicions are confirmed when the ghost of his father appears and tells him that Claudius murdered him. Hamlet’s father asks him to take revenge upon Claudius, and soon everything takes a drastic change. The courses of revenge throughout Hamlet surround each character with corruption, obsession, and fatality.
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.
Taking revenge is a bitter sweet thing. I have always thought that people should always get what they desire, whether it be a grade, a smile and hug or in some cases, revenge. When I was in high school there seemed to be someone always trying to get me in trouble, they would say things that wouldn’t be true or do things to make me look bad. The fact that I never seemed to do anything to them would make me mad and wonder what I could do to get them back. Revenge would usually come in some sort of verbal put down or I would try to physically hurt them. It always seemed when I would get the revenge right away I would feel really good but as I thought about what I did, and what they did to me I would always feel guilty or wish I would have never done anything to them in return.
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.