America is wrestling with revenge and retribution in a way not seen since Reconstruction. This struggle poses a significant challenge to democracy, blurring the lines between the pursuit of justice and the thirst for revenge. In a culture anticipating the next great societal catastrophe, the idea of revenge becomes a perverse source of stability, bringing out the worst of human impulses: "We can't do much, but at least we can get even."
While most Americans oppose revenge as a lifestyle choice, it's an urge that is hard to suppress. Aggrievment is a powerful and universal emotion. When prominent public figures endorse the idea, the irrational nature of revenge shatters, as Lincoln aptly said, "the better angels of our nature."
William Shakespeare vividly portrays the destructive nature of revenge. Whether it's the tragedy of Hamlet, the jealousy in Othello, the bloodshed in Titus Andronicus, or the madness in King Lear, each is fueled by characters seeking vengeance. Shakespeare's message is clear: Revenge annihilates individuals, families, and societies. He warns that a culture of revenge is not a sign of a functioning civilization. For Shakespeare, revenge and retribution are not just violence but a ritualized, uncontrolled force that floods the brain with dopamine, making it a hard habit to break.
Shakespeare's culture embraced revenge. In the wake of the Gunpowder Plot, a wave of Protestant retribution swept across the remnants of Catholic England. As the death toll mounted, exiles fled to the continent, and a wrathful Puritan God and Protestant King re-formed England, and vengeance became a fact of life. In Macbeth, we witness this struggle as an allegory mirroring England's struggle to become a United Kingdom under the Scottish-born monarch James.
In the late 16th century, a new genre, the revenge tragedy, was born. Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus was his most significant contribution to the oeuvre. The blood-soaked tit-for-tat story set in ancient Rome makes the internecine violence in Hamlet's Denmark seem quaint.
Titus is one of Rome's leading generals. Fresh from the battlefield in Gaul, he brings the queen of the recently conquered Goths, Tamora, to the Roman emperor Saturninus. Tamora, angry about being captured and Titus' murder of her son (in battle), vows revenge. What follows is an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, and a bloody spiral of revenge. Listen to Tamora's words:
Thus, in this strange and sad habiliment
I will encounter with Andronicus,
And say I am revenge, sent from below
To join with him and right his heinous wrongs.
Knock at his study, where, they say, he keeps,
To ruminate strange plots of dire revenge;
Tell him revenge is come to join with him,
And work confusion on his enemies. (Act 5, Scene 2)
"I am revenge," she says. Tell him that revenge will join him and work confusion on his enemies. Her rage is palpable. These are frightening words, not unlike those from some politicians, pundits, and preachers in contemporary America. Tamora is revenge embodied. In this scene from Act V, the word appears three times. Revenge consumes Tamora. She is nothing more than her revenge.
Why? It is a matter of honor. Revenge becomes the only form of acceptable justice to maintain one's honor, or so it is perceived. One death, in Titus Andronicus, follows another. Titus’s son dies. There are executions. As the quest for revenge continues and the body count rises, the search for honor leads to madness. By the end of the play, it is impossible to distinguish honor, revenge, horror, and insanity from one another.
Shakespeare's message to 21st-century America is this: when revenge is the plot, death is the subplot. Those who preach revenge open the door to "strange plots" of death and see enemies at every turn. Death follows vengeance, revenge inevitably leads to killing, and the vain quest for honor erodes our basic humanity.
Richard III is all about revenge.
The Duke of Gloucester is angry at being deformed and hideously ugly. "Since I cannot prove a lover, I will prove a villain," and he lays plots against his entire family...and then his own friends and supporters.