Revenge-Driven Oppression in the Plays of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries

Abstract

Shakespeare wrote a number of plays in which the theme of revenge is central to the plots. In Othello, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, and others, the protagonists' or the antagonists' attempting to carry out revenge is ultimately inflicting to themselves and the ones that are involved. Revenge becomes a form of oppression when the person seeking revenge becomes so obsessed with his actions that he cannot see that he is destroying himself and harming everyone and everything else around him. In most of the plays where revenge is the dominating theme, the person seeking revenge is eaten by his own malice. Furthermore, the thought of revenge leads to the oppression of the mind, distorting the individual's thinking and resulting in destructive and anomie behaviours. Socially, the unreinable rage of the revenge-driven individual can lead to politically oppressive behaviour. In very few cases do those who seek revenge actually succeed. In the case they do, they bring about the ruin of those who they are seeking revenge against. The revenge does not really help them as it does not right the wrong that was done to them or heal the hurt that they suffered. As Chinese saying goes, ‘He who seeks revenge needs to dig two graves,' Shakespeare, in many ways, proves this to be true.