NARRATIVE TROPES
Making a Case for Revenge
The “revenge story” is a tale as old as time — but what about it motivates the characters in these stories?
I love a good revenge story.
There’s something about making right a wrong that feels immensely cathartic and victorious. It probably stems from my inability to provide a good enough comeback (or “clap back” as it’s known these days) at the right place, right time. In this regard, I resemble Meg Ryan — minus the blue-eyed blondness — and her regret at being tongue-tied at Tom Hanks’ snarkiness, only to later think of a witty, biting retort within the comfort of her comforter.
The French have a great expression to describe this feeling, as they do for quite many other nuanced expressions. L’esprit de l’escalier roughly translates to “staircase wit” or “elevator wit”, although the literal translation is “the spirit of the staircase”, which sounds more like the title of a horror film and less like a moment of private shame.
I must admit that I have had more than my fair share of these moments of staircase wit. They have permeated my personal life, my brushes with the casual “Hope you’re calmer now,” at work life, as well as more severe encounters that have left me feeling helpless and vulnerable.
And curiously, that particular feeling is something I’ve found in common with the characters in most of the revenge narratives I’ve come across.
For instance, Tom Ford’s last film, Nocturnal Animals (2016), doesn’t strike you as a run-of-the-mill revenge drama — at first. The film is about an art gallery owner who receives a manuscript from her ex-husband, triggering old, unfinished feelings. The manuscript tells the story of a man who, one fateful night, watches helplessly as his wife and daughter are taken away from him in the middle of a lonely Texan highway, which then becomes his motivation for revenge. The film, on the other hand, focuses on the art gallery owner reading the book and reflecting on her relationship with the writer — her ex-husband — whom she left for another man.
While the manuscript tells a visceral, heartbreaking tale of revenge, the film chooses to be meditative, emphasising the gallery owner and her ex-husband’s rich inner lives and their internal conflicts. However, the one consistent factor in both the manuscript and the film is the central male character who’s been made to feel vulnerable and helpless, motivated by these events to seek revenge.
In some stories, the protagonists seeking revenge are rendered even more vulnerable and helpless by their situation. However, the more likely cause to go after the revenge is another character in the story — the foil that sets them on their path to seek vengeance. Be it Fernand Mondego for Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo or Count Rugen for Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride (1987), the foil and the seeker of vengeance have a complicated relationship that covers the plot and defines their characters, motivations and course of events.
And that’s exactly where the lines between righting a wrong and stooping to the level of the wrongdoer become blurred. In exacting revenge and claiming vengeance for whatever might have been done, there is an aspect of sacrifice — of naïveté, of one’s former self, or one’s morality, even. In no other narrative trajectory is this truer, as the person wronged becomes as, or even more, violent than the perpetrator, in order to make things right. John Wick will stop at nothing to get back at those who killed his dog. Sansa Stark watches coldly as the man who raped and tortured her is eaten by his very own hounds.
This brings us to a feminine aspect of revenge that has birthed an entire genre of its own, particularly in terms of rape. I Spit on Your Grave (1978) is a classic example of a rape and revenge horror film, where the main character seeks revenge against the perpetrators after being brutalised, raped and left for dead.
Film critic Roger Ebert considered it one of the worst films he’d ever seen, and other films in the genre soon received a reputation for being sleazy, overtly sexual and unnecessarily violent, almost to the point of glorification. Several other films have been spawned using similar tropes, including The Last House on the Left (1972) and even The Nightingale (2018). Although the latter partly follows the trajectory of the rape and revenge genre, it differs in that it also explores larger themes — of colonisation, race and history.
Disclaimer: I must mention here that I personally haven’t watched the rape and revenge films referenced here but am going by their descriptions as per the critics and synopses that are attached to them.
But beyond the “rape and revenge” is the question of justice — where exactly does this fit in? Seeking revenge goes well beyond taking the high road — so is it a particular type of person who’s been wronged, over and over again, who finally breaks and decides to seek retribution, and only then is it considered revenge? Or, can any form of “getting back at someone” — no matter who it is or how wronged they are — be considered revenge?
To my mind, justice has become associated with putting the “wrong-doers” behind bars for a particular amount of time. Sure, there’s execution, but it’s a lot rarer these days. Justice takes time; it’s a question of intellect, logic, and determining how much justice must be meted out for the volume of the crime committed. But justice, of course, requires time, patience and the best perspective of the story at hand — in other words, lawyers and judges.
But revenge — ah, pure, cold, delicious revenge. Revenge waits for no one. Its emotional catharsis can sometimes subvert the route to justice. It comes out kicking and screaming after being wronged over and over and over again. There is something so visceral and raw about revenge that it is an inbuilt instinct that we all seem to understand, whether we want to or not. In the argument of head and heart, the former most definitely belongs to blind justice, whereas the latter most gut-wrenchingly belongs to revenge.
But what of “An eye for an eye turns the whole world blind”? I believe Mother’s Milk put it best in an episode of The Boys: “[Why is it that] I got to turn the other cheek?”
And, in a sense, the feeling of vengeance and revenge runs deep, especially today. Years of suppression and oppression have finally cracked and opened up karmic retribution that the perpetrator never saw coming. And while justice loudly clamours that revenge is not the way, I can’t deny a sense of satisfaction when reading stories such as the one about the woman who killed her rapist. Yes, she has to pay for what she did, but we certainly can’t ignore why she did it.
