The revenge tragedy genre has been both popular and unique in its ability to simultaneously arouse seemingly unrelated feelings in its audience: revenge and sympathy . What makes this genre vary from play to play, however, is the author's ability either to obtain the audience's identification with the "avenger" and his actions, or to isolate him from the readers in doing so. Additionally, by keeping the audience either aligned with the avenger-protagonist or objectifying them, the overall effectiveness of the play is also affected. By analyzing this trend, we can examine two revenge tragedies in which the protagonist's actions have opposite effects on the audience. In Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, for example, readers see the protagonist immediately wronged and actively seek revenge throughout the play; However, in doing so, he goes too far and ultimately commits heinous acts that lead to his general isolation from readers, as they can no longer sympathize or identify with him as the character he originally was . However, in Revenger's Tragedy by Thomas Middleton, the protagonist, also wronged at the beginning, actively seeks revenge throughout the play; Yet, by continuing his personal journey of revenge, readers are able to identify and sympathize with him until his final death. This pattern of objectification or identification with the vengeful protagonist ultimately proves crucial to the works' overall effectiveness as a revenge play and tragedy, as garnering these dual emotions from the readings proves to be a challenge that is not always noted. in the genre. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Although The Revenger's Tragedy and The Jew of Malta end with two different effects on its readers, both works begin the same way, following the revenge tragedy. form, as the protagonists are wrongly harmed by corrupt characters in positions of higher social status. For example, in Malta, the play begins with the authorities telling the protagonist, Barabas, that they must seize his money because he is Jewish. As readers at this point in the play, sympathy automatically goes to Barabas, a man who has done no wrong, yet is exploited by a character higher up than himself. It's difficult not to identify with Barabas, who has made no mistake and claims to simply want to live in peace and keep his money to provide for his daughter's needs. Barabas declares: “Give us a peaceful government; . . . I have no responsibility, nor many children, but only one daughter, who is close to my heart. . . And all I have is hers” (Marlowe Ii 132-137). Readers are exposed to the initial fault against Barabas, as Ferenze, the governor of Malta, tells him. . . Jew, like the infidels, for because of our suffering towards your hateful lives, which are cursed in the sight of heaven, these taxes and these afflictions have come, and therefore we are determined thus. Read the article of our decrees. . . 'First of all. . . each of them will have to pay half of their estate. . . Second, whoever refuses to pay will immediately become a Christian. . . Finally, he who denies this will lose absolutely everything he has” (Marlowe I.ii. 63-77). Again, at this point in the play, readers witness the protagonist being deprived of his money for no good reason, making sympathizing with him as the Other quite easy for an audience who, too, has probably already felt alienated as an Other before. Barabas's poignant reaction to being wronged by theseauthorities also helps readers identify with him when he cries, “You have my wealth, the work of my life, the comfort of my age, the hope of my children; And so we never distinguish evil. . . Your extreme right is extremely wrong to me” (Marlowe I.ii. 150-155). At this point in the play, Marlowe has made it quite easy for readers to sympathize and identify with Barabas, a man seemingly robbed by society and a man in whom readers can probably see themselves as well. This initial sympathy for Barabas in turn helps align readers with the idea that Barabas deserves revenge for the unjustified crime committed against him. Barabas later vows to seek revenge on Ferenze, the man who took his money, "whose heart he will have", claiming that he cannot "forget a wound so soon" (Marlowe II.iii. 15 -19). At this point in the play, this need for revenge for the wrongdoing that readers previously witnessed seems both justified and righteous, demonstrating both the sympathy that readers have gained for the injured protagonist and the identification felt in the need for a “just” punishment. Additionally, in Middleton's Revenger's Tragedy, readers also see the protagonist immediately victimized at the beginning by a corrupt social force, an act which also aims to gain the readers' sympathy and thus identify them with the wronged protagonist. For example, in the first scene of the play, readers see the protagonist, Vindex, talking longingly to his late wife's skull as he declares the crime against her and promises to make up for it by saying, "The old duke has been poisoned, because your purest part would not consent to his thirst for paralysis; for lecherous old men outbidding themselves as their limited performances. Age, like gold, is greedy in lust. Vengeance, you are the rent of murder, and by which you show yourself tenant of tragedy. . . Um, who knew murder wasn't paid for? Faith, give him his due. . . (Middleton II 32-41). Upon learning of the atrocious crime committed against Vindex's wife for an even more atrocious reason in his inability to consent to his desire for her, Middleton immediately puts readers on the side of the revenge-protagonist, as considering such a crime committed against innocents, as in the case of Barabas, makes revenge not a crime, but an act of justice and just retribution, again a feeling that one can easily identify with as the audience tends to identify with the Other underdog - in this case, two innocent men wronged by corrupt and authoritative figures. Moreover, it is this tendency that helps make sympathy for the revenge-protagonist and his future actions a strength that, when properly used, makes the play equally effective as a revenge tragedy. As the two plays continue, readers remain on the sidelines. of the avenging protagonists and their mission to take revenge for the suffering they have unjustly endured. As each play builds to its climax, readers eventually experience this shared catharsis in the protagonists' success in enacting their revenge. For example, in Malta, Barabas timidly organizes a duel in which Ferenze's son Lodowick will meet death. Barabas, before the duel, speaks enthusiastically of his eagerness to "see [Lodowick's] death" and enthusiastically tells his slave about Ithamore. the plans, as Ithamore replies, "As they will, and the fighting will die." Sporting courage! » (Marlowe III.i. 31). During the duel itself, Barabas witnesses Lodowick's death, sarcastically noting afterwards: "Yes, separate them now, they are dead." Farewell, farewell» (Marlowe III.ii. 9). At this point, readers can simultaneously breathe a “sigh of relief” since Barabas has succeeded in avenging his tormentor. Even after witnessing a character's death, one can't help but feel that it was justified by the "eye for an eye" mentality present in this genre; once again illustrating that the sympathy in the play remained with the protagonist, due to the idea that "justice" was finally served after the initial act committed against Barabas. Readers experience this similar catharsis in the justified act of revenge in Revenger's Tragedy as does Vindex. also organizes and carries out his act of revenge against the Duke in his elaborate plan in which he poisons him using the very skull of his late wife. Vindex outlines his plan saying: “This very skull whose mistress is the duce poisoned with this drug, the deadly curse of the earth, will take revenge in the same way and kiss his lips to death. As far as the stupid can, he will feel: what fails in poison, we will supply in steel” (Middleton III.v. 101-107). Even during the act itself, readers remain on Vindex's side, as the "evil innocent", as he tells the Duke before his death: "It's me, it's Vindex, it's me » and “Mark me, Duke” (Middleton III.v.165,175). The readers' unwavering sympathy for Vclude at this point in the play makes this act of revenge interpreted as perfectly justifiable given the circumstances of the play and the Duke's initial crime at the beginning. Furthermore, identification with the protagonist-venvenger has not yet broken with the “lex talionis” mentality whereby an audience is both capable of understanding the situation and has more likely than not used to it before. Although both protagonists seem to have been successfully avenged after these events. While eliciting sympathy from the reader, the events that occur subsequently highlight the marked differences in the ability of the plays' audiences to remain identified with the protagonists. In The Jew of Malta, Barabas's future actions indicate that he had become too consumed with the notion of revenge and that by overstepping his bounds, his continued heinous offenses ultimately serve to objectify him in the eyes of readers, such as sympathy original for an ancient An innocent man wronged by a corrupt character turns into apathy for a sociopath that readers simply can no longer identify with. For example, Barabas' first transgression that serves to initiate this objectification by readers occurs when he considers murdering his own daughter for her decision to convert. to Christianity. It is at this point in the play that readers can no longer sympathize with an innocent victim who simply wants to seek their own form of social justice, and begin to see a lonely character so obsessed with revenge that it is difficult to determine what he wants. even seeks to accomplish in doing so. Barabas seems to feel no remorse after killing his only daughter, and rather than stopping there, this alienation from him as a character rises even higher with Barabas' plan to kill again. According to the protagonist: “For he who [converted his daughter] is in my house. What if I killed him before Jacomo arrived? Now I have such a plot for both their lives. . . They transformed my daughter, so he will die; The other knows enough to have my life; Therefore it is not necessary that he should live” (Marlowe IV.i. 119-124). Through these lines, it is clear that Barabas no longer seeks to alleviate his own suffering that he initially endured; rather, he has simply adopted a new obsession with killing for any reason he can find. Later in the play,Barabas hatches an additional plan to kill his slave, the slave's mistress, and the mistress's pimp as well, once again illustrating not a sympathetic man in whom a reader can see themselves, but a bloodthirsty sociopath - a man in which readers can no longer identify - and so the sympathy initially felt for him ultimately collapses with each act of senseless murder that Barabas commits. At the end of the play, Barabas, like all tragic figures, eventually meets his demise on his own. hands as he eventually finds himself embroiled in his own murderous plot, burning alive in the very cauldron he designed to kill others. At this point in the play, all sympathy for Barabas is lost and his death seems justified and consistent with his previously committed actions and plans. Barabas's eventual death, as he dies cursing those around him, shouting "Cursed Christians, dogs and infidel Turks!" (Marlowe Vv 85) officially marks the long transition from a man with whom readers could identify and sympathize - having been victimized by society and by whom an act of revenge seemed justified - to a deranged tragic figure who had become so obsessed with the idea of ​​revenge which became objectified in the eyes of readers dying as a man who got what he deserved for his own. The inability to sympathize with Barabas at the end of Malta proves that the play itself, while effective in accomplishing the theme of vengeance and the downfall of the individual in seeking it, was not as effective in garnering sympathy from its audience, with the protagonist having become completely alienated by this, making him a tragic figure in theory, but significantly less tragic for readers in practice. In contrast to this gradual loss of sympathy and eventual objectification of Barabas, the audience of The Revenger's Tragedy never seems to lose its identification with Vindex, as it remains focused on the corrupt Duke and his family and does not seem to overstep its bounds. to take revenge as Barabas had done. After the Duke's death at the hands of Vindex, his court turns into a circus as his sons, each eager to fight their way to the throne by any means possible, are revealed to exemplify the very corrupt traits that reigned in their father, stating that perhaps this corrupt force that Vindex sought to avenge and eliminate had in fact not yet been realized. At the end of the play, as the four sons argue over who will become duke, a series of bizarre events leads Vindex to complete his revenge, with the help of these doomed sons, as all four end up being stabbed while fighting for the throne. . At the end, each of the four sons having died, Vindex whispers to Lussuriouso: “. . . It was Vindex who murdered you. . . I murdered your father, and it was me. Don’t tell anyone…” (Middleton V.iii. 74-78). At this point, however, the sympathy is still with Vindex, for the play has almost reached its conclusion, and he seems to have finally avenged his wife's murder and eliminated the corrupt court that caused it. Unlike Barabas, Vindex did not get carried away and remained focused on the corrupt Italian justice, precisely why the readers sympathize and identify with him until the end, because a part of them, as as human beings, also wish to see this corruption eliminated. GOOD. At the end of the play, Vindex realizes that he too must die for his actions, but unlike Barabas' curse towards those around him upon his death, Vindex realizes that his goal has been achieved and accepts what will happen, declaring: “Is there an enemy still alive among these? It's time to die while we are. ».