Vengeance or Forgiveness?
“When I was a little girl, my understanding of revenge was as simple as the Sunday school proverbs it hid behind. Neat little morality slogans like “do unto other,” and “two wrongs don’t make a right.” But two wrongs can never make a right… …because two wrongs can never equal each other. For the truly wronged, real satisfaction can only be found in one of two places… …absolute forgiveness or mortal vindication. This is not a story about forgiveness.” –Emily Thorne
The choice between vengeance or forgiveness is determined by an individual’s own experience. This experience whether it be severe or not evokes different emotions, igniting an underlying desire to attend to them. The desire may be to seek revenge upon those who have harmed you. The cultural approach readily practiced is to ignore this desire. The individual disregards their true feelings and emotions, therefore yielding a repressed desire. Repression is the expected moral choice in other words to “to forgive and forget”, “let it go” and “turn the other cheek”. These traditional responses have become part of mainstream culture. Terry Eagleton, author of Literary Theory: An Introduction., writes how Sigmund Freud addresses this cultural reoccurrence “a compassion for the human race, labouring under the most intolerable demands placed upon it by a civilization built upon the repression of desire and the deferment of gratification” (Eagleton 140). He expresses that our culture is oppressed through the rejection of our desires and the rejection of satisfying them. However desires are only repressed until it is actively acted upon. The desire to seek revenge may be satisfied through actually harming those who have harmed you therefore partaking in vengeance. When the desire is acted upon it is known as aggression. The individual is taking their repression and aggressively satisfying it. Aggression is the unexpected moral choice. This aggression has become part of the resistance to the mainstream culture in other words “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. Actually responding to this desire is going against the status quo.
The responses listed above are categorized as either being part of the mainstream culture or as the resistance to the mainstream culture. It is important to understand the terminology of these categories as well as their distinctions and how they coexist. The mainstream culture is interchangeable with the term dominant culture or class. The dominant/mainstream culture or class is the controlling or governing actions of society. In the case, repressing or ignoring the desire to revenge is part of the mainstream or dominant culture. The resistance to the dominant/mainstream culture or class is interchangeable with the response of the subordinate culture or class. The subordinate culture or class is considered inferior to the dominant culture. It is controlled by the mainstream or dominant culture/class “It remains, as a subordinate structure; often separate and impermeable, yet still contained by the overall rule and domination of the ruling class” (Clarke et al. 103). In this case, those who are repressed with their desire to seek revenge are the subordinate class. The subordinate class opposes the mainstream culture. This is known as the resistance “Negotiation, resistance, struggle: the relations between a subordinate and a dominant culture, wherever they fall within its spectrum, are always intensely active, always oppositional…” (Clarke et al. 103). In this case, satisfying the desire for revenge therefore partaking in vengeance is the resistance.
This resistance is reproduced in many aspects of society. The reproduction of the revenge theme/plot can be seen specifically in media such as movies and television shows. The television show Revenge on ABC is a primary example of this reproduction. The show will be used to understand and analyze why this theme gets reproduced. In the television show, the main character, Emily Thorne/Amanda Clarke makes the choice to aggressively seek out revenge and not take the path of forgiveness. This is clearly understood in the first episode of the show. It started off with the quote mentioned in the very beginning of this paper. She did not adhere to the cultural practice of “ignoring it”, “to forgive and forget” or “letting it go”. She disregards these approaches and decides to dedicate her life to avenging her father’s death. Her father, David Clarke, was framed for funding a terrorist group by a rich couple known as Conrad and Victoria Grayson. Her father was imprisoned through false evidence and was later killed by someone working for the Grayson family. Her life is dedicated to clearing her father’s name and this entails ruining the social, economic and personal lives of the Grayson family.
There is a dual identity of the main character. It is Amanda Clarke and Emily Thorne. Emily Thorne is the new identity created so that no one is able to trace her revengeful acts to her original identity, Amanda Clarke. She wants to ruin the Grayson family without revealing who she really is. Amanda Clarke can be associated with the “old” Emily Thorne. Emily is not only a new constitution but also a progression of Amanda. Amanda is the girl/teenager experiencing the loss, confusion, mourning, pain and anger of her father’s death. Emily is the woman experiencing these same feelings however she is actually acting upon them. Her repressed desire to seek revenge is now aggressively active.
The show captures the attention of audiences across the country. Millions of people tune in every Sunday to witness Emily’s insidious agenda. The show title is solely what the episodes consist of which is seeking revenge. The research that has been conducted focuses on the questions: How does the revenge theme/plot line get reproduced in society? and Why do so many viewers draw their attention to this reproduced plot line? The possible answers to these questions were analyzed through a series of interviews. If this ethnographic study was expanded further, I would interview the writers and producers along with many more fans of the show. The writers and producers would possibly indicate how they keep audiences tuning in every week: Do they feed off the repressed desires of their viewers as well as disavowing their satisfaction so that they have a continuous fan base. The theory focused for the research done in this paper includes three parts. The first part is that these viewers have a repressed desire for revenge. Watching the show is parallel to watching this repressed desire be acted upon. It is the viewers’ form of aggression. The second part of this theory also suggests that is repressed desire is associated with the mainstream culture and the aggression is associated with the resistance to the mainstream. The aggression/resistance (watching the show/the experience of partaking in revenge or of satisfying the desire) then gets reproduced which reveals why the revenge theme becomes a part of our society’s culture. The third part of this theory reveals that Amanda Clarke is associated with the repressed desire and Emily Thorne is associated with the aggression. Identification between these two subjects reveals she either has repressed desire like Amanda or she has a repressed desire for revenge and heavily seeks aggression like Emily. Either identification further supports why the interviewee is drawn to this particular show.
Repressed desire for revenge is an underlying want or wish to respond to someone who has harmed him or her. This desire is initiated by some kind of wrongdoing despite it being minor or major. Throughout the interviews, there was always something that initiated their desire for revenge. The first interviewee was interviewed in the school’s computer lab. The interviewee was a female. She had thick brown curly hair put back in a ponytail. She wore eyeglasses, a white t-shirt and jeans. She was open and was more then ready to be interviewed especially because she was such a fan of the show. Throughout her interview, her desire for revenge is revealed:
I said, “Have you ever been wronged?” She responded “Definitely” without hesitation. I asked, “How did you respond to that wrongdoing?” She replied “When someone is trying to sabotage me at work, I try to want to sabotage them back” and “they try to mess with me at work and they do things so I could fail but at the same time I let it go”.
Her response is part of the mainstream culture. There is this notion of “letting it go”. It seems this mainstream approach is associated with this repressed desire to seek revenge. Again, this repressed desire is explicitly revealed when continuing how she responds to the wrongdoing:
“I want to do revenge back to them… I do… I want them to feel the way I felt when they hurt me, I want them to feel the pain, I want them to the feel humiliation, I want them to feel everything they made me feel but because I’m afraid if I do something back to them it will go wrong and then I end up being the bad person than the other person.”
Her repressed desire is strong. Her form of aggression is watching the show considering she does not actually act upon her desire. Her mainstream repression stimulates the resistance. Ignoring her desire ignites her decision to satisfy it. The resistance equates again to not so much acting out the revenge herself, but watching the desire be acted upon on Revenge. Watching the show gives her the experience of being able to partake in revenge without really doing so. She is vicariously seeking revenge through Emily. She also immediately identifies with Emily Thorne indicating that aggression is heavily sought after. This further supports her affinity to the show.
The next interviewee was also female. She was a brunette, wearing a pink victoria secret sweatshirt, gym pants and sneakers. She is a very quiet person and modest. She was very pensive when asked these questions. In this case, she reveals a minor repressed desire for revenge however is still very much significant:
When I said, “Have you ever been wronged?” she said “Wronged… probably. Sure I have, not that extreme. Not as big as that” (referring to the show).
She deeply thinks about the wrongdoings she has experienced in her life. She then recalls the fights with her sister regarding how she wears and ruins her clothes:
She said “I want to do something…like if my sister borrows something of mine…my clothes or anything my bags whatever and she ruins it or does something to it I’ll get really mad and I’ll threaten her, I’ll be like ‘I am going to rip up all of your stuff and throw all your stuff in the garbage, but I never actually do it’”. She continues on about her response to that wrondoing “go off and do homework so I don’t have to think about” or “probably go sit by myself, watch tv maybe, listen to music”.
She along with the previous interviewee takes the mainstream approach of not responding. She uses the outlet of watching the show to aggressively seek out her desire.
This desire can also be seen when asked who she identifies with:
“Don’t know, probably the old one. Not Emily. She’s crazy. I am nothing like her. I’m not the type to get revenge on someone, I let it go”.
She doesn’t seek revenge like Emily but still harbors the desire to get back at someone who has wronged her. The same exact mainstream answer “I let it go” from the first case is seen again in this case. Her mainstream approach consisted of not responding to her sister’s actions (the wrongdoing) and not identifying herself with Emily Thorne. Therefore she identifies herself with Amanda Clarke’s repressed desire and feelings.
Again her mainstream repression stimulates the resistance. The resistance equates to not so much acting out the revenge herself, but watching the desire be acted upon on the television show. She described how she feels when she watches the show. During the show she is “enticed” and after the show she is “relieved”. This indicates that her desire of revenge is satisfied through her form of aggression/resistance. She is experiencing the partaking of revenge without actually doing so.
The third interviewee was also female. She was a brunette wearing a black shirt and yoga pants. She was confident and ready to answer the interview questions. She was also slightly curious as to what I was going to ask. This case was especially interesting. She revealed a different repressed desire. When asked which side of the character she identifies with, she responds with “none”. She doesn’t identify with Amanda Clarke or Emily Thorne. She doesn’t identify with Amanda because she doesn’t relate to her situation:
“I never lost parents”, she experienced “nothing tragic”. She doesn’t identify with Emily because she believes that Emily “can’t justify the wrong means to an end…there’s no honor in that”.
However later into the interview she describes how she does identify with Emily/Amanda on one thing, which is that she understands:
“being mistreated, wronged and never getting a fully apology”.
The interviewee had experienced being wronged indicating that a repressed desire is initiated:
[Have you ever been wronged?] Yes I have been wronged. [How did you respond to that wrongdoing?] I responded in a verbal manner immediately…without foul language. I defended myself and my integrity.
When asked if it satisfied her, she replies “Yes and no”. She explains “I put that person in her place” which answers the Yes. She continues, “this person was really close to her and that the relationship will never be the same” which answers the No. She also states that “this person should never have said those words, I deserve a sincere apology”.
She never received one from the wrongdoer. There is definitely an underlying desire exuding from her answers. It is also interesting to see how she responded immediately unlike the previous two cases. She did not take the mainstream approach indicating to me that the desire is not seeking revenge. The next step was figuring out her form of aggression. This is analyzed when:
I said, “Describe how you feel during and after the show?” She said, “During the show, I feel anxiety and it is nerve-racking” and after the show “I want to find out more”. She continues, “I am curious as to what happens next and I am hopeful that Emily does the better thing”.
As I was analyzing her replies, it seems that she doesn’t have a repressed desire for revenge however she does have a repressed desire for closure. This repressed desire for closure is not yet satisfied through her answer of how she feels during and after the show. She feels anxiety, Sigmund Freud writes in The Physical Apparatus and The Theory of Instincts “An increase in unpleasure that is expected and foreseen is met by a signal of anxiety;” (138). She doesn’t identify with Emily indicating that she does not want to seek revenge like her. However she does identify with Emily on never getting a full apology by those who wronged her. This repressed desire for closure is aggressively unleashed by watching Revenge. She curiously tunes in to find out if Emily ever receives closure. This is parallel to her situation.
Her resistance to the mainstream is actually responding to the wrong doer at that given moment. This resistance is not reproduced because not many people chose to confront those who wronged them. However her form of aggression is still reproduced. The resistance equates again to not so much finding closure herself, but watching the desire be acted upon on Revenge. She is vicariously seeking closure through Emily. She watches the show to satisfy her desire for closure. Her hope for Emily to find closure is what she hopes for in her life as well.
The fourth interviewee was again a female. She was brunette and wore a white printed t-shirt and gym pants. She was hesitant to be interviewed at first but later enjoyed being asked questions. This case was similar to the third case. When asked whom she identifies with, she replies:
“Amanda Clarke. I understand her anger and her need to avenge her father’s death…I don’t like the extent Emily Thorne has taken… she’s blinded by vengeance. I would never do the things she does.”
She identifies with Amanda Clarke indicating that she has a repressed desire but not so much actively acting upon it. She understands Amanda’s feelings indicating that she has been wronged which in turn initiates a repressed desire:
[Have you ever been wronged? And Describe the wrong endured.] Yeah. I felt betrayed and hurt by a family member. This member was cold and shut me out of their life. [How did you respond to that wrongdoing?] I ignored it and moved passed it. [Did your actions satisfy you?] Sure... No, now that I think about it… you can’t just let go of life experiences because it can cause a build up of unhealthy feelings and emotions. [Would you have changed your actions if you had the chance?] Perhaps, I could’ve communicated clearly with that person and resolved any residual issues and moved from it together.
The interviewee has been wronged and took the mainstream approach of “ignoring it”. This mainstream approach causes her to have a repressed desire for closure and not so much a desire for revenge. It seems she also has feelings of regret because she was not satisfied with the way she handled the situation. She has a desire to change the past actions and receive closure.
Her form of aggression is like the interviewee from the third case. This can be observed when:
[Describe how you feel during and after the show.] During the show…super anxious, excited, fearful, tension. After the show, I am mad. Nothing happens. Nothing moves forward…nothing progresses.
Her desire for closure isn’t yet satisfied. Again, anxiety is an answer indicating that pleasure or satisfaction is not yet reached. It seems her form of aggressively seeking out the desire for closure is by watching the show. The description of how she feels after the show is parallel to how she feels in her situation. Nothing progressed in her situation. She just ignored it and did not fully express her feelings. She is mad because nothing is resolved. She tunes in every week to see if Emily receives closure and her situation gets resolved.
The mainstream approach of “ignoring it” stimulates the resistance, which is like the form of aggression. Again the resistance equates to watching the desire be acted upon on Revenge. The third and fourth interviewees are vicariously seeking closure through Emily’s actions. This theme of closure isn’t solely produced. It is through the plot of revenge that closure can be obtained. Therefore seeking closure along with seeking revenge gets reproduced together.
The fifth interviewee was also a female. She is tall and skinny. When asked if I could interview her, she was hesitant. She didn’t think her answers would help me on my project. When asked whom she identifies with she responds:
“More so Amanda Clarke. Even though I would want to like ..make the people pay for what they did or did something to my family. I don’t think I would have the courage and power to bring about revenge because I don’t know… Emily is manipulative and has control. That’s not something I would do.”
She identifies with Amanda Clarke indicating that she does have a repressed desire for revenge. However she doesn’t identify with Emily Thorne indicating that she doesn’t aggressively act upon that desire. When asked if she has ever been wronged. She answered:
“I mean…yeah…not off the top of my head.” [How did you respond to that wrongdoing?] Depending on the severity of the like the way I’ve been wronged. I would like either make people feel wronged they way they wronged me or if it’s not something significant I would move on, not forget but remember. Forgive without forgetting. If it was significant and really hurt me I would probably get my revenge on them”
She mentions if the wrongdoing is not significant then she will take the mainstream approach of “moving on” and “forgiving”. However if the wrongdoing is significant then she actually will resist the mainstream therefore aggressively partaking in revenge. When asked if these actions would satisfy her she responds in two different viewpoints:
“Um yeah because if did nothing…I am the bigger person. I don’t have to always get revenge. But if I do get revenge, that also satisfies even just for awhile they felt the pain they made me feel.”
She again describes two scenarios. She will be satisfied either way. When asked to describe how she feels during and after the show:
“Before the show, I feel suspense kind of like…I feel like um…I don’t know…like shocking. Like how far she goes…makes you think if you were in the same spot what you would do. After the show, I am usually confused like who knows what, what going to happen next but its really it keeps me like..I want to watch the next episode. It’s that thrill and suspense that want you to keep on going and see how far and if she ever achieves her revenge”.
She describes it being shocking during the show. After the show she is confused but is still interested in watching the next episode to see whether Emily Thorne ever succeeds with her revenge. She has a repressed desire for revenge but watches the show to satisfy this. It is her form of aggression as well as part of the resistance.
The sixth interviewee was female. She is a brunette. She wore a green top and skinny jeans with brown combat boots. She is quiet and reserved. I would say she is more introverted compared to the previous interviewees. She was also hesitant of being interviewing partly because she did not think her answers would help. In actuality her answers were significant. This final case was exceptionally different from the others. When asked who she identifies with. She responds:
“Personally both. Amanda Clarke is a version of Emily that lost her father and kind of the weaker character. Emily is how she reinvented herself. She is the strong and independent person seeking revenge” [Why to do you identify with both?] I guess because I kind of lost my father too. Amanda Clarke is …based on her relationships when she got older…she’s not able to commit to Aiden or Daniel Grayson which are her love interests in the show. She has trust issues, which I think stems from the loss of her father when she was small. She’s really afraid people will leave her because she was left with no one…before she found out her father was innocent she thought her father was guilty… she lived in the penitentiary alone and having to fend for herself. I guess I identify with that because I am not able to…I kind of have trust issues. I guess I identify with Amanda Clarke the most but also with Emily’s strength because that drives her…Amanda’s character drives Emily’s character. What she went through as Amanda is her motivation for her actions toward revenge. It made her a stronger person.”
The identification with Amanda’s hurt and Emily’s strength is parallel to the situation in her life. She says that she identifies with Amanda more indicating that a repressed desire is present. The next questions asked were:
[Did you agree with the main character’s actions?] “No I don’t agree. Revenge is not the way you should deal with the past. I am a peaceful person so I wouldn’t do that but I can see the reason.[Have you ever been wronged?] Yes I have been wronged…. not a big deal.[How did you respond to that wrongdoing?] I confronted them right there…like why did they do that?...I wanted to know if they wanted to be forgiven. I disconnected and got my view. I had to put my feelings into question. Like I cant be selfish based on my moral and virtues…is it right to disconnect this person that is vital in my life? I disconnected just so I could think about it so they wouldn’t change my mind. After that I thought about whether or not to continue with hatred or let it go…I let it go”
Again “letting it go” is explicitly seen here like in the first, second, fourth interview. The interviewee took the mainstream approach. Her mainstream stimulates her desire for revenge in other words the resistance. She does not actually partake in revenge. When asked how she feels during and after the show:
“During the show kind of entertained and anxious and after the show, it’s kind of a thirst for wanting to know more.”
Again “anxious” and “anxiety” is explicitly seen here just as in the third and fourth interview. Anxiety indicates that pleasure or satisfaction is not yet obtained. The interviewee watches the show to satisfy her repressed desire to seek revenge. It is form of aggressively satisfying it as well as being part of the resistance.
The repressed desires uncovered through these interviews support the three parts of the theory. The research of each case revealed that the interviewee had a repressed desire and was aggressively acting upon it by watching the show. The mainstream approach of “letting it go” or “ignoring it” leads to the resistance, which was vicariously satisfying their desires through the main character. The interviewees in the third and fourth case had different desires than the interviewees in the first, second, fifth and sixth case however the revenge theme still reproduced itself through their aggression/resistance. Identification between Amanda Clarke or Emily Thorne revealed whether the interviewee had a repressed desire for revenge or both a repressed desire for revenge and to aggressively act upon it. In conclusion, the theme of revenge reproduces itself in media through the repressed desires of its viewers. Also, viewers continue to watch this reproduced plotline because they all have repressed desires that need to be satisfied. The results of these interviews answer the theory’s proposed questions.
The ethnographic study through the use of psychoanalysis and the study of cultural resistance inspired me to think of how much we see revenge in our current society. Gadadhara Pandit Dasa writes a recent article for Huffington Post revealing how this revenge is very much prevalent:
Revenge, or “an eye for an eye” approach is becoming the predominating mood in society. We want things quickly, including our justice. We’re running out of patience for just about everything. When the signal turns green, we need the person in front of us to move immediately. We need our computers to boot up faster. During rush hour, I try to be the first one of the subway car so I don’t have to wait behind all the people going up the stairs. In reality, I probably save myself only about 60 seconds…It’s important for us to analyze the kind of impact a culture of revenge can have on our society. There is a risk of us becoming completely intolerant of each other.”
I think that many people are repressed with their unconscious desires to seek revenge due to the mainstream culture. Increasingly, people are now rejecting the mainstream approach therefore taking part of the resistance/aggression. Again, the resistance/aggression could be either actually partaking in revenge or watching it being acted out in other forms “Revenge: A powerful motivator and a huge driving force in literature, music, film, art and television for centuries” (Yahr) Media is one of these forms “the cinema poses questions of the ways the unconscious (formed by dominant order) structures ways of seeing and pleasure in looking” (Mulvey). Watching it being acted out through media is society’s subterranean way of displacing their repression and aggressively satisfying. Clifford Geertz, author of Deep Play, writes how Balinese society’s repression and aggression is displaced through the cultural ritual of cockfights “the slaughter in the cock ring is not a depiction of how things literally are among men, but, what is almost worse, of how, from a particular angle, they imaginatively are” (265). Displacement of aggression/resistance is still reproduced. Revenge is still being enacted but in a different way. The research done in this paper supports this analysis because every single interviewer uses the show Revenge as a way of displacing their aggression. They may not be literally seeking out revenge on those who have harmed them but are inconspicuously using media to do it for them.
Work Cited
Eagleton, Terry. “Psychoanalysis.” Literary Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. Pages 131-168. Print.
Clarke,John. Hall,Stuart. Jefferson,Tony. Roberts,Brian. “Subcultures, Cultures, and Class.” Introduction to Resistance through Rituals. The Subcultures Reader, Gelder and Thornton, eds, New York: Routledge, 1997. Print
Freud, Sigmund, James Strachey, and Peter Gay. An outline of psycho-analysis. New York: W.W. Norton, 1989. Print.
Dasa, Gadadhara Pandit. "Revenge or Forgiveness: Which Road Do You Walk?" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 01 Apr. 2014. Web. 08 May 2014.
Yahr, Emily. "Revenge across Pop Culture: Which Format Is the Most Violent? Has the Most Consequences?" Washington Post. The Washington Post, 09 May 2014. Web. 10 May 2014.
Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Screen 16.3 Autumn 1975: 6-18.
Geertz, Clifford. Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972. Print.
"Revenge Quotes." Revenge ABC Wiki. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2014.