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William Shakespeare 's Hamlet And Steven Monroe 's Interpretation Of I Spit On Your Grave

Decent Essays

Vengeance

Revenge is a force that has ceaselessly perplexed man’s conscience. Do you heed the words of the bible and let revenge fall upon the shoulders of the Lord, or do you take the eye that was so wrongfully taken from you? Do you take into your hands retribution, or do you adopt a philosophy of forgiveness? Perhaps being forgiving does not make for good entertainment. It is William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Steven Monroe’s interpretation of I Spit on Your Grave that cultivates the viewer experience in which these questions are left to marinate in the minds of its viewers. Hamlet’s lust for revenge, not unlike the protagonist in Monroe’s adaptation of I Spit on Your Grave, is what keeps the viewer intertwined within the tale. Hamlet …show more content…

During the course of the first half of the film we are introduced to Jennifer’s vulnerability. Jennifer is alone, but she is also kind to and trusting of the local men. Later, these would be the same men that savagely tormented and sexually assaulted Jennifer for their own repugnant enjoyment. Not only did they brutally violate Jennifer, but they also left her battered body in the woods as if her life had no value. Unbeknownst to the men that left Jennifer for dead, she survived the prolonged attacks, and thus emerges her passion for revenge. Furthermore, beyond similar methods of a great wrong being used to introduce a motive for revenge, Hamlet and I Spit on Your Grave also share similarities in how the revenge was carried out. Both works take the eye for an eye approach in their solutions. For Hamlet, he vows to avenge his father in a manner that involves an act of “antic disposition” (Shakespeare) that eventually leads to the death of everyone involved with the murder of King Hamlet. The final scene is essentially a bloody mess, but perhaps the most significant aspect is the fact that Claudius dies by poison at the hands of Hamlet because it is equal to the way in which Claudius ended the life of King Hamlet. As for Jennifer, her method of revenge is just as bloody for her tormenters. Each man is brutally tortured and murdered in a way that aims to match the suffering originally inflicted on Jennifer. However, the true significance

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