The revenge tragedy genre is characterized by themes of violence, madness, disguise, chastity, ghosts, and mortality. Its characters perpetuate the cycle of revenge, treat human lives as part of an economy of exchange, and often equate love with violence. The repetition of these themes in well-known plays like Hamlet and Titus Andronicus makes revenge tragedy conventions widely accessible to the general public and allows them to be spoofed in works like The Princess Bride and Revenger’s Tragedy. More specifically, the similarities and differences between revenge plots and their parodied counterparts emphasize the excess of the genre. Ultimately, these stories illuminate the absurdities of revenge, caricaturize human flaw, and reveal the blurred line between heroes and villains.
Revenge tragedy conventions synonymize love and revenge in defining vengeance as necessary to proving the existence of familial connections; furthermore, to decline the opportunity to avenge one’s family member is to dishonor one’s family. In Titus Andronicus, Tamora tells her sons that in avenging their brother whom Titus sacrificed, “The worse to [Lavinia], the better loved of me” (II.3.67). This idea seems to indicate that because it is natural to love one’s family, it is natural to avenge one’s family. However, Chiron and Demetrius’ rape and dismemberment of Lavinia is anything but natural; rather, it demonstrates the twisted, paradoxical idea of love characteristic of revenge tragedies. In telling the story of his murder, the ghost of Hamlet’s father says, “Hamlet, if ever didst thy dear father love…Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (5.21.18-20). Like Tamora’s, the ghost’s request perverts love from something pure and beautiful into something violent and deadly, highlighting the twisted nature of the revenge genre. In this moment, Hamlet takes the image of the ideal son to the extreme: “From the tables of my memory, I’ll wipe away/All saws of books, all trivial fond conceits/And thy remembrance all alone shall sit” (5.74-77). Adopting a totalizing role, Hamlet erases the person he used to be and pledges his complete devotion to avenging his father. He illustrates the idealized, unrealistic nature of revenge and its dominant role in the lives of revenge tragedy characters.
Inigo Montoya’s plotline in The Princess Bride parodies the excess this genre requires for characters to execute revenge properly. Like Hamlet, Inigo erases all aspects of his identity in order to avenge his father, slain by Count Rugen. However, Inigo’s sole identity as the avenger stems from his father being murdered when he was just 11 years old. His age places him at a severe disadvantage to Rugen in any attempt at vengeance, forcing him to accept the certainty of his own death and annihilating the opportunity for him to be anyone but the avenger. While Rugen leaves young Inigo physically alive after their duel, he also burdens him with a slash on each cheek and the crushing weight of knowing he failed to avenge his father, thus killing any aspects of his identity that do not revolve around revenge. He even says, “I loved my father, so naturally, I challenged his murderer to a duel” (The Princess Bride), speaking of revenge as the logical next step when in reality, challenging a grown man to a duel as a child is anything but. Inigo’s clear disadvantage in this situation emphasizes the absurdity of the expectation for sons to prove love and loyalty to their families through violence. Inigo further parodies the excessive nature of vengeance in his motto, “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die” (The Princess Bride). He literally identifies himself as the avenger in stating his name and purpose for living. From the moment he lost his duel with Count Rugen, Inigo “dedicated [his] life to the study of fencing. So the next time [they] meet, [he] will not fail.” (The Princess Bride). He also dedicates his life to punishing himself for failing his father: “Father, I have failed you for 20 years. Now, our misery can end” (The Princess Bride).
The treatment of human lives as part of an economy of exchange perpetuates the violence and vengeance characteristic of revenge tragedies. The genre's characters practice the “eye for an eye” mentality with such devotion that it extends beyond a law of society into a law of nature. Human lives are not just expendable—they must be expended in order to maintain balance in society. Through its characters’ dialogue, The Princess Bride appears to critique this idea of revenge as a business. Towards the beginning of the movie, Inigo explains that he works for Vizzini to make a living, as “There’s not a lot of money in revenge” (The Princess Bride). Beyond its surface level, this quote suggests that there is not much reward in revenge and perhaps, that it fails to restore justice as it is meant to; rather, it perpetuates the cycle of revenge, encouraging extreme rage and violence. Obsessed with avenging his father, Inigo resorts to villainous means in order to survive because the pressure he feels to be the ideal son forces him into a state of depression and alcoholism. At the end of the movie, Inigo says, “You know, it’s very strange. I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life” (The Princess Bride). As a solution, Westley, who had inherited the Dread Pirate Robert’s ship, Revenge, as his own, offers the ship to Inigo as a gift. This moment humorously highlights Inigo’s totalizing dedication to avenging his father.
Many of the characters in The Revenger’s Tragedy act as personified caricatures of human flaws typical within the genre. For example, Vindice translates to “the revenger of wrongs,” and his sole purpose in the play is to avenge Gloriana, whom the Duke murdered. Spurio translates to “the bastard,” and his character devises an entire revenge plot against his father based on this defining characteristic. Similarly, Count Rugen, or the six-fingered man in The Princess Bride, is the personification of “unnatural murder,” or the caricature of the revenge tragedy villain. The Oxford English Dictionary defines unnatural as “Not in accordance or conformity with the normal physical nature of humans or animals.” In the literal sense of the word, having six fingers is very unnatural, and this physical abnormality isolates Rugen from the rest of society, making him an outsider and, perhaps, contributing to his villainous motivations. It becomes his defining characteristic and further emphasizes the way revenge tragedies use extremes to send messages.
Ultimately, revenge plots and their parodies emphasize the excessive nature of the genre and illustrate the ambiguity between heroes and villains. Count Rugen perfectly captures these conventions in telling Inigo, “You’ve got an overdeveloped sense of vengeance. It’s going to get you in trouble someday” (Princess Bride). This “overdeveloped sense of vengeance” is at the core of the revenge tragedy genre. The characters each have unique flaws that propel the plot forward in all of their absurdity. By magnifying these flaws to extreme levels and revealing how they interact, revenge tragedies seem to explore the human experience—perhaps serving not only to entertain, but also to warn humanity against the dangers of violence, vengeance, and extremes.
Works Cited
Middleton, Thomas. “The Revenger’s Tragedy.” English Renaissance Drama. Ed.
Princess Bride. Dir. Rob Reiner. 20th Century Fox, 1987. Film.
Shakespeare, William. “Hamlet.” Hamlet: The Texts of 1603 and 1623, Bloomsbury Arden
Shakespeare, 2015.
Shakespeare, William. Titus Andronicus. Ed. Russ McDonald. New York: PENGUIN, 2000.