Revenge tragedy : the morality beneath the mayhem

Abstract

To emphasize the value of revenge tragedy, which is not written merely to satisfy the audience’s predilection for horror but, through mayhem and sensational forms of chaos on stage, is designed to illustrate an impartial justice that hardly exists in society, human malice, and the disruption of morality in hierarchical society. The plays selected to exemplify these ideas are Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and cyril Tourneur’s The revenger’s Tragedy.