『복수자의 비극』—조롱과 환멸의 정치학

Abstract

The Revenger's Tragedy seems to be a kind of allegory in which the wicked and corrupted villains are punished, and the moral order is recovered at the end of the play. However, underneath the allegorical structure as we see in the morality plays, the skeptical view of God's justice lies and is expressed in the form of cruel revenge and challenge against the ruling authority. The private revenge which was prohibited in the contemporary English society becomes the means to challenge and subvert the established political order. Vindice's revenge seems ironical, as he uses what the ruling class prohibits in order to punish the ruling class. From this ironical context comes Vindice's twofold identity. Whether we should define him as a villain or a hero makes the meaning of the play quite different. If we see his cruel revenge in the perspective of Christianity, Vindice is the same villain as the Duke's family and his destruction is a kind of providence. But if we see his revenge in the perspective of the oppressed class, he is a kind of hero who fulfills their subversive desire. Even though he is destructed in the end, his evil pleasure and madness contributes to establishing a new political order represented by Antonio. In The Revenger's Tragedy, the process of Vindice's revenge is full of cynicism and mockery rather than the noble recognition derived from suffering and inner conflict. If we notice the society of the play where justice is impossible, we should not overlook that his cynicism and cruelty was born out of suffering. Since the moral justice in this play is accomplished by cruel revenge and cynical skepticism, it damages the conservative view of order based on Christian justice.