Reading Old Books in a Modern World

When thinking of a modern day show that incorporates all the elements of jacobean style play, the first show that comes to mind is “The Following.” In this show, Joe Carroll is a diabolical serial killer who goes on a killing rampage and doesn’t sympathize with anyone except his ex-wife and child. The protagonist of the show is Ryan who is Joe’s arch nemesis because he had an affair with Joe’s ex-wife (Claire). Throughout the show, Joe makes multiple attempts to kill Ryan even though Ryan deeply cares for Joe’s his ex-wife and genuinely loves her, feelings Joe is incapable of expressing to her. Joe’s ex-wife and Ryan form a deep bond and Joe is aware of this, however, chooses to disregard his ex-wife’s happiness because Joe wants her to be with no one other than himself.

A lot of Joe Carroll’s characteristics are portrayed in the character Ferdinand in the play “The Duchess of Malfi.” Similar to Joe, Ferdinand is ruthless when it comes to killing and makes it very clear that he does not want his sister marrying anyone unless he approves of that person.

In both scenarios, you have two men who care about a woman but both are manipulative and disregard what the person they care for really wants and see no wrong doing in their actions.

In the scene below we see Joe confront Ryan and the extreme measures that Joe is willing to take to get back with his ex-wife.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PifvRiHVSCY

In Jacobean dramas, it features over the top violence, strict following of class structures, sexual (deviance), corruption and power struggles. All of which are show cased in the dramas either as a characteristic of the plot or in the character themselves.

In the movie Dredd, it takes place in the future, the world population has bloomed to people living in Mega-Cities that has populations of around 800 million. With that many people, crime is out of control with tens of thousands reported daily. The only way to enforce order are taken by those called Judges, whom acts as judge, jury and executioner.

The movie follows Judge Dredd and his new recruit Anderson, a psychic, as they gets trapped into a 200 story slum tower by the drug lord Ma-Ma.

The plot and the characters of Dredd fits into the Jacobean drama quite well. There is violence right from the beginning, following Judge Dredd from the beginning, going about his routinely clean up of criminals. Guns, car chase, drugs and death right off the bat. Because there are just too many criminals out there, it’s a never ending job. The only way to enforce any semblance of order is thanks to the Judges who has complete power. This complete power, as the saying goes, can corrupt completely. In the movie, there are four Judges who obtains access into the locked down tower halfway through the movie, and it’s shortly shown that they are corrupt Judges. In such a world where Judges have absolute power, it’s very easy to see how they could get away with it. The only ones who can contain the corrupt Judges are other Judges, and that’s exactly what Dredd does.

Ma-Ma, a woman who’d worked her way to the top, is ruthless and cunning. She maintains her position by creating and controlling the distribution of the drug Slo-Mo. In one of the first scenes with her, she enforces her power through the killing of some rogue drug dealers in her territory and dropping them to their death from the top floor. She’d started out as a prostitute and killed her way up to the top, maintaining that position is a constant power struggle.

Another form of power struggle comes when Ma-Ma orders Dredd and Anderson killed. We, the viewer, obviously know who’s going to win, but it’s still a fun violent drama to watch.

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Throughout the play The Duchess of Malfi presents revenge, nobility, strength, gender roles, power, social order, death, family, friendship, betrayal, corruption, cruelty, jealousy, murder, class, ethics, norms, desire, obsession, and torture. These various characteristics represent the characters in the play or they are mechanism that is used by the characters to fulfill their desires which eventually bought corruption in the land at the end of the play.

One particular 21st century movie that I thought is related to the play is the movie called Taken. The movie is about a Bryan Mills who is a CIA and a father to a seventeen year old daughter Kim who lives with a wealthy stepfather and her mother Lenore. The second and Third parts of the movie are best related to the Duchess. In the second part of the movie Kim and her mother join Bryan to Turkey. The second day while the two couples were taking a walk without Kim they got kidnapped by the Albanian Gangsters from the first movie seeking revenge to kill him and his family. The father eventually tells Kim to seek help from US Embassy. Meanwhile, the Mobsters are torturing his wife and told Bryan to watch while she bleeds. After much Torture, Bryan finally fights and kill the Mobsters and went back to save his wife. At the end the movie Bryan confronts Murad (killer) who tells him that if he kills him his two sons will revenge. Therefore, Bryan decided not to kill him and when he walked away Murad tried to kill him which shows that he cannot be trusted. In Taken three, Lenore who divorced Bryan asked him to meet her which he eventually found her dead in his own house. Therefore, the FBI thought that he is the one who killed his own wife. Towards the end Bryan and FBI found that Stuart who is Lenore husband was the one behind the her murder.

This movie is a great comparison because it shows the family being tortured which also happen in Duchess of Malfi and It presents a non-stop revenge to the family. Furthermore, it shows betrayal, jealousy and violence from Lenore husband which happened with Duchess and her brothers.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a great work of literature that reminded me a lot of the Jacobean era drama. The book includes tons of the similar characteristics that a Jacobean play would have. There is adultery, violence, and most of all revenge. The revenge and violence take place in the final scene, where Wilson murders the books main character, Jay Gatsby. The only reason why Wilson murders Gatsby was because he blames the death of his wife Myrtle on Gatsby. All of the events leading up to the murder of Gatsby had an extreme Jacobean style to it.

One can see a major comparison between Nick Caraway, and Bosola from the Duchess of Malfi. Both characters are in the middle of all the action. Nick knows about the affairs between weather between Daisy and Gatsby and Tom and Myrtle. It comes to the point where he doesn’t know what to share and what to hide any more. Bosola also knows about all the characters actions. Since he acts as a spy for the Cardinal and Ferdinand, he finds out about the Duchess and Antonio. He has to make decisions about how to manage all of the information he knows.

Just like in the play we originally would think that royalty in the palace can get you everything, as well as wealth in the Great Gatsby. We find out in both works of literature that this is not the case; it only leads to tragedies at the end.

Here is the trailer to the film remake of The Great Gatsby.

Bates Motel is a perfect example of a modern day Jacobean drama because of all the over-the-top violence, incest, jealousy, and revenge it contains in the show. Bates Motel is a TV show on AMC being a contemporary prequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film, “Psycho”. The series begins with a mother, Norma Bates and her son, Norman Bates starting a new life after the husband’s death in their new motel. This is a very simple beginning with serious plot twists with every turn as the show progresses.

The show covers all the basis of a Jacobean drama. Norma, the mother is an extremely paranoid and jealous mother leading to the suppression and suffocation of her son. The mother was raped within the first episode of the show by a stranger. The son has severe mental problems where he experiences blackouts. However, these are not normal blackouts. The son becomes very violent and goes as far as even killing people. After the first person Norman kills, they hide the body instead of reporting it. Norma also has an older son whose father is actually Norma’s brother. It happened from an incestuous rape further creating drama in the show. This show is anything but simple, in fact it is an endless suspense full of drama similar to that of a Jacobean drama.

Game of Thrones is a TV show that airs on HBO. It is an adaptation of the series written by George R. R. Martin. The show is based during the medieval times in the fiction continents of Westeros and Essos. The show can definitely be considered a modern day jacobean drama. It deals with a lot of violence, corruption, betrayal, revenge, and incest which are characteristics of a Jacobean drama. There are many different plot lines in the show. The main plot line is that their is a civil war going on between the noble families fighting for control of Westeros and to obtain the Iron Throne. An example of Jacobean drama in Game of Thrones can be from the first season. In the first season Lord Ned Stark becomes the Hand of the King to King Robert Baratheon which is pretty much being his right hand man. One day King Baratheon went hunting and got severely injured which caused him to be in his deathbed. Unfortunately Joffrey, the son of the king is the next heir to the throne who is very cruel, and abuses power. However, after Lord Stark did some digging, he finds that Joffrey isn’t the son of Roberth Baratheon and Cersei Lannister. Instead he is the son Jaime and Cersei Lannister who are brother and sister. This makes Joffrey not the rightful heir to the throne. Lord Stark plans to expose this news to Robert but unfortunately passes away before delivering the news. Lord Stark did tell Lord Baelish about the news and asked for his help. Before Robert died, he signed a will saying Lord Stark will rule until Joffrey comes of age. Instead of Joffrey, Lord Stark wrote rightful heir. When Joffrey obtains the throne, Lord Stark confronts Cersei and Joffrey and order the City Watch to arrest them. But, Lord Baelish betrays Lord Stark and Lord Stark’s men were all killed by the City Watch. Lord Stark was than taken to custody for treason and eventually was executed by the order of King Joffrey who was told that he should not kill Lord Stark.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a David Fincher film, was originally part of a trilogy of novels written by Swedish author, Stieg Larrson. The story is about Lisbeth, a 20-something year old woman who is a rape survivor and who’s traumatic experience has since left her scarred.  She is eventually contracted to work with another investigator, Mikael Blomkvist, who she was hired to run a background check on earlier in the movie.

The Jacobean aspect of this movie is that the investigation they are tasked with is that of looking into Harriet Vanger’s sudden disappearance in 1966. Eventually, the duo find that there was not only 1 rape/murder, but a string of them.  This only fuels the duo’s attempts to continue their work as each new clue only reminds Lisbeth about the pain she has experienced. Her personal experience makes her work harder and more diligently because she doesn’t want the murderer to get away with his crime.  Aside from that, social order doesn’t bind her; her lifestyle and work are of not the norm.  Her deep personal issues are what make this film so dark her character flourishes in the Jacobean scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KBPru-Pu5Q