Kill Bill, a Quentin Tarantino movie, focuses on the revenge of a woman whose child was taken away from her. Bill was her former lover, whose child she was bearing. She fled Bill because of the dangerous lifestyle he lived. Bill eventually found her, shot her, and took the baby from her womb. She awakes 4 years later from a coma. Her main goal is to find Bill and avenge her attempted death and her child’s death.
In the movie there is a lot of extreme violence and death, a main characteristic of a Jacobean drama. The “Bride” who is seeking revenge has to kill many of Bill’s underlings, and every kill usually involves a sword that produces projectile blood from every cut.
Duchess of Malfi is a very powerful literature that focuses more than violence and killings of a well established family. It illustrates the character of power hungry people that willing to do anything to achieve that power of pure dominance. Without a doubt, there is only one television show that comes to my mind; House of Cards featuring Kevin Spacy and Robin Wright. (THERE WILL BE SPOILER ALERTS, COMMENT AT YOUR EXTREME RISK!!!!)
As some may know, House of Card focuses on a politician named Frank Underwoods and his wife, Claire. they are like the Cardinals and Ferdinand; calm and ambitious. They desires to become the President of United States after being feeling betrayed from the President for not keeping their promise. From there, they achieve that through a dangerous road of manipulations, murders, and politics. At some points, Frank killed a disposable new reporter, Zoe Barnes, whom he had sex and controlled with by pushing her to the train track. He used her to leak out any news related to Congress, and through that, he was able gain the position of Vice President of the United States. From there, she became useless and therefore, needs to be eliminated. After all, only dead people can keep secrets forever. In season 3, Frank says to Claire, “We are survivors.” This indicates how they achieve that power by making necessary choices and want to show the world that they are not anyone’s domestic dogs, but rather than alpha hungry wolves.
The Jarobean Era was about drama, violence and revenge plays. The movie that came to my mind was Oldboy. This movie is about an advertising executive Joe who ruined a meeting with a potential client by hitting on his girlfriend. After the meeting Joe gets very drunk and starts speaking to a woman with a yellow umbrella. Next morning when he wakes up, he wakes up to find he is a prisoner. He is captured in the room for 20 years without knowing why being fed Chinese food everyday. As he daily watches TV he finds that he has been framed for a rape murder of his ex-wife and that his daughter has been adopted. Joe spends his 20 years writing letters to Mia, watching TV matches and becomes very fit while planning his revenge.
Later, he is drugged and wakes ups in a Louis Vuitton box with money and a cell phone in the middle of nowhere. He noticed a woman with the same yellow umbrella whom he was with 20 years ago before he got captured in the room and chased her to a clinic where he met a nurse that offered him help. She began reading his letters to Mia after he passed out from dehydration and decided to help him. They both go to all the Chinese restaurants in town to figure out which food he was given while captured, once he finds the restaurant he follows a guy who arrived to take a major food order to an abandoned factory where Joe was kept. Joe follows the SUV to the factory and fights all the guards in order to go in further to find out that the man that kept him hostage was his classmate Adrian from back in high school who had a sister and Joe saw her having sex with an older man and spread the news all over campus. Later, His high school classmate blamed Joe and revenge against him for humiliating and destroying their family. Joe and the nurse have sex in a hotel room where he is watched on camera by Adrian. When Joe goes to Adrian’s penthouse he congratulates him for discovering whom he is. Adrian reveals to Joe that his daughter Mia was a hired actress and his real daughter is the nurse who he had sex with in the hotel. Joe begs Adrian for death but instead Adrian commits suicide himself. Joe writes a letter to the nurse saying that they can never meet again and for her to never think of him again.
The Duchess of Marfi is a play that involved a lot of violence which is influenced by Jacobean style. In this play you are able to recognize that when you broke laws or rules you are punish for it. Also, the play shows the different between the rich and the poor; they used people of low class to do their dirty job.
Because all the violence and the lack of social order that is going on through the Duchess of Marfi one painting came to my mind it is called Guernica by Pablo Picasso. This painting is one of his most famous works because it shows a strong political statement about the devastating casual bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. Guernica is a painting that shows the tragedies and suffers of innocent people. While you see this painting you can recognize the brutality and darkness and drama behind the painting. Also, the used of blue, black, and white colors makes this painting more dramatic. The Spanish Civil War was used as an opportunity to test new weapons led by Hitler; here we can see the power of a government over other countries. The scene that is depicted by Picasso I found it kind of similar to the scenes that are depict on The Duchess of Marfi because both involved a lot of violence where innocent people are the ones that suffer. In the Duchess of Marfi and Guernica shows a lack of democracy of common people and the only ones that can decide are the government or rich people upon common people.
The premise of the saw movie is a game, a very sick game. This game is the creation of a serial killer named Jigsaw. The whole movie is about the torture that Jigsaw forces people through such as in the film that I have posted above. In one of the victim of Jigsaw’s games is a girl named Amanda. On her head is a mask which is hooked onto her lower jaw, there is a timer and if show doesn’t unlock the mask before the time runs out, her lower jaw will be ripped wide open. The key to that mask is however is in the digestive tract of her cell mate who is paralyzed on the other side of the room. She lives however her cell mate does not. The entire premise of Jigsaws game is to have someone do the killing for him. His reasoning is that most people are ungrateful to be alive however the person who survives his game wont be.
The movie is Super Jacobean in my opinion. It’s cynical like the way we see it in the Duchess of Malfi. We see most of the killing done in the hands of Bosolo however it’s usually under someone else’s request. Jigsaw is the game master, he will set up the game in a way that someone must die. Another very Jacobean aspect of Saw is the sheer amount of gore in it. In particular, one of the main puzzles Jigsaw sets up is he has 2 guys saw off their own ankles with a rusty saw. The concept Jigsaw provides is something that I really feel is Jacobean. I feel like it’s extremely morally wrong to put someone through murder and near death to prove to them that they should be grateful about life.
The quote that I picked is right at the beginning of book 1 and starts at line 13.
“This one alone, longing for his wife and his homecoming, was detained by the queenly nymph Kalypso, bright among goddesses, in her hollowed caverns, desiring that he should be her husband”
In this quote Odyssey misses his wife Penelope and can’t wait to be reunited with her. Unfortunately before Odyssey can go back home he has a couple of battles to face. The first one is to escape from Kalypso, she is in love with him and wants him to be her husband so she holds him hostage.
How can she hold him hostage and how? How did she find him?
Even though these plays are written centuries ago, women play important roles. Why do they all play the same roles? crazy, lonely and wanting to be loved
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Jacobean Drama-American Horror Story
American Horror Story Coven season 3 is about a group of young witches that are accepted to live in a coven with older witches and want to train them how to survive in a world were witches aren’t welcome. The young witches all compete against each other since they all have different powers. They are not afraid to kill or hurt anyone after they have been betrayed. At the end, they all have to complete a series of exams in order to be the supreme. The supreme in the head witch and she has the most powers. Here is the link the trailer of the show.
In the show there is a young boy name Kyle and he is your typical frat boy in college. Two of the witches, Madison and Zoe ended up going to Kyle’s frat party. Madison gets really upset and when she is used for sex by one of the frat boys. Zoe hits it off with Kyle and is really upset when Madison blows up the bus with all the frat boys after she gets used. Madison decides to make it up to Kyle and brings Kyle back to life. Kyle slowly starts to remember his life gradually. When he goes to visit his mother she is so happy to see after believing he was dead for so long. She reminds him why he hates her when she starts touching him inappropriately and even says “Mama knows how to please you, baby”. (.34 seconds into the video) In the next scene you see Kyle kill his mother to avenge what his mother has been doing to him for years. (.40 seconds into the video)
If it wasn’t apparent already, everything about American Horror Story would fall under Jacobean Drama. There is incest, murder and betrayal.
One show I watch that contains a lot of violence in a chaotic, unregulated society is The Walking Dead. In a world without government and cops to enforce laws against violence, the show holds an “every man for himself” and “eye for an eye” way of living.
In the clip above, the scene depicts the type of Jacobean style violence similar to that in literature such as The Duchess of Malfi. In this scene, the main groups’ enemies find them at an abandoned church, ready to get revenge for causing chaos and escaping their established (and very flawed and immoral) community. At first (before this scene), the two groups acted like they could be civil friends, even though there was still skepticism about intentions. The main character group of the show was taken away their right to bear arms, and after more chaos and killing, the main group escaped their cannibalistic society only to be hunted by them again in the clip shown above.
At the 2:55 mark, the brutal violence, beating, shooting and killing commences, in a sort of vengeful “we win” attitude. However, in this particular scene, there is no two-way fighting. The main group has full control over their enemies, holding them hostage and able to do whatever they please. This relates to the some types of Jacobean style of revenge and power, with the strongest taking full control. In the Duchess of Malfi Act 5 Scene5, for instance, Bosola murders the Cardinal easily, violently stabbing him. All the Cardinal does is scream for help instead of fighting back. It is Bosola’s way of seeking revenge for all the wrongdoings.
Similar to Jacobean drama, The Walking Dead kills off main characters, acting as a “nobody is safe” television drama. While watching this scene when it aired, I was truly unsure which side would lose and who would end up dying. Main character deaths in this show cannot come as a surprise to anyone. By whenever time the series ends, it makes me wonder if any main character will still be living, just like Jacobean drama or more specifically The Duchess of Malfi. Jacobean drama contains so much tragedy, just like The Walking Dead.
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In the Duchess of Malfi there are many instances of extreme violence, which is a signature theme of Jacobean style plays. Violence ensues when the conventional systems of social order are neglected: when the laws and rules are broken, and when there is intermingling between the rich and poor individuals in society.
This style of violence and lack of social order reminds me of the movie, The Purge: Anarchy. The idea behind the Annual Purge stems from the new founding fathers desire to end the rampant crime and violence in America. The solution the fathers foresaw was to make all malicious crimes legal once a year for 12 hours, nothing is off-limits. From the moment of Purge commencement murder, robbery, rape, and kidnapping are all legal, and all policing authorities and hospitals are suspended. The only thing forbidden is to commit crimes against high-level government officials. The idea behind the Purge is to get the crime out of your system, and during the rest of the year crime is at an all time low. What ultimately happens is utter chaos and violence, and an extreme lack of social order that comes with a lack of rules and authority.
Some of the citizens take this annul Purge to extreme violence. Some of them go out and avenge those that have wronged them, but some citizen stock pile weapons and go out to Purge for sport. The movie displays images of violence, bloodshed, and dead bodies hanging in the street. Men, women and children are ripped from their homes and brutally murdered there is no way to protect your self from the Purge.
Additionally, sometimes you’ll find that the people closest to you are the one’s that will turn on you. For instance, there were these two sisters and one suspected her sister of having sex with her husband, and she shot her in the head. This society of the new founding fathers much like the duchess which lacks strict social order, proves to the degree in which violence will ensue.
Not only that, but the Purge gives the wealthy class an advantage over the poor because they can afford better security systems and weapons to protect themselves. There are even conspiracies that the government have allowed for the Purge as a method for population control and as a weeding out process. These class distinctions even allow the wealthy to purchase poorer individuals so that they can participate in the Purge from the safety of their own homes. The idea that these wealthy elitists are cleansing themselves by killing the poor is unfair and extremely gruesome.
In the play The Duchess Of Malfi written by John Webster i choose the quote in act 1.1 page 118 on line 319 where the Cardinal tells his sister the Duchess
“fare you well. wisdom begins at the end : remember it”.
I believe the quote describes a sort of foreshadowing or life lesson because for instance when a child climbs a tree he doesn’t know how dangerous it is until they fall off only then will they know not to climb it again because of how dangerous it is. Also i think it feels sort of threatening because of how the Cardinal and his brother Ferdinand try to control her telling her what to do and whats socially acceptable.
do you think that what the Cardinal intends to do hurt or kill her if she rebels or is he just bluffing to keep control ? also, why is it that both the Cardinal and the brother try so hard to control her? is she a threat to them?
