Loyal to Whom? Friends, Spies, Revenge, and Our Man in Havana
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Giuseppe Rossi
Giuseppe Rossi is Professor of Comparative Private Law at IULM University, Milan and a member of the Milan Bar. His main research interests are in the fields of intellectual property, media law, market regulation and consumer protection. He participates in research projects on law and literature.
Abstract
The essay deals with the law and revenge issue, questioning the fundamental assumption according to which the law, by its own nature, should act as a substitute for vengeance. Provided that both law and revenge have their common grounds on the different, and at times conflicting, feelings of resentment and loyalty, the paper maintains that law can prevent revenge only if it is trusted by the victims, being itself a part to a bond of loyalty. Graham Greene’s 1958 “entertainment” Our Man in Havana is chosen as a reference scenario. The paper analyses the characters’ attitudes towards the law, their resentments, and their bonds of loyalty, and investigates the emotional scenario behind the two revenges mentioned in the novel. Finally, the essay maintains that each person’s degree of trust in the law, and therefore their willingness to renounce revenge, depends on that person’s own choices and inner feelings about themselves and the community.
About the author
Giuseppe Rossi is Professor of Comparative Private Law at IULM University, Milan and a member of the Milan Bar. His main research interests are in the fields of intellectual property, media law, market regulation and consumer protection. He participates in research projects on law and literature.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- FOCUS: Revenge and the Law
- Focus
- The Paradoxes of Sin: Vengeance as Death Drive in Janet Lewis’s The Wife of Martin Guerre
- The Theatre of Revenge: The Intrusion of Hamlet’s Shadow Between Drama and History
- “Avenging the Nation”. Freedom of the Press and Constitutional Deliverance in Trollope’s Palliser Novels
- Loyal to Whom? Friends, Spies, Revenge, and Our Man in Havana
- Can You Think About Justice? Between Law Enforcement and Revenge, Detective’s Dilemmas in Noir Novel
- Between Anger and Revenge: The Unpoetic Justice of “Counterparts”
- Hamlet and Pure Object Revenge – The Matter of Life and Death
- Research
- Resting her Case: “MeToo à la française” – Springora and Others
- Narratives of Justice: Legal Meaning, Literary Genres and Politics
- The Shadows of Sovereignty: A Visual Genealogy of Dark Knight Archetypes
- Book Review
- Paul Raffield: Shakespeare’s Strangers and English Law
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- FOCUS: Revenge and the Law
- Focus
- The Paradoxes of Sin: Vengeance as Death Drive in Janet Lewis’s The Wife of Martin Guerre
- The Theatre of Revenge: The Intrusion of Hamlet’s Shadow Between Drama and History
- “Avenging the Nation”. Freedom of the Press and Constitutional Deliverance in Trollope’s Palliser Novels
- Loyal to Whom? Friends, Spies, Revenge, and Our Man in Havana
- Can You Think About Justice? Between Law Enforcement and Revenge, Detective’s Dilemmas in Noir Novel
- Between Anger and Revenge: The Unpoetic Justice of “Counterparts”
- Hamlet and Pure Object Revenge – The Matter of Life and Death
- Research
- Resting her Case: “MeToo à la française” – Springora and Others
- Narratives of Justice: Legal Meaning, Literary Genres and Politics
- The Shadows of Sovereignty: A Visual Genealogy of Dark Knight Archetypes
- Book Review
- Paul Raffield: Shakespeare’s Strangers and English Law
