Troubling Justice: Narratives of Revenge
-
Stella Butter
Abstract
Taking its cue from the current popularity of the revenge tale, this article investigates the cultural functions that the revenge genre fulfils as a distinct way of worldmaking. Giorgos Lanthimos’ film The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) serves as an exemplary case study for this purpose due to its complex engagement with revenge templates. A brief historical sketch of the revenge genre helps delineate how Lanthimos’ film carefully up-dates generic conventions in its engagement with wounded masculinity, flawed bourgeois ideals of the good life, and the alienated world of modernity. The Killing of a Sacred Deer ultimately sets itself up as an operating theater dispassionately dissecting the anatomy of storied retributive violence through grotesque defamiliarization. Far from presenting violence as a cure for social or individual malaise, Lanthimos’ references to mythic and religious templates suggest that the complexity of social life and violence resists neat translation into culturally available plots. Not only is the relationship between revenge and justice troubled in the film, but the narrative transformation of violence into vengeance and justice is also critically foregrounded. The discussion of the revenge genre in the article demonstrates how cultural narratology deepens our understanding of the cultural work performed by genres over time.
Abstract
Taking its cue from the current popularity of the revenge tale, this article investigates the cultural functions that the revenge genre fulfils as a distinct way of worldmaking. Giorgos Lanthimos’ film The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) serves as an exemplary case study for this purpose due to its complex engagement with revenge templates. A brief historical sketch of the revenge genre helps delineate how Lanthimos’ film carefully up-dates generic conventions in its engagement with wounded masculinity, flawed bourgeois ideals of the good life, and the alienated world of modernity. The Killing of a Sacred Deer ultimately sets itself up as an operating theater dispassionately dissecting the anatomy of storied retributive violence through grotesque defamiliarization. Far from presenting violence as a cure for social or individual malaise, Lanthimos’ references to mythic and religious templates suggest that the complexity of social life and violence resists neat translation into culturally available plots. Not only is the relationship between revenge and justice troubled in the film, but the narrative transformation of violence into vengeance and justice is also critically foregrounded. The discussion of the revenge genre in the article demonstrates how cultural narratology deepens our understanding of the cultural work performed by genres over time.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter i
- Contents v
- A Tale of Two Concepts: Ansgar Nünning at Sixty 1
- Stories of Dangerous Life in the Post- Trauma Age: Toward a Cultural Narratology of Resilience 15
- Mind the Narratives: Towards a Cultural Narratology of Attention 37
- The End of the World (as We Know It)? – Cultural Ways of Worldmaking in Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Narratives 57
- Plumbing Distant Spatiotemporal Scales: Towards an Econarratology of Planetary Memory in Narratives of the Global South 75
- Narrative Forms in the Age of the Anthropocene: Negotiating Human-Nonhuman Relations in Global South Novels 91
- Fact, Fiction, and Everything in-between: Strategies of Reader Activation in Postcolonial Graphic Narratives 109
- ‘It’s Not Our Opinion, It’s the Opinion of Our Roles’ – Fremdverstehen Revisited or: Where Foreign Language Education and Narratology Can Meet 129
- Narrative and Visual Resources of Culture in Contemporary Indigenous Children’s Books from Australia 149
- Troubling Justice: Narratives of Revenge 165
- Erin Burnett in Mali: Bardic Television and the Genealogy of Cultural Narratology 185
- New Media Narratives: Olivia Sudjic’s Sympathy and Identity in the Digital Age 199
- The ‘Death’ of the Unreliable Narrator: Toward a Functional History of Narrative Unreliability 215
- Odyssean Travels: The Migration of Narrative Form (Homer – Lamb – Joyce) 241
- A European Storyteller? Collective Narration in John Berger’s Into Their Labours 269
- Brexit as Cultural Performance: Towards a Narratology of Social Drama 293
- Contributors 321
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter i
- Contents v
- A Tale of Two Concepts: Ansgar Nünning at Sixty 1
- Stories of Dangerous Life in the Post- Trauma Age: Toward a Cultural Narratology of Resilience 15
- Mind the Narratives: Towards a Cultural Narratology of Attention 37
- The End of the World (as We Know It)? – Cultural Ways of Worldmaking in Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Narratives 57
- Plumbing Distant Spatiotemporal Scales: Towards an Econarratology of Planetary Memory in Narratives of the Global South 75
- Narrative Forms in the Age of the Anthropocene: Negotiating Human-Nonhuman Relations in Global South Novels 91
- Fact, Fiction, and Everything in-between: Strategies of Reader Activation in Postcolonial Graphic Narratives 109
- ‘It’s Not Our Opinion, It’s the Opinion of Our Roles’ – Fremdverstehen Revisited or: Where Foreign Language Education and Narratology Can Meet 129
- Narrative and Visual Resources of Culture in Contemporary Indigenous Children’s Books from Australia 149
- Troubling Justice: Narratives of Revenge 165
- Erin Burnett in Mali: Bardic Television and the Genealogy of Cultural Narratology 185
- New Media Narratives: Olivia Sudjic’s Sympathy and Identity in the Digital Age 199
- The ‘Death’ of the Unreliable Narrator: Toward a Functional History of Narrative Unreliability 215
- Odyssean Travels: The Migration of Narrative Form (Homer – Lamb – Joyce) 241
- A European Storyteller? Collective Narration in John Berger’s Into Their Labours 269
- Brexit as Cultural Performance: Towards a Narratology of Social Drama 293
- Contributors 321
