Revenge in Fiction – and in Life: A Roundtable Discussion

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Revenge. The motive fuels major crimes and petty forms of aggression. I was inspired by Alison Gaylin’s excellent book on maternal revenge, The Collective, to investigate revenge as motive and means to keep a story moving. Stephanie Wrobel, author of the Munchausen-by-proxy thriller Darling Rose Gold and This Might Hurt. Ashley Audrain is the author of The Push, and Chelsea Summers’ book, A Certain Hunger, is a particularly rich canvas of revenge (spoiler: it’s about a woman who cooks and eats her exes). Winnie Li’s Dark Chapter is one of the most complex novels about rape I’ve encountered. Now that we have our cast of characters let’s turn to the conversation, which ranged from Promising Young Woman to Hamlet via Columbine.

Lisa Levy: Hello all! Please introduce yourself when you join. Name, location, last book written, astrological sign, etc.

Alison Gaylin: Hi! Alison Gaylin, Woodstock, NY, THE COLLECTIVE, Taurus.

Stephanie Wrobel: Hello hello! Stephanie Wrobel, London (UK), THIS MIGHT HURT, and Aquarius. I don’t know anything about astrological signs, so I feel very out of my league here.

Ashley Audrain: Hi everyone! Ashley, Toronto, THE PUSH and another Taurus!

Chelsea Summers: Hi, my pen name is Chelsea G. Summers. My book is A CERTAIN HUNGER. And I am predictably a Scorpio.

Winnie: I’m Winnie, currently in Southern California (but flying back to the UK on Monday), last book was DARK CHAPTER, with COMPLICIT coming out next summer.  Scorpio!

Taurus v. Scorpio

Lisa: Why don’t we start with each of you talking about how revenge figures in your work?

Wow, Taurus v Scorpio.

Alison: Both kind of vengeful signs? (Work with me here)

Winnie: Um, so… I’ve never explicitly had revenge as the driving force in either of my novels, but I think as a concept it probably must come up, since my protagonists are confronting the trauma and fall-out of crimes committed against them.

Stephanie: Revenge figures more heavily into my first book, Darling Rose Gold. It wasn’t an intentional move—I didn’t go into the story thinking I wanted to write a revenge story. It was more that when I put myself in one character’s shoes, what could her reaction possibly be other than wanting revenge?

Winnie: So narratively, outsiders (and marketing teams) are inclined to introduce the theme of revenge as a selling point.

Lisa: Winnie, I think there is an undercurrent of revenge in your book. Not explicit, but it is about a victim getting justice. Alison can speak to that to.

Stephanie: Yes, completely agree, Winnie

Lisa: Why outsiders?

Winnie: Yeah, same here. Revenge wasn’t intentional for me.

Alison: I’ve written several short stories that center around revenge, but The Collective is probably my first novel focusing on it. It’s a fascinating thing to write about because it can go hand in hand with obsession—you lose a lot of objectivity and become quite scarily single minded when revenge is your driving force.

Ashley: It’s certainly applicable to my characters and their actions. Specifically, Violet, the young daughter in my novel. Blythe, her mother, suspects much of her behavior is a revenge of sorts…on her as a mother, how Violet is made to feel (or not feel). There’s something so uncomfortable about a child seeking revenge, and I love that concept…

Revenge v. Spite

Chelsea: Despite the fact that my book is about a woman killing and eating a bevy of her former lovers, my book isn’t about revenge as much as it is about spite.

Winnie: I think—and I say this as a rape victim—that when I was living thru the worst of the fall-out from the crime, it was always other people who were saying. ‘Oh he deserves to rot in jail, etc.’ and I was more focused on recovering.

Lisa: That’s fair, Winnie

Lisa: What’s the difference between revenge and spite? Serious and petty?

Winnie: Was writing Dark Chapter a form of revenge against my real-life rapist?  People might want to frame it like that. But I hardly knew him. And more than anything, it was about transforming this lived trauma into a creative process and into, well, something more literary.

Stephanie: Revenge is dialing spite up several notches. Revenge suggests a certain level of pre-meditation.

Alison: Revenge feels more active and driving, I think.

Chelsea: I see revenge as a straight-line goal, whereas spite is both more amorphous and more all-encompassing. Revenge has angles, while spite is like effluvia.

Ashley: That’s so interesting, Alison — I think that’s what can make writing about revenge so compelling, that it automatically takes us into that obsessive territory that can be so tense.

Winnie : Yeah, I agree — spite is less focused.

Lisa: Who gets to have revenge, or to perform it?

Winnie: A good example of revenge narrative in film might be Promising Young Woman

Ashley: Yes, and revenge feels more passionate than spite…revenge is often tied to anger and rage.

Stephanie: I love that film so much!

Chelsea: And revenge has a very clear source of harm, a single action or moment.

Lisa: Please tell! I haven’t seen it.

Winnie: I was on the fence about Promising Young Woman… but found it entertaining

Alison: Yes Ashley  I think the three emotions a lot of us tend to deal with are grief, obsession and rage. And all three of those aspects are alive and well when it comes to revenge.

Chelsea: Promising Young Woman is the best revenge film.

Alison: Oh I loved Promising Young Woman.

Winnie: But there’s a twist at the end, where you’re left thinking… wait, in order for her to get revenge, THAT had to happen?

Alison: I think it works, Winnie  because she was living for it. It was her life’s purpose.

Chelsea: One of the editors of my book wanted me to make a major change that would have made my book a revenge book, and I said no.

Lisa: Why Chelsea?

Winnie: I don’t think this is giving too much away, but the main character (Carey Mulligan) is seeking revenge after her best friend had been raped… So she enacts a plan years later. It’s a clever film, but very aware of its cleverness.

Chelsea: It’s hard to do revenge that sidesteps cliché, and that’s one of the reasons why I treasure Promising Young Woman. Or Amy Gentry’s Last Woman Standing.

Lisa: I love Amy and I love that book. She’s great at revenge.

Chelsea: Amy is terrific at plotting. I am not terrific at plotting, so I admire it when it’s tight.

Plotting and Loss

Lisa: I am sitting next to a stack of true crime books and on top is Until the Twelfth of Never which is about the Betty Broderick case. Now that was a revenge killing.

Winnie: Yes, revenge can be a big cliche.  That’s why I tend not to like rape revenge narratives, because they just don’t seem believable or realistic to me. I could understand revenge on the part of someone else’s murder better….

Lisa: And revenge is a natural plot, isn’t it? Like marriage.

Stephanie: I think revenge novels can be a satisfying subgenre because often the revenge being sought is justified. A lot of times we’re rooting for the person seeking revenge because of the way the narrative has been set up.

Lisa: If you really want revenge pick up your Bible, or your Shakespeare.

Chelsea: Revenge allows guilt-free association with the baddies, which may be another reason why I generally resist it.

Stephanie: You don’t get that same guilt-free association with say, a serial killer, story.

Ashley: Revenge works best, I think, as a natural plot when there are high stakes involved…a cost in seeking the revenge. Yes, they’re getting even, but to make it more interesting, the character has to have consequences as well…

Winnie: I think the thing about revenge (or the way we perceive of it in narrative) is that once it’s achieved, the character can move on. But I wonder if actual trauma is more gradual and organic than that. And then what if you don’t get your intended revenge? Does that mean you can never move on?

Moving on

Alison: I like exploring the aftermath of revenge. Does it really make your life better? And what happens after you achieve it? What you’ve lost is still lost.

Stephanie: Agreed, Winnie  I think revenge makes for a better narrative device than real-life coping mechanism!

Lisa: Moving on as a goal is a recent idea. Revenge is very, very old.

Winnie: Lisa perhaps revenge is just an old-school concept that means the same thing as a chance to move on.

Lisa: What’s your favorite instance of old school revenge? For some reason I have All About Eve in my head, though it’s not strictly about revenge.

Chelsea: Kill Bill is some fairly straightforward satisfying revenge.

Winnie: Also — I often wonder if revenge (at least the way we tend to see in male-driven narratives) is more of a male thing. Something to do with masculine honor. You did this to my wife and family so therefore, I have to do this to you.

Lisa: That’s why I’m pushing to see how revenge works with women, Winnie. I think you are right.

Chelsea: It’s rare that revenge is open to women beyond getting back at dudes who cheated on them. It’s lame.

Winnie: Personally, having been on the receiving end of bodily violence, I would never want to inflict that back on someone.  And I don’t think I’m capable of it.

Lisa: There are plenty of ways to get revenge that are not physical…

Ashley: Yes, I agree. And there’s different kinds of revenge, there are acts of revenge that do irreparable harm and then there are quieter acts of revenge, ones that might be even more satisfying on some level.

Winnie: So yes, maybe female revenge (as we tend to see it in narratives), is more about destroying reputations, winning that deal, accomplishing SOMETHING when the odds are stacked against you.

Lisa: Private revenge v. public?

Lisa: Stephanie, I think Rose Gold explores the private/public divide in an interesting way.

Winnie: Yes Lisa. Or physical revenge vs social revenge

Lisa Interesting Winnie  One is very intimate and the other is for everyone to see?

Lisa: Is revenge something characters or people perform? Can you fake it, and why would you want to?

Shame v Guilt

Stephanie: I think revenge is especially potent when it activates shame, which can happen in a private or public setting, but feels much more overwhelming in public, I think. Shame has to be one of the most feared human emotions.

Lisa: Shame! There are shame cultures and guilt cultures.

Winnie: yes, but I think that divide is also gendered because women often are restricted to only being able to wield that more that intimate form of revenge.  As in not having the access or ability to inflict something more public.

Stephanie: Well, I think because of women’s tighter social connections, we’re certainly capable of turning people against each other. Public doesn’t have to mean an enormous gathering,

Stephanie: (Obviously generalizing with the tighter social connections comment there.)

Winnie: Stephanie, yes, and I think it may be to the point where the revenge isn’t successful if you didn’t somehow make the perpetrator/bully feel ashamed of what they’ve done.

Lisa: Stephanie, I’m thinking of Louise Candish’s books, which are about neighbors. A small public.

Chelsea: Take something like The Handmaiden. The revenge tale is beautifully plotted and delicately teased out. Shame is very much part of the revenge, but so is murder.

Winnie: Has anyone seen the film The Nightingale by Jennifer Kent?

Lisa: What about vigilantes? Those are vengeful people.

Stephanie: Yes, exactly! If it’s the *right* small public, it cuts just as deep

Stephanie: Maybe even deeper.

Alison: I think that’s definitely tied up in it. Inflicting shame — which is honestly a lot easier to make someone feel than guilt. Guilt is the desired effect, but shame can suffice.

Ashley: I haven’t!

Winnie: Ooh, I loved The Handmaiden.

Lisa: Stephanie  A lot of domestic suspense is based on that premise.

Lisa: How do you inflict shame?

Chelsea: It’s the most perfect movie.

Alison: Shame was the endgame in A Promising Young Woman, coming back to that.

Stephanie: To be honest, I find shame-based revenge much more terrifying because that seems more plausible. I don’t think most of us are worried we’ve wronged someone to the extent they may turn around and murder us…

Stephanie: But everyone has experienced shame, and it’s such an awful feeling.

Alison: Stephanie  that’s a really good point.

Lisa: Some people do have no shame.

Stephanie: I envy those people

Lisa: I’m thinking of a former president.

Winnie: The film The Nightingale is really interesting — it’s got an absolutely brutal scene 15 min in (huge trigger warning), but the rest of it is about a woman trying to seek revenge against a man with much more social power than her. Set in colonial Australia. She teams up with a male aboriginal tracker — and what’s fascinating is at the end, they both decide to inflict different forms of revenge upon the perpetrator.

What About the Narcissists?

Lisa: One of you mentioned narcissism earlier, which I think is a justification or explanation for bad behavior. Selfish behavior.

Lisa: Does revenge have to be about two people in conflict? What about honor killings? There’s a societal imperative to seek revenge.

Winnie: I think power differences are often intrinsic to a revenge narrative. As in, the original crime may have only occurred because of a power difference, so revenge is about trying to destabilize that difference.

Stephanie: I find narcissists a real joy to write because they don’t have any of the hang-ups that I do. To be that level of self-centered has to be freeing in many ways.

Chelsea: Yes, destabilize or upend it.

Chelsea: I love writing narcissists for that same reason.

Lisa: Stephanie in your book it’s a mother/daughter power struggle, and in Alison’s it’s also a mother/daughter relationship but the daughter is dead.

Winnie: For honor killings to be engaging emotionally, you still need to root the narrative in one character who’s seeking the revenge.

Lisa: Do mothers get a pass on revenge?

Winnie: I’ve never written a narcissist!  Ok, well, one, but he wasn’t a PoV character…

Stephanie: Winnie brings up a good point. I think the best revenge stories have you empathizing at SOME point with both (all?) of the characters in conflict.

Chelsea: Writing a narcissist is like slipping into a silken id. It’s delicious.

Stephanie: But then I like the gray areas where there’s no defined hero or baddie

Lisa: That’s where a lot of psychological thrillers land

Winnie: Chelsea hah! Why is that? Because as an author you get to live your own narcissist tendencies?

Lisa: Narcissism is a distinct POV. The only POV if you are one.

Stephanie: Lisa you mean a pass on enacting revenge? I think mothers get the LEAST pass on revenge! We don’t cut mothers slack on anything, and certainly not when it comes to wrongdoing against their children.

Ashley: Mothers! But more specifically, mothers and daughters, and the dynamic inherent to that relationship is perfect for revenge…I loved this about ROSE GOLD.

Chelsea: Writing a narcissist gave me a lot of power and freedom to inhabit a world that has always felt equally repellant and fascinating.

Lisa: Winnie  that’s interesting…Is writing caught up narcissism? Both are world building exercises.

Winnie: Chelsea  sorry I wasn’t suggesting you were a narcissist! :joy: But yes, I was thinking along the lines of what you answered…

Stephanie: What I find fascinating about narcissists is that they can justify *anything* to fit the story they want to tell.

The Revenge of the Father

Lisa: Mothers and daughters are often in competition.

Lisa: A truth not acknowledged very much, but still true

Alison: Do we give fathers more of a pass on avenging their children? Or living for revenge? The vengeful dad is a character that’s been around for a long time. The vengeful mom is what I try to explore.

Lisa: Isn’t justifying actions one of the things revenge is good for? (sorry bad syntax)

Stephanie: Haha, well sure, on the page!

Lisa: Yes, the vengeful dad. Do you remember Times Square, the 1970s film about the guy looking for his daughter who had run away and become a prostitute.

Ashley : Agree, Alison — maybe the avenging dad is seen as more heroic, too? While the avenging mom can sometimes be portrayed as…unhinged?

Lisa: Is killing someone who harmed your child easier to justify than other kinds of crimes?

Stephanie: 100%, Ashley

Winnie: Yeah that’s the thing about the vengeful dad trope — part of me is like, you’ve got other kids to raise who are still alive. Focus on them! I think the moms would be focusing on raising the rest of the family, nurturing the rest of their lives instead of pursuing an individual desire for justice.

Chelsea: We could spend the next week and not name all the male revenge-driven narratives. Revenge feels like a facet of toxic masculinity.

Lisa: Yes exactly Ashley

Alison: Oh that does ring a bell. There are also all the Death Wish movies, Liam Neeson in Taken. In real life, too, we give dads a little more leeway in not “moving on” following the loss of a child. John Walsh, etc.

Winnie: Chelsea  very true

Chelsea: A facet or a tentacle.

Stephanie: IMO, easily justified revenge is often the least interesting.

Lisa: Well, I think we give men points for doing parental things while it’s expected of women.

Alison: Moms tend to be told to “move on” and “forgive” a bit more than dads

Winnie: In the aftermath of trauma, I felt anger to be a very destructive emotion. Not helpful towards my own recovery.

Lisa: It’s the “it’s not babysitting if they are your kids” syndrome.

Lisa: Clarification: the power we give fathers

Alison: Yes!

Lisa: Alison Is that because we don’t want men to be emotional? Is it weak? Or is there a way in which our legal structure supports revenge?

Winnie: No. The legal system is not about revenge, but I think that’s where our revenge narratives influence the way we think about real-life justice

Lisa: I’m asking…

Lisa: OK, justice. What’s the relationship between justice and revenge?

Lisa: Or revenge and justification

Winnie: Ah, is justice about an eye for an eye?

Lisa: I’m asking!

Winnie: Or is modern-day justice about (or meant to be about) holding perpetrators accountable and preventing future crimes?

Stephanie: Well, revenge sounds somewhat deranged or at least has a negative connotation. Justice sounds noble, positive. And I think every person seeking revenge would likely say they’re seeking justice.

Lisa: Is there another framework for thinking about justice?

Chelsea: Avenge/revenge/vengeance: isn’t it kind of a sliding scale based on the same emotional hue?

Alison: I think there’s a very fine line between justice and revenge. And we clearly have an imperfect, privilege-based justice system.

Lisa: An unjust justice system for many people.

Lisa: Is self-defense another way to think about revenge? Or what about school shootings, like Columbine. The writing of the perpetrators is very much about revenge.

Ashley: I don’t really think about self-defense as being a kind of revenge…I think of revenge as being more passionate, more obsessive and infectious…

Stephanie: Revenge invokes premeditation for me. Self-defense (theoretically) is supposed to be something spur of the moment, unexpected.

Winnie: I ‘got justice’ in the sense that my rapist was convicted and served time in jail (8-year sentence, reduced to 4). And people ask me: was that enough?  And at the end of the day, it’s arbitrary. In another country, he would have gotten 20 years, in another country 0. I know so many victims who never even had justice, so who am I to say if it’s the ‘correct’ amount of time?  I realized after a while that I no longer had any personal stakes on the outcome of what happened to him, because it was out of my control.

Chelsea: But then revenge would be sort of the l’esprit d’escalier form of self-defense.

Revenge Plots

Alison: It’s humans, fallible humans deciding who’s right and wrong no matter what. That’s the problem. And I think revenge is something that’s extremely satisfying in fiction but not so much in the real world. A loss is a loss is a loss.

Lisa: and every loss is a potential revenge story

Lisa: Who took it away? How? Why?

Ashley: Yeah, that makes me think of the idea of a revenge fantasy. Do any of us *really* seek revenge on someone, or do we just dream about it?

Lisa: What can I do to either get it back or to feel less terrible about the loss. We certainly dream—or fantasize—about it.

Alison: Ashley, that’s exactly it. As with SO many things, the idea and fantasy of it is so much more satisfying than the reality.

Lisa: It’s the engine of Hamlet

Chelsea: If you think of revenge as getting back at a person who made you lose something, then it is the late comeback. More satisfying than l’esprit d’escalier, but also a continuation, a haunting, of the loss.

Winnie: yes Alison I think revenge is more of a narrative/fictional driver, but we’ve had it so drummed into our consciousness that some people (Columbine perpetrators for example) use it to fuel their fantasies and enact violence.

Lisa: Haunting is an interesting word especially since you typed it as I was typing Hamlet.

Chelsea: I’m always thinking of Hamlet.

Lisa: dude is a major whiner

Lisa: and potentially a narcissist in training

Winnie: Yah, realistically, who has the time to plot a revenge?  People have bills to pay..

Lisa: And Netflix to watch

Alison: Winnie, yes, so true. It’s such a pervasive idea in fiction/movies/video games. That revenge satisfies. But does it? Columbine is an excellent example.

Winnie: Hamlet is an awful guy. If he had to earn a living he wouldn’t be so obsessed with revenge.

Chelsea: When I get mad, I write a scene where someone gets eviscerated. It’s really quite cleansing.

Lisa: That does not surprise me Chelsea.

Stephanie: Revenge just feels so bold. And how often do most of us, in our daily lives, get to feel bold?

Lisa: Yes! It is a Big Emotion.

Lisa: A framework for emotion, actually.

Winnie: Chelsea  No, revenge does not satisfy! And I think some of the more complex revenge narratives admit that: in seeking revenge, you may be sowing the seeds of your own destruction.

Ashley: There’s also usually always a huge cost to revenge…something to exchange for the satisfaction of it. And real life, it would never be worth it!

Feelings

Lisa: Revenge is not a feeling, it’s a way to think about other feelings, uncomfortable ones.

What feelings are tied up in revenge?

Lisa: Grief, anger.

Stephanie: Envy.

Alison: Obsession, rage, often grief.

Chelsea: It’s hard to exact revenge in real life. Like, real narratively satisfying revenge. And that’s in part because we as real-life people have to live with the consequences — legal, emotional and psychological — of our actions.

Winnie: I think guilt too.

Alison: Any negative emotion that’s all consuming.

Stephanie: Shame

Lisa: I think that’s why we like revenge stories. It so rarely happens IRL.

Winnie: True!

Chelsea: Yep.

Winnie: But some take too long.  The Revenant for example… God, Leo, just die in the wilderness!

Chelsea: Also the clothes are good. Revenge clothes are the bomb.

Lisa: I think it’s an adolescent emotion. I had a lot of revenge plots when I was in high school, but none of them were Columbine.

Winnie: Ooh… Chelsea

Ashley: I mean…Carrie!

Chelsea: Who among us does not want to swan about in revenge weeds.

Winnie: I hadn’t thought of that… Princess Diana’s revenge dress.

Lisa: OH YES

Alison: The most successful revenge stories are very character driven. The character is so well-portrayed that you have a sort of visceral connection, so you fully understand that thirst for revenge and when it happens, you feel a certain way.

Chelsea: Carrie is a great revenge example because it’s a horror story that gestures at its own continued haunting.

Winnie : But again.. if that’s the female version of revenge: ‘I’m gonna look really hot’… what is that saying about our agency as women?

Lisa: Yes! Carrie is pure revenge.

Alison: Daughter-to-mother revenge. Powerful stuff.

Lisa: that its sadly limited Winnie

Alison: Winnie  If I see “revenge diet” in one more celebrity headline…..

Lisa: Revenge diet is something inflicted on women. Nobody says I’m on a revenge diet.

Alison: Dieting is not revenge. I just want to put that out there.

Lisa: agree Alison

Alison: This was wonderful speaking with you all! What a wonderful group. Thank you for putting this together, Lisa!

Lisa: Thank you all for participating! We don’t have trophies, sadly.

Featured image: Artemisia Gentileschi,
Jael and Sisera, 1620

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