The Spanish Tragedy Theme of Revenge

The Spanish Tragedy opens with a dead guy looking for revenge while standing next to a character named Revenge. So yeah, you can see where Kyd is heading right from the start. You could say that the play is single-mindedly focused on the ethics of revenge, with another few smaller themes merely orbiting around this issue. But the way that these issues orbit around revenge make it clear that acts of revenge affect every facet of public and private life in the play. The real question about revenge is this: when there is no path to legal justice is it ethical to exact private justice?

1. Revenge is a dish best served cold. But in this play revenge gets really cold—frigid even. It takes so long to happen that Isabella kills herself, Andrea's ghost gets deathly impatient, and the character Revenge literally falls asleep on the stage. Did you fall asleep before the bloodbath? And what affect does the delay have on revenge when it actually happens?
2. Does Hieronimo have any alternatives to revenge? It becomes clear that the bad guys in the play aren't subject to the law. But does this justify Hieronimo murdering them? Make a case that Hieronimo is actually a bad guy. Or, defend Hieronimo as a hero for justice. Isn't it cool that you can sometimes have it either way in literature? Well, so long as you base your claims on the text…
3. It's easy to think of Hieronimo as the prime avenger in the play. But what about the women? Isabella gets her own revenge by destroying the garden where her son was hanged. And Bel-Imperia obviously plays a leading role in getting revenge. Both women also commit suicide as their final act of revenge. So, how is female revenge different from male revenge in the play?
4. Why is revenge so fun? Admit it, you know you enjoyed it when the baddies died. Does enjoying revenge in the play make you feel satisfied? Guilty? Mixed emotions? Discuss what it makes you feel. And then talk about the difference between literary and real violence?
5. If you could save one character from dying in the last scene of the play who would it be? If you could kill off another character in the play, which would it be? Give textual evidence to support either saving or taking a literary life.
   

The Spanish Tragedy allows us to think like a victim, a villain, and a vigilante while considering how justice should really be served.

While most of the play is about how Hieronimo can't find justice in a corrupt system, it's the women of the play who really can't find a voice in the Spanish justice system.