The Cenci and Apathy of Compassion

Throughout the play I realized the apathy that the characters seemed to posses towards the victims of Beatrice and everyone her father has tyrannized. The Pope who is suppoused to be the most compassionate character by definition of a follower of God shows the least compassion to any of the character's and says simply "They must die" for the crimes they committed. The lack of compassion is the catalyst for the entire play in that it's Francesco's lack of empathy that allows such evil acts to exist and ultimately brings about his death. Beatrice's unwilligness to actually kill her father and commands others to kill him was an interesting development because as the main person that he has tormented and killed her brothers I naturally assumed that she would "want" to be the one kill her father herself and her unwillingness to actually do the deed shows she still has some compassion left. This shows to us the the reader that not all characters are morally bankrupt and gives us a more sympathetic nature to Beatrice. The fact that at the end Beatrice and everyone is killed do to the need for "justice" for Francesco even though he was a absolutely horrible person shows the morally dark nature of this play and that no one is capable of truly protecting themselves. The inability of compassion in this play shows the nature of that people in this world who can't protect themselves aren't going to live very long, or that there going to pay for being weak with there lives.