Monday, April 29, 2013
The Cenci and Violence: Victims and Despair
One nature I thought was very interesting about the play that we're reading was that this is the first time we've been in the viewpoint of a woman who "is" truly a victim, many female characters of the works we've read are victims of circumstance or by the actions of another party, but not nearly to the physical or emotional degree of Beatrice Cenci. Count Francesco Cenci, her father who is the most sociopathic character i've ever seen, and absolutely relishes, violence and milks the misery of those lives he destroys in the most twisted and brutal ways possible for all it's worth. The violence he enacts on people is simply astonishing to see and truly makes me wonder whether he is a human incarnation of evil itself. Francesco's physical and emotional violence enacted on his entire family in nothing short of disgusting, and the fact that nobody tries to offer any assistance to the family for fear of Francesco makes this entire play a lesson in that you have noone to protect you but yourself. The fact that Beatrice and her mother are nothing short of slaves to Francesco's whims and are treated little better than servants fills the reader with a tender sympathy, but also a frustrated sense of anger, or atleast to me, because Beatrice nor her mother seem to fight Francesco or they waited until something truly horrible happened, but that just shows the beaten down personalities of both woman and the staff because they are so afraid they can't even voice an true opinion. This entire play filled me with a absolute and pure disgust for Francesco and personally I was glad he died, but yet I can't help but feel terrified for Beatrice and her mother, because this world certaintly doesn't feel like a kind place towards woman.
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