Literary Analysis, Violence in Literature..

Violence, whether in the past or in the present, has been a huge issue that is facing

humanity. It can be viewed in many different way. Violence can be a symbol to mean something

else, but can be a tool people use in order to get what they want, whether the goal behind is was

obvious, or hidden. A lot of literary works contained the idea of violence, which allows to make

some connection between some of those pieces of literature. ​Hamlet​, by William Shakespeare,

and Bab Al-Hara, directed by Bassam Al-Mulla are two works that elaborate to the way violence

is one of the things people resort to in order to get what they want.

Hamlet​ was one of the plays that taught me how people viewed violence as, and how they

used it to achieve many things hundreds of years ago. Hamlet, one of the character, was one of

the characters who highlighted an idea, which was that violence is one way of self fulfilling

action. It was self fulfilling. That is because revenge was a hope and a motivation for Hamlet; he

wanted to kill his uncle, who killed his father, king Hamlet. Hamlet said, “O, from this time forth

my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!” (IV, iv, 68-69). As can be inferred, the author

wanted us to understand that anything that was not “bloody,” nor done with violence is not worth

being done. Violence was referred to in multiple acts of the play, which affected the message and

meaning of the play and showed how important violence is in terms of revenge.

Bab Al-Hara, a soap opera directed by Bassam Al-Mulla reflected a lot of violence. That

can be looked at from two points of view. The story of it was centered around the lives of Syrian

people during the French occupation. They had a lot of restrictions and obstacles that interfered

in everything they plan to do. There was a resistance movement, that felt that the country

deserves to have its own voice. They were considered heroes by some people, or terrorists, in the
views of others. The French occupation, or as their forces claimed in the show, The French

mandate was there to civilize Syrian people because they basically do not know how to live, nor

react with their environment. The French forces killed innocent people, and sent spies to know

the location of any resistance movements, either to get rid of them, or imprison them basically

because they consider self defence as “terrorism.” When people refused to spy on their brothers

and village people, they get murdered, that simple. Obviously, hiding information like that was

considered guilt, so violence should be used in order to “teach” those “uncivilized people” how

they should react to the commands of higher authorities. One of the results of mysteries in

violence as mentioned in ​How to Read Literature Like a Professor​ was having “the guilty

punished” and that is what happened with one of the actors, Subhi (97).

Hamlet ​and Bab Al-Hara were so different, yet closely related pieces of literature. They

both had violence used to justify the insane actions against humanity. In ​Hamlet,​ violence was

used as a justification for revenge. In Bab Al-Hara, it was used to justify the civilization process,

or can be called occupation. I feel that ​Hamlet ​and Bab Al-Hara both took the principle of “I

must be cruel only to be kind” in the attempt of reaching their goals (III. iv. 199). The problem

with it is that people taking that action are taking the decision, believing that it will be the only

way to promote justice, which is totally invalid, and makes no logical sense.

Work Cited

Foster, Thomas C. ​How To Read Literature Like a Professor. ​Harper Perennial. 2014. Print.

Shakespeare, William. ​Hamlet. ​Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. Print.

YouTube. Published by clash mjrm, 12 July 2016.

<​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_BSn9Qnz24​>