An Opinion That Revenge is Not the Answer in The Things They Carried

People mistake punishment for revenge. When you think of getting revenge on someone for them doing something bad to you or a loved one, the first thing some people think of is a way to get back at them and hurt them the way they hurt you. When someone you think someone has lied or cheated on you talk to them because getting revenge isn’t the first thing you should do. People tend to act on something before thinking about the consequences in which they will had to face.

I don’t think revenge should be justified even when someone has done anything wrong to you. Just like in The Things They Carried when O’brien decided to scare Jorgenson with “Ghosts rising from the dead” (O’brien, pg. 195), when O’brien was shot for the second time and Jorgenson was supposed to attend to him since he is the new medic. He froze and couldn’t do anything causing O’Brien to have a challenging and long recovery.

Ever since O’Brien has had in out for Jorgenson which is wrong.

Jorgenson was a new medic and wasn’t familiar with that type of situation yet but O’Brien didn’t care because when you are hurt the anger and emotions take over you. They controlled him to the point where he made up some crazy story to scare off Jorgenson as a punishment for him causing O’Brien pain. In the end O’brien got over it”I hated for making me stop hating him” (O’brien, pg.

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190). No matter what happens revenge shouldn’t be the first thing you think of not even when someone cheats on you.

Revenge shouldn’t be a form of getting back at someone even if they cheat on you because what goes around come back around. Just like what happened in Othello when he decides to kill his wife Desdemona. “Ay, let her rot and perish and be damned tonight, for she shall not live. No, my heart is turned to stone” (Shakespeare Act 4, Scene 1).

Othello was convinced that his wife was cheating on him with his former Lieutenant and that the only way to make it better was to kill her so she won’t be able to do what he knew she did to him to another man. He even had his best friend Cassio killed for what he thought he knew. In the end he found out that he was lied to and killed her for no reason so he ended up killing himself too. If he hadn’t seeked revenge on his wife and talked to her about it maybe they would all still be alive and could have continued to live a happy and fruitful life. Even when revenge at the time may seem like the solution to all your problems it never ends up good.

When I was in middle school there was a girl who was a year older than me who thought she could pick on me. The second I found out from her friends that she was talking bad about me I did something that I shouldn’t have. I had come up with an elaborate plan that I knew would be believable yet cruel. decided to do spread these nasty rumors about her that at the time would ruin her life. It got so bad to the point where people wouldn’t talk to her in the hallways, she lost a lot of her friends, and she wouldn’t cry in the bathroom.

I ended up getting in a ton of trouble when she didn’t show up for a week and someone snitch that it was my fault. I had lunch detention for two weeks straight and I had gotten my phone taken away for 2 months. I realized that it wasn’t worth it and I should have just turned my back or told my guidance counselor what was going on instead of getting my revenge on her. I learned my lesson and realized that no matter the circumstances revenge isn’t in anyway the right thing to do.

Revenge is not justified it doesn’t even matter what the circumstances are it doesn’t end well. After committing revenge on the person who did you dirty a lot of the times it ends up being all for nothing. It takes over and makes a person do things that they shouldn’t just to get back at someone. It can make you stressed because you are so into it that if you don’t do it you can’t think about anything else. There is never going to be okay to get revenge on someone because there are other options. People should forgive and forget because revenge is never the right answer.