Concept of Revenge in Paper Town

Revenge is the punishment of the pain, consequences of pain or violation of duty. There are few factors that lead to encouragement of revenging others like breaking trust in any kind of relationships, lack of individual satisfaction and angry behavior.

The Fragility of Trust

Trust can be related with relationships as trust is built through connection, consistency, and follow through. But trust is a delicate phenomenon that can be destroyed even faster than it can be created. LIKEWISE, when trust is somewhere broken it leads the victim to revenge others for self-satisfaction. In Paper Town, a girl named Margo Roth Spiegelman revenge her friends as she came across the fact that they were breaking her trust. Margo has a boyfriend named Jase Worthington; it comes up in the story that Margo took revenge from her boyfriend as he broke Margo’s trust with someone else. It is stated in the story as “ He’s been cheating on me for six weeks” and he has probably given me god-only-knows-what-adiseases?”(P43). These lines are quite evident for proving the fact that Margo’s boyfriend was cheating on her and she knows it. These events encouraged her to take revenge from her boyfriend and for its sake, she bought a club for locking up the steering wheel of jase’s car and she called Becca’s father to tell him that her daughter is in the basement with Jason having sex. In this way she took revenge on her boyfriend (Jason). Margo had a friend named Becca who cheated on her with Margo’s Boyfriend and the moment she knew about this she decided to take revenge from her too. So Margo inform her father when she was having sex with her boyfriend in the basement and following up when Becca’s father was scolding her Margo put a fish in Becca’s closet with her clothes with a message written on it “A message from Margo Roth Spiegelman: Your friendship with her – it sleeps with the fishes”, and wrote on the window with a blue spray “M”(42).

The Pursuit of Self-Satisfaction

Self-Satisfaction is one of the main reasons of people taking revenge. According to some people revenge helps them satisfying oneself. In this novel, Margo took revenge from Lacey because Margo thinks “ She did not tell her about jase but not just that when I look back on it, she is just a terrible friend”. Margo was not sure about the fact that her friend Lacey hid from her about jase and becca’s relationship, Instead of knowing the truth she only for self-satisfaction took revenge from lacey but at the end it turns out that lacey didn’t knew about jase and becca’s relationship. According to the some studies and facts it came up that people took revenge from others mostly for self- satisfaction instead of understanding the situation completely.

The Role of Anger in Revenge

Anger also stimulates the thought of taking revenge from others. Anger or Rage is the most common reasons of revenge outcomes. People with short temper happen to revenge others more than normal people. According to Article: “Accomplishing Anger Motives Predicts adolescents ratings of anger’s benefits” some mathematical terms are evidence that some people with short temper just to justify their rage conducts the practice of revenge (91). According to Paper Town, Margo was a short-tempered girl as compared to Quentin. Margo spoke in a rude and pissed way with Quentin without any reason in car when they were going to Karin’s house, and Quentin said “ Don’t be pissed at me, “I just had a guy point a freaking shotgun at me for helping you, so don’t be pissed at me” (43). There is another evidence of proving the fact that Margo’s short-tempered, when Karin told Margo about jase she reacted in a bad way and shouted on Karin, “Well, when she told me about jase, I sort of shot the messenger”(46). These incidents claim that Margo due to her short temper encourages herself to take revenge from others. On the contrary, Quentin seems to have a well approach for his anger as at the end when Quentin found Margo in New York and Margo refused to go with him. This incident indicates that Quentin was not short temper instead of it he has a positive approach for his life so he chose to begin a new life with new adventures instead of getting disturbed from Margo’s decision and taking revenge.

Understanding the Commonality of Revenge

Nowadays, revenge is very common among people. “If Revenge really has serious drawbacks and unfavorable consequences then why it is so common among people?” One answer would be that famous and well-publicized examples of vengeful behavior often come easily in mind, encouraging us to assume that revenge is very common. And after the attacks of 9/11 on the world trade center in America, 90% of Americans surveyed approved of retaliatory attacks in Afghanistan. It appears that “ revenge in the heart” Is a fairly common response to harm.

Conclusion: The Consequences of Revenge

To conclude, revenge has many reasons and consequences at the same time. It appears that there are three most important reasons as stated above the first and foremost is the breaking of trust in any kind of relationships, it encourages people to take revenge from those people who broke their trust. Following up, the next main reason would be to take revenge for the sake of self-satisfaction or just satisfy oneself. Whether it is to justify own reaction or anything else. The third reason would be the misconduct of behavior as Anger or Rage. Anger or short-temper is stated as one of the main approach for revenge. As angry behavior leads to hurt another person as well as justify own anger in front of us so it includes satisfying oneself also. The given example of Margo and Quentin explain the concept of anger as well as the kind of approach towards life should be. Revenge comes up with number of outcomes but it starts with one of these issues as stated above. The people who have a positive approach towards life would deal with these type of situations in a positive and better way while on the other hand people with one of the above listed issues will comes up with the thought of revenge.