The German proverb where “Revenge converts a little right into a great wrong” is perhaps the most underrated of truths. Often times depicted within art, which serves as a reflection of the current conditions of reality, man falls victim to pride. Similar to that of a virus, pride finds its host and nestles within until it kills the host’s body. Mystic River demonstrates a transparent example of the German proverb where one character allows his obsession with revenge to cloud and contaminate his rational thinking and as a result, an unnecessary death is birthed.
Upon hearing of the murder of his eldest daughter, Jimmy Markum falls victim to the power of ‘revenge.’ In the midst of the tragedy, it is believed that Dave Boyle, Jimmy’s best-friend from childhood, becomes the number one suspect based upon coincidental events taken place on the same night. As time progresses, the tension increases and Jimmy takes it upon himself to kill Dave Boyle in an attempt to avenge his daughter. However, had detective Sean Devine gotten back to Jimmy a little sooner, perhaps this unnecessary death could’ve been avoided.
The ‘wrong’ in this case exists within the murder of Dave Boyle. The only reason why Dave was suspected of killing Jimmy’s daughter is because on the same night that she went missing, Dave stumbled into his apartment with a flesh wound across his abdomen. Omitting important details, Dave summarizes the events that led to his bloody stomach as a fight with a mugger that had potentially grown fatal. In actuality however, Dave killed a child molester, not Katie (Jimmy’s Daughter). To add insult to injury, Dave’s wife tells Jimmy that she believes that Dave was the one responsible for killing Katie. Keep in mind that Jimmy has just lost his daughter so he is very vulnerable and once Celeste (Dave’s Wife) shares this information to Jimmy, Dave’s death certificate might as well had been already written. Similar to Othello, Jimmy allowed an external source to penetrate his conscious. He snapped, under the pressure and frustration of finding his daughter’s killer, and killed Dave Boyle. No more than a day after, Detective Devine finds Jimmy to tell them that they had found Katie’s murderer and to Jimmy’s dismay, it wasn’t Dave Boyle. I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures.
I agree with what Troy has mentioned above. Jimmy had exhibited the the largest 'wrong' by murdering an innocent man but had done it for the right reason. Being a father who had lost his child from a murder, a few screws up there were expected to come loose. Jimmy had wanted to bring his daughters murderer to justice and make that individual suffer in the way his daughter had. When the pieces finally fell evidence had pointed to Dave as being the suspected killer. Jimmy had taken role as the protective father figure and he decided to take action. Troy had eloquently explained why Jimmy's plunge for revenge had turned from protectiveness of his daughter to the death of an innocent man, a person he once called his friend.
ReplyDeleteThe way this dramatic irony directly replicates an example of the German proverb is because we did see the "great wrong" only after an attempt at a "little right." As Troy mentioned Jimmy was out of his mind and on a mission to kill Katie's killer, and this is somewhat morally correct because the man was avenging his daughter. It was only after all the other confusion that this attempt turned into a great wrong. Hey man great post ;)
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