Poetic Justice in Literature

Abstract

Poetic justice in literature describes evil characters are punished or brought to justice for their actions, and good characters are rewarded. Literature that utilizes poetic Justice will often have happy endings with moral lessons for the reader to learn. The history and definition of poetic justice come from Thomas Rymer , a drama critic who wrote the essay “The Tragedies of the Last Age consider’d. ” in 1678 . Rymer’s view was that a poem ( In a sense that includes dramatic tragedy) is an ideal that realm of its own and should be governed by ideal principles of decorum and morality and not by the random way things often work out in actual world.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

 Poetic justice often turns stories into tools for the betterment of the reader and society. Literary works  such as fables and parables, for example ,tell stories with specific Lessons. Readers of these works are  expected  to learn from the characters  who do bad things and are punished for their actions.

 There are  many stories in literature that use poetic justice as a literary device, some of them are as ; Oe dipus  Rex by Sophocles - as a play that follows the King of  Thebes, Oedipus, as he seeks  out the murderer of Laivs, the previous king. The story  takes  on an  ironic manner as  Oedipus  eventually discovers that he  is  the murderer and  Gouges  out his own  eyes  as  justice for his  actions.

We find first reflections of the poetic justice in Plato’s  Republic, where he complains….that  what  the poets and prose- writers (orators) tell us about the most importent matters concerning  human beings is bad. They say that many  unjust people   are happy and  many  just ones  are  wretched,  that in justice is profitable  if it escapes detection, and that justice  is another ‘s  good  but  one’s own loss. I think  we ‘ll prohibit these stories  and order the poets to compose  the opposite  kind of poetry  and  tell the opposite kind of tales.

The question how justice or that which is regarded  as  just- ought to be defined became a topic in literary history a long time before Rymer’s   coinege of the term. Are literary texts able to widen the range of forms of justice ,and even to change estabhlished views on  and interpretations of justice ? This question is certainly a pertinent one with regard to Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton. The ending of this novel proposes a resolution that  tries to  fulfil the  demand  for justice . The justice achieved  eventually is not based  on  well-doing  and perhaps not even  ‘ deserved ‘ if we thinks  of Mary’s behaviour in some  parts  of the novel.

Poetic  justice  occurs at the  conclusion of a novel  or  play  when good characters  are rewarded  and bad characters are punished. Poetic justice  is thus  somewhat  similar to karma ,and  can be summed up  by the phrase “ He got what  was coming  to him” or She got what she deserved”.

In other words it may be said that poetic justice takes both positive and negative forms, depending on how a character has actd through the narrative.

 As stated above poetic justice has sometimes been  named as the reason that Literature is import in a society. The genrer  of fable and parable often contain poetic justice as a wise and good  character is  rewarded and any bad characters are published. The idea of these stories is to provide a moral foundation for readus.

 Some examples of  self- fulfilling propheay are also examples of poetic justice. If n evil character hears a propheay and does cruel things in order to stop that prophey from coming  into being, then the villain’s u(Timate defeat or death is attributed to the poetic justice that there was a sense that  logic prevailed, and that characters  do not suddenly  change and warrant different treatment than what they deserve for example, in Charles Dickens’s.A Christmas Carol it does not poetic justice that  greedy’ Ebenezer scrooge suddenly became good and  therefore  would warrant good treatment of course, not all authors are interested in poetic justice. More Modern authors showed good characters receiving bad fortune and bad characters being rewarded. These authors would probably argve that their role in society was not to provide a moral education for readers, but instead to depict situations that are closer to reality. Indeed, believing too much in poetic justice could  be harmful and give rise to questions like, why do bad things happen to good people.

So we may say that poetic justice is a literary device and not  an accurate dupli cation of real life.

 Poetic justice often turns stories into tools  for the  betterment of the  reader  and  society .  In  the Modern literary works we   fined poetic justice in the  form of an ironic  twist of  fate. The purpose of poetic justice is to uphold  moral standads that come from societal  beliefs .When poetic justice occurs, the belief that good  always triumphs over evil is upheld. It provides a satisfying resolve to audiences who connect with good characters. A feeling of completion and staisfaction naturally results after bad characters are punished and  good characters are rewarded.

  A humans, we are always looking  for ways to right over wrongs and maintain order in society through  punishments that fit crimes appropriately because this way people will not commint more crimes out of fear of getting caught again, and  punished by poetic justice. The idea  is that poetic justice is a person’s fate in  life mirrors his or her actions. It can also refer to an event occuring   at a time when it seems justified by some past action on the  part of the  individual concerned. In today’s society, poetic justice can be seen through social media channels and other forms of  online communication as well  as being present in our  everyday lives.In the modern poety, poets, use this concept as a means of exploring our connection with nature and our place within it. For example Christina Rossett’s peom”Goblin Market” explores how people who are good- natured but mischievous may find themselves punished for  their actions by  harmful spirits called Goblins who takes advantage of them when they are at their weakest  points whereas those  who are cruel will eventually reap what they sow because poetic justice is always reserved up. If some body  committes an act of cruelty or injustice against another person.

 Then their own actions will come back to haunt them later on. This need not always mean that it has to happen immadiately  after the event itself but  may be delayed until  a more appropriate time ,for instance at the  end of one’s  is life when one is about to face judgement from the fates themselves. What we should takes away from this expression though is that there will always be consequences for our  actions  and we cannot escape these by doing anything ; something bad. It is notion  that people’s deeds  will meet appropriate rewards or punishments in due course. The concept of  this can exist in many diierent from , but It is often used as a literary device or allegory in fictional works. Justice is defined as the moral principle that people should  be rewarded or punished for their actions.

Moral  and ethical knowledge  is the  first point on which Gandhi’s concept of value education is based. Gandhi  belived that any education that lacked these  two elements could not be considered  adequrate. Gandhi reasoned that without morality and without eyhics,  no students in a real sense could be considered healthy in mental or physical terms.A person who is not a moralist and who does not differentiate between right or wrong cannot  rise to the  essential level  of a true student.25  For instance, Knowledge was the learning of crafts, subject in school, and being  self- sufficient. Gandhi felt it was important to learn a craft  such  as weaving ,without the  influence of modern machinery.26

It is also  known as the wages of karma. Mahabharata is specially meant to help  us understand  and  appreciate the nuanced  meanings  and  principles of  dharma. Dharma impacts us in many ways; through our religion , morals, Lawas, family, profession, and personally as well . Beyond these, dharama addresses our personal relationship with the supreme lord, shri Krishna. One of the major concerns today is the  quality of  justice  available to the citizens of  society. This is also element of dharma. There are many instances in the Mahabharta where the concepts of justice are boldly displayed and no one would fault the Pandavas  for the taking action.

Works cited

References

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Copyright

Copyright © 2023 Dr. Rajesh Kumar Pandey. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.