History shows us that revenge cycles end when the victims cede the right to take revenge to the state and the state properly fulfills this duty. That is, the victims are somehow satisfied that they have retrieved something that they have lost. What they get back, of course, can in no way be commensurable with what was lost by the harm. Nonetheless, it must be in some measure satisfying. The first process is the subject of Chapter 1, a look backward at the evolution of private revenge into state retribution. It demonstrates that revenge was once at the heart of the idea of justice and that the taking of revenge was considered a noble duty. As nation-states emerged, that duty was given over to (or taken over by) central authorities and became state-sponsored judgment and punishment, but the human need for revenge remained acknowledged and served as the basis for state punishment. Revenge and justice continued to be aligned. Moreover, the giving over was tentative and reluctant and was frequently taken back by the individual or family, especially in those instances in which the state failed to take retribution.
Eventually, however, in order to insure its own security against the disorder and destructiveness of private revenge, it was in a state’s best interest to go further and attempt to convince people that private revenge was not only imprudent but also evil. Thus, as part of the cultural Zeitgeist, a duality was created that put revenge and justice into a false opposition—not just the act of revenge but also even the feeling of wanting revenge. A state would benefit by making people ashamed of the human need for revenge and by characterizing it as immoral and excessive. It needed to buttress the transfer to the state with moral and religious arguments. Yet the passion for revenge remained powerful, albeit underground, and much of what was written about revenge was layered and ambiguous. Chapter 2 examines the attempted demonizing of revenge and the gradual removal of emotion from state responses to harms against people. It also discusses the undercurrent of opinions that acknowledge the potential problems if a state fails to take into account a desire for retribution and ignores the necessity of allowing personal passions into systems of justice. The chapter concludes by suggesting that discussions about revenge and retribution generally presume a state willing and capable of taking action (in the form of state-sponsored violence) on a victim’s behalf. Few commentators take up the critical contemporary problem of a state incapable or unwilling to so act. Are there possibilities for adequate and satisfying balancing beyond violence for violence?
These background chapters ultimately show that the need to take revenge is a deeply rooted human need that cannot be moralized away; it is an inevitable and indestructible part of the human psyche. At the same time, it is a powerful emotion that can be contained in the appropriate forms. These chapters, meant to be allusive and suggestive rather than definitive historical analyses, lay the groundwork for the argument that a state must do something in response to wrongs against its people. Ignoring the needs of victims insures that the revenge cycle will continue. These chapters also lay bare the void that exists when a state will not or cannot act in its citizens’ behalf. For all we know or think we know about revenge and retribution, we have not developed a way of thinking about alternatives to traditional violence for violence—whether personal or public. Our vision is limited by our history, but Paulina shows us another possibility.
The process described in Chapters 1 and 2 is revealed in Paulina’s situation in Death and the Maiden. She turned her personal need for revenge over to the state and the state failed her. She thus takes back her “right” to revenge, seeking at first lex talionis, comparable violence, an eye for an eye, rape for rape. But then she discovers that she does not want violence, what she wants are words. In the middle of the night, when a bound and gagged former oppressor is at her mercy, Paulina discerns that more violence is not what she wants. Instead she requires an acknowledgment that something evil happened to her. She wants Miranda to say the words and she wants Gerardo to hear them. She wants them written down and she wants to keep the words forever.
The center of the book’s theoretical project, in Chapters 3 and 4, is to answer the question as to whether there is any reason to think that stories can work in this way in actual transitional democracies—countries that have few choices as to the action they take as they make the transition from a violent past. Chapter 3 analyzes the relationship between language and the violence that accompanies oppression, arguing that the appropriation and manipulation of language are central to the technology of oppression. Chapter 4 asks whether stories can do anything of value in the wake of such oppression. Is there any reason to think that the solution that Paulina discovers she wants—her story told and acknowledged—can work over the long term? What are the relationships between language and power, language and pain, language and violence? Is language an appropriate balance for violence and pain? Can having a story told and acknowledged possibly satisfy the emotional needs of victims? And if so, what forms should this language take?
The question whether storytelling can work over the long term is not a theoretical one and the stakes are high. Transitional democracies are faced with a concrete and pressing problem, an “enormous, miserable task,”20 of how to deal with the past without destroying the future. History, recent and long past, has shown that cycles of revenge are indeed unending if dealt with in primitive and unthought out ways. From southern Europe to Latin America, eastern Europe to South Africa, Rwanda and Bosnia, the solutions are varied and controversial. Should (and can) a country fully investigate, bring to trial, and punish former leaders and their lackeys? Are amnesties or pardons a better solution? An international tribunal? Truth commissions? Is it wise to impose on states an affirmative duty to investigate and prosecute?21 Or does the best solution lie in turning the other cheek, putting the past behind and moving forward with the new government? Do states even have the right to forgive or is that “right” vested only in victims? Do amnesties and pardons perpetuate a culture of impunity? What is the appropriate way to move from lawlessness to the rule of law? Are any generalizations possible at all or does every case have a unique context?22 A fledgling democracy is in the process of building a new moral community. What ways of dealing with the past can best achieve this goal? A spectrum of solutions has been tried: trials, both national and international; exclusion from government posts; the opening of secret files; commemorations in art and ceremony; forgiveness and reconciliation; confrontations; and storytelling contained in truth commission reports.23
Chapter 4 lays out seven potential benefits of storytelling in the context of transitional democracies: (1) translating chaotic events into a story not only provides therapy for victims (a claim that is well-documented), but the creation of story from experience also is an essentially human activity that enables all of us to make sense of our lives; (2) the restoration of the ability to use language for oneself in one’s own way balances the loss of language effected by oppression and violence, and thus is a form of retribution in a basic semantic sense (a sense of the word that was lost as the philosophy of punishment shifted the focus from the victim to the perpetrator) of giving back that which was taken away; (3) the free and open telling of stories can reveal more truth than other responses, including trials; (4) stories can bring about communication between people who normally cannot understand each other; (5) the storytelling setting in some circumstances provides healing ritual, akin to carnival, in which the hierarchy