Poetic justice
Encyclopedia
Poetic justice is a literary device
Literary technique
A literary technique is any element or the entirety of elements a writer intentionally uses in the structure of their work...

 in which virtue
Virtue
Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a positive trait or quality subjectively deemed to be morally excellent and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being....

 is ultimately rewarded
Bounty (reward)
A bounty is a payment or reward often offered by a group as an incentive for the accomplishment of a task by someone usually not associated with the group. Bounties are most commonly issued for the capture or retrieval of a person or object. They are typically in the form of money...

 or vice
Vice
Vice is a practice or a behavior or habit considered immoral, depraved, or degrading in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a defect, an infirmity, or merely a bad habit. Synonyms for vice include fault, depravity, sin, iniquity, wickedness, and corruption...

 punished
Punishment
Punishment is the authoritative imposition of something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal in response to behavior deemed wrong by an individual or group....

, often in modern literature by an ironic
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...

 twist of fate intimately related to the character's own conduct.

Origin of the term

English drama critic Thomas Rymer
Thomas Rymer
Thomas Rymer , English historiographer royal, was the younger son of Ralph Rymer, lord of the manor of Brafferton in Yorkshire, described by Clarendon as possessed of a good estate, who was executed for his share in the Presbyterian rising of 1663.-Early life and education:Thomas Rymer was born at...

 coined the phrase in The Tragedies of the Last Age Considere'd (1678) to describe how a work should inspire proper moral
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...

 behaviour in its audience by illustrating the triumph of good over evil. The demand for poetic justice is consistent in Classical authorities and shows up in Horace
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

, Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

, and Quintillian, so Rymer's phrasing is a reflection of a commonplace. Philip Sidney
Philip Sidney
Sir Philip Sidney was an English poet, courtier and soldier, and is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan Age...

, in Defense of Poetry, argued that poetic justice was, in fact, the reason that fiction should be allowed in a civilized nation.

History of the notion

Notably, poetic justice does not merely require that vice be punished and virtue rewarded, but also that logic triumph. If, for example, a character is dominated by greed for most of a romance or drama, he cannot become generous. The action of a play, poem, or fiction must obey the rules of logic as well as morality, and when the humour theory was dominant poetic justice was part of the justification for humor plays. During the late 17th century, critics pursuing a neo-classical standard would criticize William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 in favor of Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...

 precisely on the grounds that Shakespeare's characters change during the course of the play. (See Shakespeare's reputation
Shakespeare's reputation
In his own time, William Shakespeare was seen as merely one among many talented playwrights and poets, but ever since the late 17th century he has been considered the supreme playwright, and to a lesser extent, poet of the English language. No other dramatist has been performed even remotely as...

 for more on the Shakespeare/Jonson dichotomy.) When Restoration comedy
Restoration comedy
Restoration comedy refers to English comedies written and performed in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710. After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signalled a renaissance of English drama...

, in particular, flouted poetic justice by rewarding libertines and punishing dull-witted moralists, there was a backlash in favor of drama, in particular, of more strict moral correspondence.

Examples

  • "For 'tis the sport to have the engineer / Hoist with his own petard." (Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

    , Hamlet
    Hamlet
    The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...

    (III.iv.207).)
  • The story of Esther
    Esther
    Esther , born Hadassah, is the eponymous heroine of the Biblical Book of Esther.According to the Bible, she was a Jewish queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus...

     includes two instances of poetic justice, both involving Haman. Ultimately, Haman is executed on the gallows that he had prepared for Esther's cousin Mordecai.
  • Dante
    DANTE
    Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...

    's Divine Comedy reads like a compendium of examples of poetic justice.
  • Almost every episode of The Twilight Zone
    The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)
    The Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The series consisted of unrelated episodes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events; each show typically featured a surprising...

    features poetic justice, usually due to an ironic twist.
  • An interesting and unusual example of poetic justice is found in Dr Pradhan's
    Tapan Kumar Pradhan
    Dr Tapan Kumar Pradhan , Indian writer and poet in English, Hindi and Oriya, is a versatile creative artist in such diverse fields like poetry, short fiction, essays and caricature....

     Sahitya Akademi
    Sahitya Akademi
    The Sahitya Akademi ', India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India...

     award-winning poem Equation
    Equation (poem)
    "Equation" is one of the most original and intriguing poems of Dr Tapan Kumar Pradhan, the Indian writer and poet, and it won Kendriya Sahitya Akademi's Indian Literature Golden Jubilee Award for Poetry in 2007. The poem received critical acclaim following its publication in the journal Indian...

     where the economic-sexual exploiters of poor tribals in Kalahandi
    Kalahandi
    Kalahandi, , is a district of Orissa in India. The region had a glorious past and great civilization in ancient time. Archaeological evidence of stone age and Iron Age human settlement has been recovered from the region. Asurgarh offered an advanced, well civilized, cultured and urban human...

    , (Orissa
    Orissa
    Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...

    ) get paid back in their own coin when they get afflicted with various maladies and sexually transmitted diseases.
  • The self-fulfilling prophecy
    Self-fulfilling prophecy
    A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. Although examples of such prophecies can be found in literature as far back as ancient Greece and...

     can be considered an early example of poetic justice. One example of this is the ancient Sanskrit story
    Sanskrit literature
    Literature in Sanskrit begins with the Vedas, and continues with the Sanskrit Epics of Iron Age India; the golden age of Classical Sanskrit literature dates to late Antiquity . Literary production saw a late bloom in the 11th century before declining after 1100 AD...

     of Krishna
    Krishna
    Krishna is a central figure of Hinduism and is traditionally attributed the authorship of the Bhagavad Gita. He is the supreme Being and considered in some monotheistic traditions as an Avatar of Vishnu...

    , where King Kamsa
    Kamsa
    In Hinduism, Kamsa or Kansa , often known as Kans in Hindi, is the brother of Devaki, and ruler of the Vrishni kingdom with its capital at Mathura. His father was King Ugrasena and mother was Queen Padmavati...

     is told in a prophecy that a child of his sister Devaki
    Devaki
    In Hinduism, Devaki is the wife of Vasudeva and biological mother of Krishna.She was the daughter of Devaka, the younger brother of King Ugrasena of Mathura. She was a partial incarnation of Aditi, the mother of the Devas.-Imprisonment :...

     would kill him. In order to prevent it, he imprisons both Devaki and her husband Vasudeva
    Vasudeva
    In Hindu itihasa , Vasudeva is the father of Krishna, the son of Shoorsen, of the Yadu and Vrishni dynasties. His sister Kunti was married to Pandu. He was a partial incarnation of Rishi Kashyap....

    , allowing them to live only if they hand over their children as soon as they are born. He murders nearly all of them one by one, but the eighth child, Krishna, is saved and raised by a cowherd couple, Nanda
    Nanda (mythology)
    Nanda or Nandagopa, according to the Harivamsha and the Puranas, was the head of the gopas .It is said that Nand Baba owned 9 lakhs of cows . Nandvanshis or Ahirs are descendants of Nand. The night of Krishna's appearance or birth, Vasudeva brought Krishna to Nanda for Krishna's childhood years...

     and Yasoda
    Yasoda
    Yasoda/Yashoda was wife of Nanda within the Puranic texts of Hinduism. Within the Bhagavata Purana it is described that Yasoda later became the foster-mother to Krishna, who was born to Devaki but was given to Yashoda and Nanda in Gokul, by Krishna's father Vasudeva on the night of his birth, for...

    . After growing up and returning to his kingdom, Krishna eventually kills Kamsa. In other words, Kamsa's cruelty in order to prevent his death is what led to him being killed.

Examples in television and film

  • Poetic justice is referred to in The Simpsons
    The Simpsons
    The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...

    episode "Boy Scoutz N the Hood." When Bart returns home from a Junior Campers meeting Homer asks "How was jerk practice, boy? Did they teach you how to sing to trees and build crappy furniture out of useless wooden logs?" The chair that Homer is sitting on then breaks and he declares "D'oh! Stupid poetic justice."
  • In the film Batman Returns
    Batman Returns
    Batman Returns is a 1992 American superhero film directed by Tim Burton. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, it is the sequel to Burton's Batman , and features Michael Keaton reprising the title role, with Danny DeVito as the Penguin and Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman.Burton originally did not...

    , The Penguin informs his traitorous cohort Max Shreck, that he will be killed in a pool of the toxic byproducts from his "clean" textile plant. The Penguin goes on to wonder if this is tragic irony or poetic justice.
  • In the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
    Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
    Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a 1989 American adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, from a story co-written by executive producer George Lucas. It is the third film in the Indiana Jones franchise. Harrison Ford reprises the title role and Sean Connery plays Indiana's father, Henry...

    , Indy's love interest Dr. Elsa Schneider is a Nazi agent. After this revelation, she tries fooling Indy and others saying, "I believe in the grail, not the swastika." Yet, she continues working with the Nazis and Walter Donovan. She tricks Donovan into drinking from the false grail and he dies a horrible death. In the end, poetic justice comes in the form of her death. She tries stealing the grail and triggers an earthquake. Indy grabs her hand before she falls into a bottomless pit. Yet, her greed overcomes her and she reaches for the grail again, causing Indy to lose his grip on her. Indy's father, Henry Jones Sr., sums her death up, saying, "Elsa never really believed in the grail. She thought she found a prize."
  • Disney films
    The Walt Disney Company
    The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...

    , most specifically animated films, often use poetic justice as an ending device (examples include The Lion King
    The Lion King
    The Lion King is a 1994 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 32nd feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series...

    , Aladdin, and The Great Mouse Detective
    The Great Mouse Detective
    The Great Mouse Detective is a 1986 animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, originally released to movie theaters on July 2, 1986 by Walt Disney Pictures...

    , among many others), with the hero being rewarded, and the villain being punished in ironic and, occasionally, fatal ways.
  • In the film, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, as well as in the short story and the musical, the titular character, Sweeney Todd
    Sweeney Todd
    Sweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as then antagonist of the Victorian penny dreadful The String of Pearls and he was later introduced as an antihero in the broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and its film adaptation...

    , kills his customers with a razor blade. In a twist of the story, at the end, having assassinated the Judge and the Beadle, Todd is killed by Toby, a boy he kept with Mrs. Lovett, with his own razor blade, while Mrs. Lovett, who bakes the dead customers into meat pies, is thrown into her own oven to bake to death by Todd.
  • In the film Back to the Future 2, when Marty McFly is on the roof top of Biff's Casino & Hotel, Biff issues a nod to poetic justice before admitting to killing Marty's father, George Mcfly, with the same gun he intends to kill Marty with.
  • Some caper films
    Heist film
    A heist film is a film that has an intricate plot woven around a group of people trying to steal something. Versions with dominant or prominent comic elements are often called caper movies. They could be described as the analogues of caper stories in film history...

     end with poetic justice, when a criminal gang's takings of a well planned heist
    Heist
    A heist is a term used to describe a robbery from an institution such as a bank or a museum, or any robbery in which there is a large haul of loot.Heist in fiction may refer to:*Heist , directed by David Mamet...

     are lost in a manner that is usually not quite their own fault, in complete opposition to the perfect execution of the crime itself. A striking example are the last minutes of Mélodie en sous-sol or the original versions of Ocean's Eleven
    Ocean's Eleven (1960 film)
    Ocean's 11 is a 1960 heist film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring five Rat Packers: Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Joey Bishop....

    and The Italian Job
    The Italian Job
    The Italian Job is a 1969 British caper film, written by Troy Kennedy Martin, produced by Michael Deeley and directed by Peter Collinson. Subsequent television showings and releases on video have established it as an institution in the United Kingdom....

    .
  • In the television series Avatar: The Last Airbender
    Avatar: The Last Airbender
    Avatar: The Last Airbender is an American animated television series that aired for three seasons on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008. The series was created and produced by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who served as executive producers along with Aaron Ehasz...

    , several characters find poetic justice. This is most noticeable in the episode The Southern Raiders, in which a character who killed two main characters' mother lives with his own mother in retirement, who is angry and constantly berating and talking down to him.
  • In the film Cruel Intentions
    Cruel Intentions
    Cruel Intentions is a 1999 American drama film starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon, and Selma Blair. The film is an adaptation of the 18th-century French epistolary novel Les Liaisons dangereuses by Laclos and is set among wealthy teenagers living in modern New York...

    , Kathryn, who has been holding up an image of purity, innocence, and popularity while actually being manipulative, deceitful, and two-faced, is exposed at the end of the film due to the diary of her stepbrother Sebastian, who had just recently died.
  • In the film The Killing, after a very carefully planned, and at first successful robbery, a series of unexpected side events (an unfaithful and greedy wife, a too weak suitcase...) ends up with most of the gang killed, the money scattered by the wind at the airport, causing the mastermind to be arrested just when he was about to flee the country.

See also

  • Conflict between good and evil
    Conflict between good and evil
    The conflict between good and evil is one of the precepts of the Zoroastrian faith, first enshrined by Zarathustra over 3000 years ago. It is also one of the most common conventional themes in literature, and is sometimes considered to be a universal part of the human condition...

  • Equation
    Equation (poem)
    "Equation" is one of the most original and intriguing poems of Dr Tapan Kumar Pradhan, the Indian writer and poet, and it won Kendriya Sahitya Akademi's Indian Literature Golden Jubilee Award for Poetry in 2007. The poem received critical acclaim following its publication in the journal Indian...

  • Petard
    Petard
    A petard was a small bomb used to blow up gates and walls when breaching fortifications. The term has a French origin and dates back to the sixteenth century...

    (to be hoisted by one's own)
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