Conclusion: Gendered Revenge

Abstract

In the king’s bedchamber on the island of Rhodes, a beautiful young woman ties his arms to the bed while he sleeps. In a retired rock star’s opulent bedroom, viewed in a mirrored ceiling, a beautiful naked woman straddles her lover, reveals a hidden silk scarf, and ties his wrists to the bedrails. In the bedchamber, the king wakes. Discovering the bonds around his wrists and ankles, he turns to the woman hovering at his bedside: ‘What pretty new device is this, Evadne?’ he asks, his voice heavy with arousal. ‘What, do you tie me to you by my love?’¹ In the rock star’s bedroom, the naked woman, her face obscured by tumbling blonde hair, rocks back and forth as she approaches her climax. Throwing back her head, her hand reaches behind her, beneath the bedcovers. In the bedchamber, the king invites Evadne to bed: ‘There thou shalt know the state of my body better,’ he promises her. ‘I know you have a surfeited foul body,’ Evadne spits back, drawing a dagger, ‘And you must bleed.’² In the bedroom, the blonde woman propels herself forward, ice-pick in hand, and stabs her lover repeatedly in the face; he screams as blood spurts from his wounds. In the bedchamber, Evadne stabs the king over and over, heedless of his cries for mercy. ‘Thus, thus, thou foul man,’ she screams, punctuating her words with dagger blows; ‘Thus I begin my vengeance.’