Modern Rape-Revenge Movies and Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Cenci

The Cenci bears a striking similarity to a number of rape-revenge movies which flourished with the rise of the second wave feminism in the 1970s. These movies tell the stoiy of a female victim who is transformed into a hero-avenger by taking law into her own hands and avenging herself in the face of a dysfunctional legal state. Though The Cenci repeats the traditional pattern of violation-revenge-violation, it focuses on the corruption and irresponsibility of the patriarchal legal system as well as its reformation, which have been neglected by both mythical narratives and modern rape-revenge movies. By reading The Cenci along with William Blake's "Visions of the Daughters of Albion" and Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound," we examine how The Cenci challenges the concept of justice in the modern rape-revenge movies and how Beatrice could have used her agency and her anger in a more effective way to fight against tyranny.