Markup View

Author: herbides

May 29th 2013 at 3:20:35 AM

Theater (Drama?)
* Shakespeare's ''Titus Andronicus'' is a veritable bloodbath featuring not only murder but also rape, torture and cannibalism with more than a 90% kill rate for named characters. 
* Although much less gory ''Hamlet'' also end with a pile of corpses on stage.
* In the Japanese Kabuki play, "Yotsuya Kaidan" or "The Ghost Story of Yotsuya" a samurai named Iemon wants to get rid of his wife so he can marry the daughter of a rich man, and in the course of his overly-intricate murder plot, kills her off as well as several innocent bystanders. Later in the play, his wife comes back from the dead as a ghost and in the course of her overly-intricate revenge manages to kill off most of the remaining characters.

Books
* Robert Graves's ''I, Claudius'' recounts the life of Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, a member of Caesar's family who survived the genocidal purges of both Tiberius and Caligula because he was believed to be mentally handicapped, but was later crowned emperor. During the arc of the novels (and history for that matter), Claudius witnesses practically every member of his family being murdered due to political intrigues and infighting.  
* In ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' only one character survives. This of course reflects historical fact. 
* Oka Shohei's novel ''Nobi'' or ''Fires on the Plains'' (1951) follows a Japanese soldier deployed to Manila in the final months of world war II after the army started to fall apart. Ordered on a pointless death march to a loosing battle, most of the characters succumb to disease, madness, murder...or worse.