_Ordinary People_
_It's a Wonderful Life_
_Forrest Gump_
_Dennis the Menace_
The plot strategy in _Dennis the Menace_ is typical of the hate-love development
where the means of reconciliation is forgiveness (a different kind of justice or
love as the means of making matters right). _Scrooge_, _A Christmas Carol_
(_It's a Wonderful Life_), . . . follow along these lines.
As Staven Bruce mentions, _The Bad Lieutenant_ (_Macbeth made into _The
Merchant of Venice_) makes an excellent choice for contrasting two means of plot
reconciliation: vengeance and forgiveness. _The Bad Lieutenant_ contrasts the
forgiveness of the raped nun to the vengeance (penalty) awaiting the bad
lieutenant, and vengeance turns out to be as empty as the acts it reconciles.
For plot devices, try Aristophanes versus Sopholces. The melodrama that flows
from Shakespeare to Dickens forward and the Renaissance arguments surrounding
the nature of genre seem to be at play here.
JMC
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