In this study of revenge and the avengers in two Elizabethan revenge tragedies, the two plays I will consider are Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, and The Avenger's Tragedy, by Thomas Middleton. I will first examine how playwrights treat the Avengers characters, and then the treatment of the Avengers by other characters in plays. Although they have similarities in underlying themes and their adherence to conventions, these two works present contrasting images of the avenger figure; Hamlet offers a much more complex treatment of its main character, and The Avenger's Tragedy appears, by comparison, limited by the author's social message and lacking in realistic characterization. Hamlet and Vindex, the two avengers, share their tasks as avengers, but they have very different methods of dealing with situations, ways of thinking and instinctive behavior. Middleton's Vindex is largely an allegorical character; his name and the names of other characters in the Avenger's Tragedy (e.g. Spurious, Ambitious) derive from medieval morality plays; names which suggest the character of almost farcical exaggeration which is a characteristic of The Avenger's Tragedy, from the striking resemblance of the opening scene to a procession of the Seven Deadly Sins, to Vindex's simplistic association of lust with Judas and the Devil. Hamlet, on the contrary, is a profound individual, who suffers from insecurity and a sense of absurdity. As we see him at the beginning of the play, he suffers from melancholy, not only from the death of his father, but also from "the moral shock of the sudden ghostly revelation of his mother's true nature" (Bradley). Hamlet is psychologically real and, from my point of view... at the center of the card... intentions in the face of extravagant providence. Works Cited Bradley, AC, John Russell. Brown and A.C. Bradley. A. C. Bradley on Shakespeare's Tragedies: A Concise Edition and Reappraisal. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Print.Garber, Marjorie B. Profiling Shakespeare. New York: Routledge, 2008. Print.Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Ian Johnston. On the use and abuse of history for life. Arlington, VA: Richer Resource Publications, 2010. Print.Erlich, Avi. Hamlet's absent father. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1977. Print.Middleton, Thomas. “The tragedy of the avenger”. 1607. Five revenge tragedies. Ed. Emma Smith. London: Penguin Classics, 2012. Print.Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. New York: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1994.Wilson, J. Dover "What Happens to Hamlet" New York: Cambridge University Press, 1959