Cruelty is behaviour that deliberately causes pain or distress to people or animals. Britain had laws against cruelty to animals but none to protect children He had been unable to escape the cruelties of war
a cruel act; a deliberate infliction of pain and suffering the quality of being cruel and causing tension or annoyance feelings of extreme heartlessness
A cruel and barbarous deed; inhuman treatment; the act of willfully causing unnecessary pain
Willful or wanton infliction of pain, suffering, or death upon an animal or the intentional or malicious neglect of an animal. Perhaps the world's first anticruelty law, which addressed the treatment of domesticated animals, was included in the legal code of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1641); similar legislation was passed in Britain in 1822. The world's first animal welfare society, the Society for the Protection of Animals, was established in England in 1824; the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was chartered in 1866. In varying degrees, cruelty to animals is illegal in most countries, and interest in endangered species gave further impetus to the anticruelty movement in the late 20th century. Reflecting such interest, many laws have been passed, though they are seldom enforced unless public pressure is brought to bear. Acts targeted by the movement have ranged from the mistreatment of domesticated animals to bullfighting and vivisection. Factory farming, which involves various evidently cruel practices, has remained largely exempt from legal scrutiny. See also animal rights
Theory advanced by Antonin Artaud, who believed the theatre's function was to rid audiences of the repressive effects of civilization and liberate their instinctual energy. He proposed to do so by shocking them with mythic spectacles that would include groans, screams, pulsating lights, and oversized stage puppets. He described the Theatre of Cruelty in his book The Theatre and Its Double (1938). Though only one of his plays, Les Cenci, was ever produced in accordance with his theory, his ideas influenced avant-garde movements such as the Living Theatre and the Theatre of the Absurd