Titus Andronicus Themes
Black Power
Aaron the Moor was, for many years, taken to
be an inexperienced young playwright's stab at creating a villainous character.
He was treated as one part Othello and two parts Iago - far more evil than
noble. Today, however, he is recognized as one of Shakespeare's most remarkable
characters. His wit outshines everyone else's in the play, and his ability to
exercise his power, whether with his hands or his tongue, outpaces even
Tamora's. Moreover, his downfall comes not because of flawed strategy, but
because he must venture outside of Rome to save his child. Indeed, if the
barbaric and sanctimonious Titus can be called a hero, why can't Aaron be
labeled a martyr?
Aaron's full character is revealed with the
appearance of his child in Act Four scene two. His response to the white
characters in the scene who are appalled that Tamora gave birth to a Moor's son
is unflinching: "Is black so base a hue?" he asks, before proceeding
to unseat the typical Elizabethan tendency to favor white over black. Aaron's
verbal facility is such that he creates a convincing alternative, saying that
black is the better color because it does not allow another color to change its
hue; black skin does not blush or become stained by any other color that
touches it, and is thus true to itself. Whether or not we accept Aaron's
argument, its very existence is a triumph. His love for his son and his
insistence that Chiron and Demetrius treat their black half-brother as just
that - a brother - further endear Aaron to modern readers.
Later in the play, Aaron has other moments of
power, such as his remarkable speech in Act Five scene one, in which he
outlines his history of horrible offenses, causing the mighty Lucius to gag
him. His scornful and unapologetic rejection of the society that rejects him is
a weapon with which he battles the status quo; he does not seek to win, but
only to preserve his identity. Shakespeare understood somehow that power, for a
minority in a hostile society, is found in trueness to oneself. No matter how
hideous others feel Aaron to be, he believes himself to be triumphant. Even if
it is somewhat pitiable that he must use violence to harness his rage, Aaron's
refusal to bend is nevertheless inspiring. Some playwrights might have bent to
the temptation and given him a last-minute change of heart or a swift
execution, but Shakespeare lets Aaron live on past the play's end with his head
above ground, able to continue his railings against Rome for another day.
Violence
Critic S. Mark Hulse figures that Titus
Andronicus "has 14 killings, 9 of them on stage, 6 severed members,
1 rape (or 2 or 3 depending on how you count), 1 live burial, 1 case of
insanity, and 1 of cannibalism – an average of 5.2 atrocities per act, or one
for every 97 lines." There's so much revenge-fuelled violence in the play
that it becomes ridiculous, and at times its grisliness has a comical effect.
For some, this suggests that Shakespeare is mocking the genre of the revenge
tragedy that was so popular in his time. For others, the play's violence is
indicative of a young, inexperienced playwright setting out to emulate Seneca's
dramas.
Revenge
Titus Andronicus is considered a "revenge tragedy," a
genre that was made popular in the 16th century by Thomas Kyd (Spanish
Tragedy) and John Webster (White Devil). As such, it features a
seemingly endless cycle of bloody vengeance that nearly destroys Rome and takes
down the city's most important political figures. While the play seems to take
grisly pleasure in its over-the-top acts of vengeance, it also suggests that
revenge reduces everyone to the status of wild animals. (For more on Titus
Andronicus as a revenge tragedy, see "Genre.")
Dismemberment: Personal and
Political
At the beginning of Titus, when he is
announcing the election of Titus as emperor, Marcus tells his brother, "Be
candidatus then, and put it on, / And help to set a head on headless
Rome." He thus speaks of an emperorless Rome as a beheaded body. This
metaphor continues throughout the play, as Titus' fateful decision to instill
Saturninus as emperor results in a disfigured Roman body. Lavinia's mutilation
by the wrongful heirs of Rome - Chiron and Demetrius - is only the most
grotesque expression of this theme. She is a "map of woe,"
"Rome's fair mistress," who in her virtue and beauty represents the
Empire. When she is silenced and behanded by the Goths, Shakespeare dramatizes
the dismemberment of Rome itself.
There are many more instances of persons
dismembered by the corrupt state, all of which illustrate this tendency to
equate the body of the state with the bodies of its citizens. Titus' sons are
beheaded unjustly due to the mechanizing of Aaron and his fellow Goths; Titus
sacrifices his own hand in an attempt to save them, representing his pledge of
service and action to Rome and her emperor, only to have the hand and the
service it represents sent back in scorn.
But before we attribute all of these personal
and political dismemberments to the Goths, it is important to remember that the
first two mutilations of the play are by Titus' own hand. He hews Alarbus'
limbs and sacrifices him to the Roman gods, and he kills his own son in the
streets: clearly, Titus and the "true" Romans have an equally
barbarous fascination with the symbolism of political dismemberment made
personal. Titus cuts up Alarbus just as his army figuratively cut up the Goths;
when his son disobeys him in Rome he kills him, figuring that his son is no longer
part of the orderly Roman body. The virtual dismemberment of Aaron at the
play's end, when he is buried up to his chest in Roman ground, is the final
example of this symbolic theme. The Romans wish to illustrate how Rome has
swallowed Aaron not only in a figurative manner, but in a physical one.
Revenge
Titus Andronicus is considered a "revenge tragedy," a
genre that was made popular in the 16th century by Thomas Kyd (Spanish
Tragedy) and John Webster (White Devil). As such, it features a
seemingly endless cycle of bloody vengeance that nearly destroys Rome and takes
down the city's most important political figures. While the play seems to take
grisly pleasure in its over-the-top acts of vengeance, it also suggests that
revenge reduces everyone to the status of wild animals. (For more on Titus
Andronicus as a revenge tragedy, see "Genre.")
Female Power
There are only two prominent women in the
violent, male-dominated world of Titus: Tamora and Lavinia. These two
women may seem like complete opposites, and indeed, during their sole
confrontation in the whole play, they behave as such. Tamora refuses to listen
to Lavinia's appeals to her feminine sympathy while Chiron and Demetrius
prepare to ravish her. Lavinia curses Tamora, saying, "No grace? no
womanhood? Ah, beastly creature, / The blot and enemy of our general
name." Like Lady Macbeth, Tamora seems to have stifled her natural
femininity in order to fit into the masculine game of politics. "Be ruled
by me," she tells Saturninus, and indeed she rules him. For the greater
part of the play, Tamora is the most powerful person in Rome.
Yet Tamora's power is not wholly divorced
from her innate femininity. Indeed, we must keep in mind that Titus is
just as much the story of Tamora's revenge as it is Titus'. The death of her
son, Alarbus, for whose life she pleads tenderly to Titus in Act One, spurs her
later cruelty. Indeed, she implies that her refusal to listen to Lavinia is a
direct consequence of Titus' refusal to listen to her. Her seemingly masculine
immunity to pity is actually the byproduct of a deep-seated grief. There are
also moments in Titus where we see Tamora's feminine side, such as when
she meets Aaron in the forest and recites lovely, maternal poetry to him:
"While hounds and horns and sweet melodious birds / Be unto us as is a
nurse's song / Of lullaby to bring her babe asleep." Her cruelty and
political strategies are motivated by, not in spite of, her maternal
leanings.
Lavinia is also involved in an exploration of
feminine power, though her journey is quite dissimilar from Tamora's. Lavinia's
power is more or less passive: she is seen as Titus' prized daughter, the
exemplar of Rome. She has the power to attract Chiron and Demetrius, but does
not have the strength to prevent the tragic results of this limited power. In
an effort to illustrate the full extent of Lavinia's lack of agency, Titus
kills her with his own hands at the banquet in Act Five. She primarily exists,
then, as a metaphor for Rome, and as an ornament for her father.
Yet Lavinia too has moments of power and
agency, although they are far subtler than Tamora's. She disobeys her father's
command to marry Saturninus, though it is Bassianus who must rescue her from
the emperor. Also, in her confrontation with Tamora and Aaron she shows wit and
defiance, although she is ultimately raped and mutilated in retribution.
Finally, she is able to convey that she has been raped and reveal the
identities of her assailants despite her lack of hands and tongue (although she
requires Marcus and Titus' help to do so). This pattern repeats itself
throughout the play: Lavinia has power, but it can only be exercised with the
help of her male admirers. Lavinia, it appears, never has true agency on her
own accord: her power is always compromised or augmented by a man. Lavinia's
symbolic rather than semantic power is, perhaps, is one of the chief tragedies
of Titus for a modern reader.
Family
Vengeance is a strange family affair in Titus
Andronicus. When Tamora wants to get back at Titus for sacrificing her
eldest son, she goes after the man's children. Titus's response is to trick
Tamora into eating her two remaining sons. At the same time, the play is also
filled with domestic violence and in-fighting. Titus kills two of his own
children, and there are two sets of brothers who squabble over power and a
woman.
Hands and Tongues
There are almost eighty mentions of hands in Titus
Andronicus, and many - although not quite so many - mentions of
tongues, as well. These two bodily organs take on great significance in the
play, respectively representing action and speech. Lavinia has both her hands
and her tongue taken from her, Titus has one hand chopped off, and the Andronici
in general find their tongues to be ineffectual instruments when pitted against
the corrupt leadership of Saturninus and Tamora.
The symbolic references to hands in the play
are so numerous that they border on the obsessive. Like other oft-used words in
various Shakespearean plays, "hands" in Titus seems to
transcend its thematic meaning. The word does not merely suggest duty and
action, but also a state of general mania. The constant talk of hands clearly
demonstrates Titus' maddened state, his relentless meditations on his own
impotence, and the misery of his family, which explodes into violence in Act
Five.
Likewise, it is important to notice which
characters' tongues are effectual, and which characters' aren't. Throughout the
play, the Andronici are revealed as somewhat inept in terms of expression and
language. Their poetry is often inappropriate - consider, for example, Marcus'
long and incongruous speech upon meeting the mutilated Lavinia - and almost
always ineffectual. Aaron's tongue, on the other hand, is sharp and brilliant -
an instrument of torture and strategy. He tells Lucius while he is being
tortured, "If there be devils, would I were a devil, / To live and burn in
everlasting fire, / So I might have your company in hell / But to torment you
with my bitter tongue." Forget pitchforks: Aaron needs only his tongue,
and he uses it relentlessly as his only reliable weapon against the Romans.
Even at the play's end, though his body is contained, his tongue is not.
Race
At first glance Titus Andronicus
presents the "civilized" Romans and "barbarous" Goths
as racial opposites, but this is quickly overturned when the play blurs the
differences between the two groups. The play also dramatizes some 16th century
attitudes toward race and skin color. Aaron the Moor's dark skin is associated
with evil, and he displays a hyper-sexuality that Elizabethans often associated
with black men. At the same time, Shakespeare also raises the possibility that Primogeniture
vs. Merit
The very first conflict in a play rife with
conflicts is between Bassianus and Saturninus. The subject: which of the
emperor's two sons, the eldest or the more meritorious, should succeed Titus as
emperor? The traditionalist Titus settles the question in favor of
primogeniture, thus setting off a series of events that renders Rome corrupt
and feeble, and creates unspeakable tragedy for the Andronici. Shakespeare, it
seems, feels that merit ought to take precedence over primogeniture; the whole
play, it might even be argued (as the critic Sid Ray has done), is a plea for
elective rather than aristocratic descent.
The Goths have their own twisted
interpretation of the primogeniture versus merit question, as can be seen in
the debate between Chiron and Demetrius over who should woo Lavinia in the
beginning of Act Two. Chiron says that he should because he is the eldest, and
Demetrius opposes him on the basis of worth. Of course, their argument is mere
bravado; a fact that becomes painfully obvious when Aaron suggests that they
"both should speed." Still, by echoing the Bassianus/Saturninus
debate in the bickering of two violent rapists, Shakespeare makes a statement
about the dangerous, petty childishness of the political process as a whole.
Aaron's motives for vengeance may originate
in the way society views him.
Gender
In Titus Andronicus,
Shakespeare examines stereotypical gender roles. In the play's opening scene,
both female lead characters are treated like property to be exchanged and
traded between men, who are valued for their military service and political
commitment to Rome. At the same time, the play uses the virtuous Lavinia and
the sensual Tamora to create a classic good woman / bad woman dichotomy to
explore female sexuality and power.
Spectacle and Performance
The general consensus about Titus is
that the play is much better on the stage than on the page. While some believe
that the poetry of Titus, when understood in its uniquely macabre
context, is quite rewarding on its own, there is something to be said for the
commonly-held opinion. For one thing, Titus is all about spectacle. For
example, many of its most powerful scenes are made powerful more through
actions than through words. The appearance of a mutilated Lavinia, for
instance, is far more moving than the words, spoken by Marcus, that accompany
her appearance. And the final scene of the play, which seems to go by
ludicrously fast on the page, is made for performance. Imagine the dinner party
commencing after the pies have been served - the polite tinkle of silverware as
Saturninus and Tamora unwittingly eat the Roman princes, who have been baked
into the pastry. This moment could be drawn out to excruciating effect on the
stage. On the page, however, it is abrupt and risible.
Even beyond these set pieces, Titus is
so preoccupied with performance and ritual that a dramatic production would
inevitably capture more than a simple read-through. The opening scene, in which
Alarbus is disemboweled, for example, evokes a recondite ritualism that
heightens the tragedy of the begging Tamora. Tamora's disguise as Revenge and
her sons' turns as Rape and Murder virtually beg to be seen, as does
Titus' chef's garb as he serves the meat pies. All of these images seem
ludicrous when merely read, but gripping - or at the very least darkly comic -
when staged.
There is no doubt that the young Shakespeare
was more a dramatist than a poet. His imagination was fired as much by the
spectacle of theater as by its lofty language. Thus, while his later plays,
written in conjunction with or after his purely poetical works, tend to offer
as much interest to the reader at home as to the theatergoer, Titus
unquestionably favors the latter. The modern reader of Titus, then, has
no better aid than Julie Taymor's 2000 film, Titus, which captures the
eerie spectacle of the play visually as well as poetically.
Sex
Titus Andronicus portrays a horrific view of sexuality that
suggests there's an inherent ugliness in desire. Demetrius and Chiron view the
act of rape as a speedier, more convenient alternative to courtship, and most
character see Tamora's adulterous affair with Aaron as an activity that
"stains" Tamora's "honour" black like Aaron's skin color
(2.3.2). What's more, at the center of the play is a pit, a "bloodstained
hole" (2.3.3) and "swallowing womb" (2.3.6) that is an obvious
and disturbing metaphor for Lavinia's raped and brutalized body.
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