Titus Andronicus ( ca. 1593-94 ) , an early calamity penned by Shakespeare, is known among literary critics as the goriest of his dramas. They attribute this characteristic through the spectacle of mutilation and slaying that beset its characters. This paper argues that the force of the drama is situated subtly in its linguistic communication, and non chiefly in the actions. The illocutionary nature of linguistic communication makes the force possible through the usage of carnal imagination and intertexuality. Lavinia becomes the violent site of a disrupted homosocial relation.

O, why should nature construct so disgusting a lair,

Unless the Gods delectation in calamities? 4.1.58-59

If physical hurting were the gage for naming a drama a calamity, so Titus Andronicus is Shakespeare ‘s most tragic[ 1 ]drama because of the many mutilations that happen to its characters. For case, the pathetic province of Lavinia ‘s maimed organic structure is made more suffering by her tongue-less oral cavity spurting with blood. Titus ‘ left manus is cut in vain because Saturninus has non truly asked for it as a ransom for Quintus and Martius. When Aaron announces the trade for the release of both boies, the audience-more or less-is given a principle for the amputation as a feasible option for the Restoration of order. Although Titus believes hesitantly Aaron ‘s words, however, such vacillations are framed as uncertainties based on the Moor ‘s colour. For the modern audience, the amputation is going more of a feasible ground compared to hesitation based on racial favoritism. A few lines subsequently when a courier brings Titus the caputs of his boies, we feel a sense of ferociousness and goriness that lead to nil but cold wastage. With Titus as the hero who has to endure the decease of his guiltless boies, the drama situates him on the brink of the greatest bad luck, doing him less a human and more of a personification of bad luck itself. Classical theories on calamity have frequently functioned as universalist accounts for human destiny[ 2 ]. The atrociousnesss in the drama reinforce the thought of calamity as a universalist impression or else how do audience do sense out of it, aside from doubting its Shakespearean writing or explicate it off as Shakespeare ‘s lampoon of his coevalss ‘ retaliation calamities[ 3 ]. But if we look at the Early Modern theatre from its historical point of position, the phase is so, like our ain, is a microcosm of the universe. However, its cosmology is more immediate than ours because it is a political microcosm of the world-unlike us who see the phase as microcosm at an aesthetic degree.[ 4 ]

For Aristotle, calamity depicts a great person-usually a nobleman-whose destiny changed from good to bad ( peripateia ) due to some tragic defect in his character ( tragic flaw ) . For case, Oedipus ‘ hubris motivates him to take a firm stand on the prophesier to uncover the cause of plague. There is a sense of aristocracy in his continuity to cognize and to penalize. The drama ends with him “ cognizing ” ( anagnoresis ) about life, more than he expects ( the cognition about the perpetrator ‘s individuality ) . Hegel looks at calamity as struggle between two moralss, two every bit weighty sets of ethical criterions, and the character is utilized by the dramatist as a site for the dialectic. In a Hegelian sense, Titus is a tragic hero because at the center of the drama, the agglomeration of the agonies of his kids has transformed him into a retaliation hero who, at the beginning of the drama, is a nationalist who unhesitatingly places trueness to the Emperor over blood dealingss, therefore turn outing it by killing Mutius at the first act. A Roman hero now turned into retaliation hero, Titus represents two ethical gages: one ‘s trueness to the Emperor or one ‘s devotedness to the household. The clang can non but ensue to tragedy: “ These tragic figures can non make good without making immorality ; they are doomed, non be a random predestination of bad fortune, but by a state of affairs in which all roads lead to incorrect.[ 5 ]For Nietzsche, calamity is the rapprochement between the Apollonian ( civilisation, ground ) and the Dionysian ( nature, emotion ) through the credence of the panic of world, or Cupid fati.[ 6 ]In Shakespearean unfavorable judgment, Bradley is a descendent of these minds who saw calamity as a universalist endeavor which could be explained across history and civilization because “ evil exhibits itself everyplace as something negative, wastes, weakening, destructive, a rule of decease. It isolates, disunites, and tends to eliminate non merely its antonym but itself. That which keeps the evil work forces comfortable, makes him win, even permits him to be, is the good in him. ”[ 7 ]

Despite the “ agglomeration of atrociousness ”[ 8 ]traveling extreme in Titus, calamity in its goriest aspect-even to the point of being a spectacle-has a map to play. Watson looks at calamity as an recognition of the presence of the misdemeanors against us, with the characters as our substitutes.[ 9 ]

Shakspere ‘s drama is based on a figure of beginnings written across historical periods. Book VI of Ovid ‘s Metamorphoses is extremely apparent in the narrative of Philomela being used as a analogue to Lavinia ‘s colza. The Ballad of Titus Andronicus registered in 1594 at the Stationer ‘s registry and a popular narrative of a wicked Moresque retainer, whose English version was entered in the Stationer ‘s Register in 1569-1570 could hold served as beginnings for Shakespeare ‘s drama[ 10 ]. The humanist motion had its influence in the manner of the drama excessively. In 1581, Thomas Newton edited the complete calamities of Seneca in English.[ 11 ]His calamities appealed to the English for several grounds: the subject of shortness of life and alteration of luck ; the drama as a survey of the autocrat ‘s features ; the five-act construction ; its spectacle ; an accent on a individual character or two, therefore doing the drama more comprehendible compared to Euripides who would make a batch more circular characters ; a decrease of a character to a individual passion ; and the lifting importance of rhetoric in the European tribunals.[ 12 ]Despite Euripedes ‘ influence on Seneca, harmonizing to McDonald, the similarity between Euripedean and Senecan calamities are superficial because Seneca has less poetic flicker and more moralistic declamations in his dramas.[ 13 ]Hence, a figure of Latin declamatory lines are spread throughout Titus Andronicus[ 14 ]. Examples of Latin lines intertwine with English:

Sit fas aut nefas[ 15 ]boulder clay I find the watercourse

To chill this heat, a appeal to quiet these tantrums,

Per Stygia, per Maness vehor[ 16 ].

An version from the lines of Hippolytus, a Senecan drama about a stepmother ‘s illicit love for her stepson, adorns the tragic longing of Titus:

Magni dominator poli,

Tam lentus audis scelera, tam lentus vides?[ 17 ]( 4.1.80-81 )

Latin besides serves as an chance for oratorical declarations. This line is taken from Metamorphosiss: Terras Astraea reliquit[ 18 ]( 4.3.4 ) . Compared to his later dramas, so Titus Andronicus lacks the poetic lustre of Hamlet-a retaliation calamity also-as seen by the frequence of his proverbial looks: “ But metalaˆ¦steel to the really back ” ( 4.3.48 ) or “ Ay, like a black Canis familiaris, as the expression is ” ( 5.1.122 ) . Shakspere might hold written chiefly for a literary audience due to his frequent mentions to classical literature.[ 19 ]Senecan plays-also known as cupboard plays-lent well to the declamations common to rhetorical schools.[ 20 ]In instance Titus Andronicus is far different in manner from the ulterior Shakespearian dramas, Waith suggests that at times there are manners which are common to most authors belonging to a certain historical period, or authors were adept in utilizing more than one manner.[ 21 ]Despite unfavorable judgments about this drama, Watson argues that it would be “ incorrect to disregard these dramas as ill-conceived or fiddling plants simply because of their sensationalism ; there is a necessary mastermind behind the misprision and development of Senecan force ”[ 22 ].

Before 1698, Titus Andronicus has been often performed until antipathy for horror and uncertainty of its writing waned the public involvement towards the drama.[ 23 ]The Victorians besides staged the drama without the colza and mutilation of Lavinia.[ 24 ]In America, an advertizement for Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia reads: “ The director, in denoting this drama, adapted by N.H. Bannister from the linguistic communication of Shakespeare entirely, assures the populace that every look calculated to pique the ear, has been studiously avoided, and the drama is presented for their determination with full assurance that it will deserve their approbation ”[ 25 ]. To avoid goriness, scenes of Lavinia had to be presented with aesthetic stylisation.[ 26 ]Peter Brook ‘s public presentation at Stratford in 1955 downplayed ferociousness. Titus ‘s manus is carried by Lavinia ‘s weaponries ( in the original, Lavinia has to transport it with her oral cavity ) and Chiron and Demetrius ‘ slaying is done wing.[ 27 ]A formalist attack to these scenes has besides been done to extenuate the force of the drama. Gerald Freedman ‘s 1967 production has sidestepped ferociousness to the point of defamiliarization[ 28 ]

Julie Taymor ‘s production suggests a Brechtian undertaking by taking to deconstruct film force within a violent film.[ 29 ]The utmost ferociousness in the drama is about close to unreality ; the spectacle has become comic-especially when Titus asks Lavinia to transport his manus in her oral cavity. But audience could be assorted. In Sunday Times dated Novemeber 11, 1951 Harold Hobson studies that he “ found practically the whole company beckoning gory stumps and eating cannibal piesaˆ¦ truly glorious ”[ 30 ]. Eric Shorter, in a Bristol New Vic public presentation in 1978 said that it “ it proved surprisingly unlaughable aˆ¦ until the shutting cannibalistic supper ”[ 31 ].

Why this much force? Where does atrociousness skulk? Productions and unfavorable judgments have frequently emphasized the spectacle as a performance-just as the imaginativeness reenacts the scenes even during soundless reading. The bloody actions have often been foregrounded to the extent that the drama so proves itself to be goriest. Since dramas are so meant to be performed and watched, the spectacle leaves the head preoccupied with the external ferociousness to the point of judging it a the most violent of the Shakespearean plays-the judgement based on the physical performatives like knifing, maiming, cutting, baking and ravishing.

This paper aims to turn up the force in the motive used in the drama. Such force in the linguistic communication through its usage of imagination that are inherently negative or images thought of as positive but used negatively in the drama make the drama more violent than of all time thought earlier. It is more violent on two evidences. First, the force of the words farther countenances the force to be acted out. As speech Acts of the Apostless, declarations-which are inherently verbal-have to predate the actions. Hence, words give “ truthfulness ” ( in an empirical sense because the action corroborates the declaration ) to the actions-regardless of their characteristic. The words bind the character to execute the declared action, or else his individuality crumbles and it attains an instability caused by prevarications and incapacity to legalize his vocalization. This point is really of import particularly when we look at Titus as a Roman hero who must give truth to his words through actions. In the first scene, he arrives winning in Rome. Although he enters subsequently than Saturninus who instantly opens up the struggle in the emperorship, Titus has declared his individuality as a Roman foremost and a male parent following. In the pre-play ( before the drama begins ) , he has already sacrificed boies for the imperium and he is ready to allow travel of the emperorship every bit long as Rome would merely stay in harmoniousness. As pledge to his trueness to the imperium over his household, he kills Mutius-as a signifier of legitimization of his words. Second, because words are less touchable on phase compared to the public presentation, the drama becomes more violent because the force is couched in the rhetorical flamboyance of Senecan calamities. Although his cupboard dramas so uses spectacle and reversal of luck as subject for his Stoic doctrine, Seneca besides had close ties with the Greek Classical World which lent his dramas a sense of traditional continuity with Euripides ‘ . With the metempsychosis of the classics besides burgeoned the desire for a perfect signifier. The five act construction was considered as the ideal theatre signifier, which besides influenced subsequently seventeenth-century Gallic play. Since these characteristics of Senecan calamities and the subsequent Early Modern calamities he influenced were emphasized, certain hints of the force inherent in the linguistic communication of the plays-in this peculiar instance, Titus Andronicus-became less conspicuous than their spectacle. Even so, the goriness seemed to be blanketed by the rhetoric and Latin lines that suggest the cogency of ferociousness in so far as it was couched in the Roman methodicalness. More so, ferociousness was non an terminal in a Senecan public presentation: it was a agency to demo the turn of destiny and an direction on populating a good life. Moralizing in calamity coincided with the Puritan compulsion with snake pit and moralss. I do n’t intend to state that there was no struggle between Puritanism and the theatre. That is a absurd statement which does non take into history the location assigned to the early theatres. There was a struggle between theatre and Puritanism, but it was a struggle that surprisingly met halfway. Subsuming the theatre under the Puritan compulsion with didacticism, the former absorbed the discourse of the latter so that it its justification-even though it was merely a permission to be in the geographical peripheries of London-was based on the very compulsion of Puritanism. As a spectacle physically performed on phase, Titus Andronicus was an artefact among other idiosyncratic ferociousnesss of the Elizabethans like bear-baiting and the inhumane intervention of the insane. Nevertheless being eyeglassess as seen ( and non read ) by the bare oculus, Shakespeare ‘s early drama was no lucifer to the goriness realistically offered by other Elizabethan “ recreations. ” Merely in its linguistic communication could Titus Andronicus match-or even outperform-these amusements in their force. But this insidious feature of the drama ‘s force all the more makes it more flagitious because of its subtlety-in a sense that actions are more touchable than words at the beginning. Since force has embedded itself in the words, force becomes reiterable in a lingual sense. Transcribed into paper, they ironically lend themselves more touchable through time-compared to performances-and perpetuate lingual forces across historical periods and civilizations.

If Cleanth Brooks locates the “ bare baby ” as the motive for the force perpetrated in Macbeth, the drama Titus Andronicus situates its imagination in animate beings[ 32 ]and their intensions like runing and forfeit. Hamlet is besides a retaliation calamity, but it situates its struggle in the drama put up by the tragic hero. Therefore, the acknowledgment of the phase as the cardinal to the anagnoresis is about at the center of the drama already. Titus Andronicus, on the other manus, instantly introduces the venue for the tragedy-the retaliation against “ irreligious piousness ” ( 1.1.130 ) . The decease of Alarbus foreshadows the ulterior force to come like the colza of Lavinia, the decease of Chiron and Demetrius, and finally the terminal of Titus. Something quaint about this drama comes from its inversion of signals. If the motive is based on carnal imagination systematically sprinkled over the drama and its intension of forfeit, so Shakespeare used the individual of Alarbus to present the animate beings to be named henceforth in the drama. It suggests that Alarbus maps as a form for the animate beings ( signified ) . As a lingual constituent that precedes the thought it signals, the signifier-from the point of position of the audience-comes foremost because its vocalization would angle out senses familiar to the hearers. Such inversion of signals implies two things. First, Alarbus is equated to an animate being itself because the form should be parallel-even in one semantic sense-to the signified. The atrocity of the Goths is confirmed here as it was “ confirmed ” on them in the pre-play. The apposition between Rome and the land of the Goths-with Tamora conveying with her a Moor-is a hint to the audience impression of the non-Romans as savages.[ 33 ]No other signal could be used to prevent the remainder of the minor animate being images from claiming centrality except the forfeit of Alarbus. Second, his decease besides spurred the remainder of the characters to a retaliation orgy so that they besides portion in the animalistic character of the sacrificed. Lucius killing Alarbus, Tamora seeks retaliation in her elusive manner. Bassianus is a casualty to the program against Lavinia, Martius and Quintus are framed up, and Chiron and Demetrius are turned into pasties. Hence, Titus ‘s claim that Rome has become a “ wilderness of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelams ” ( 3.1.54 ) encompasses most of the characters.

Second, compulsion for blood is contained besides in the impression of hunting: “ I would we had a 1000 Roman dames/At such a bay [ Hunt[ 34 ]] , by bend to function our lecherousness ” ( 4.1.41-42 ) . As a agency to subsistence, runing maps besides as a higher signifier of nutriment through communicating with the divinity. Something caught in a Hunt is offered to the higher being as a treaty to prolong the relationship between the prayer and the God. The Elizabethans are familiar with the Biblical footing of forfeit. The book of Judges ( 11:30-40 ) tells about Jephtah who sacrifices his girl as an offering for a winning war. In fact, the forfeit of Abraham is a favourite during the Reformation.[ 35 ]As the Europeans encountered different spiritual patterns in the New World, the impression of forfeit had to be rethought so that the Biblical forfeits had to be distinguishable from the heathen forfeits recounted by the adventurers. If the Biblical forfeits were to be proved legitimate, Early Modern paradigm should accept the being of assorted forfeits due to spiritual differences. From at that place, it could do a differentiation between ethical and unethical forfeits based on its conformance to the natural jurisprudence.[ 36 ]An Aristotelian-Thomistic construct, the natural jurisprudence was a comfy construct to pacify edginess in the realisation of how the Bible and the New World patterns were similar. Natural jurisprudence is different from the jurisprudence of nature. The latter governs biological science and natural philosophies like the jurisprudence of gravitation, alimental concerns, and anatomical preoccupations. Natural jurisprudence, on the other manus, is purportedly a impression of right and incorrect imbedded in the psyche at the minute of conception-regardless of whether it has been baptized or non. The catholicity of the natural jurisprudence justified the Ten Commandments-like the jurisprudence against killing, stealing, etc.-and proved the essentialist impression of scruples ( or synderesis, harmonizing to Aquinas ) . Intended or non, this ethical-theological construct of synderesis would besides spur an imperialist undertaking for colonial domination under the auspices of edifying the indigens, upon whose Black Marias the natural jurisprudence was already present but remained hibernating because of pagan religion.

Even the soft Lavinia is called a “ WASP ” ( 2.3.132 ) who might biting her rapers one time she squeals on them. Tamora, who has called Lavinia an insect, besides gets her portion of metaphor at the terminal of the drama:

But throw her Forth to animals and birds of quarry ;

Her life was beastly and devoid of commiseration,

And being dead, allow birds on her return commiseration. ( 5.3.197-199 )

Proverbial, banal images are besides employed in so far as they connote animate beings. The nurse, when she hands the babe to Aaron, calls it “ every bit nauseating as a frog ” ( 4.2.67 ) . Such look stings because of its figure of speech and besides its staleness parallels the insignificance of the babe ‘s life from the point of position of the nurse. Another manner Shakespeare uses animate beings is by juxtaposing contrasting animate beings to make sarcasm. For case, when Titus sees Aaron coming from the castle to state him about the emperor ‘s deal, Titus exclaims: “ O gracious Emperor! O soft Aaron! / Did of all time raven sing so like a lark ” ( 3.1.157-158 ) . The inkiness of the first bird is a racial insinuation that, like a shrill call, adds abuse to injury by contrasting it against the tuneful lark. A sense of uncertainty pervades Titus ‘ lines that ascend the contrast to racial figure of speechs. The Corvus corax and the lark do non merely mean the quality of news-death in the instance of Corvus corax, and hope in the instance of the lark-but besides a racial differentiation between tegument colourss, whose simulacra are the plume sunglassess. Insects could besides displace the despised individual. For case, when the Andronici learned about the decease of Martius and Quintus, Marcus stabbed the fly with his knife: “ At that I have killed, my lord-a fly ” ( 3.2.53 ) . Titus, surprised with Marcus ‘s act, inquires. Justifying his act of inhuman treatment as a topicality to the recent intelligence of his nephews ‘ decease, he replies: “ Excuse me, sir ; it was a black ill-favored fly, /Like to the Empress ‘ Moor ; hence I killed him ” ( 3.2.66-67 ) . Notice the usage of the pronoun “ him. ” A mere insect is given a higher life signifier that transforms it into a individual. Yet this alteration of subjectivity-if we may impart such to an insect-is easy denigrated through its association with the Moor, therefore taking to its decease. The insect in this transition at the same time undergoes both absorption-in Greenblatt ‘s sense-and supplanting because it stands in as a representation of Aaron and Marcus ‘ whipping boy for the unchecked angry he holds against the black adult male.

The intertextuality of the drama besides boils down to animate beings and passion. As a model for the offense, Ovid ‘s Metamorphoses recounts the narrative of Philomela who is raped by Tereus, the hubby of her sister Procne. Philomela is abandoned in the forests tongueless. When her sister found out, both Procne and Philomela devises a program for retaliation. Procne kills Tereus ‘ boy Itys and serves the male child to his male parent. Learning about it, Tereus vows retribution over the sisters. But the Gods transformed Procne into a sup, Philomela into a nightingale, and Tereus into a hoopoo. The presence of Metamorphoses serves as a countenance to copy the force read in the book. The consequence of the book is so elusive and powerful that anyone connected to it besides portions in the spirit of retaliation. This could be likened to Umberto Eco ‘s chef-d’oeuvre The Name of the Rose, where those who desire the manuscript autumn into compulsion taking to decease. Lucius ‘s boy, the proprietor of the book, succumbs to choler in both the narrative and its modern-day reenactment. His asides during the errand show ill will. If Ovid ‘s narrative pervades the textual ambiance of the drama, the scene besides invites somberness: “ Here ne’er shines the Sun, here nil strains, / Unless the every night owl or fatal Corvus corax ” ( 2.3.96-97 ) . The hole that serves as the grave of Bassianus is a site for both a prevarication and a mutilation. Tamora provokes her boies when she tells them about Bassianus ‘ menace to throw her into the hole, she deceives her boies with “ A 1000 sissing serpents, / Ten thousand swelling frog, as many urchins ( 2.3.100-101 ) .

After looking into the intertexuality and the scene which breed force, it is but proper we look into the concerns of medical specialty during the Classical and Early Modern periods to measure how medical discourse could be utilized to understand the force which centres on Lavinia. Harmonizing to Maclean, medical specialty during the Grecian period until the 16th century studied adult females to reply the undermentioned basic inquiries: What is the beginning of seeds? Do both sexes produce it? Which portion of the organic structure develops in the foetus foremost? What determines sex and resemblance of kids to parents?[ 37 ]Medicine being coupled with doctrine, the impression of adult females was capable to bad and cultural apprehension. Aristotle ‘s Metaphysics contains the Pythagorean opposites which govern the universe and the person.[ 38 ]The paradigm of antonyms that situate it on the difference in anatomy has been oppressive in both medical and literary productions. In Timaeus, one of Plato ‘s duologues, he says that adult females are reincarnations of debauched work forces. This negative image of adult females is connected to the “ deficiency ” that Aristotle and Galen saw: adult females are less developed, lacks heat for reproduction, sexual variety meats internal, cold and moist as dominant wits, unable to concoct perfect seeds from the blood. Such ascription of heat in the organic structure became a figure of speech for psychological properties: bravery, liberalness and moral strength for work forces, and failing, craze, and disintegration for adult females.[ 39 ]Aristotle ‘s Historia Animalium, IX.l connects biological observations with gender “ truths ” on the differences between sexes.[ 40 ]A “ scientific ” history of animate beings whose features were transported to worlds have informed the medical universe until the Middle Ages. Although divinity, through Aquinas, admitted the equality of the sexes in the religious universe, it did non account for the inequality apparent in the lived universe.[ 41 ]Hence, the Thomistic impression of equality was merely a tokenism that meant no alteration in the society.

Against this cultural background, the adult female so became a cause of the tragic life and theatre was the site for calamity that reenacted her disapprobation. In Theatrum Mundi, Pierre Boaistuau posits that human calamity starts at the “ uncleanenesse ”[ 42 ]of the uterus. As curse for humanity, she was besides the cause for inharmoniousness. In Titus Andronicus Lavinia ‘s colza is diagnostic of the devastation of Roman political order.[ 43 ]As a symptom to be eliminated wholly with the disease, Lavinia ‘s decease so is an of import step-for the patriarchy-for the Restoration of the position quo. A heroine could sometimes work as a gage for feminine virtuousness and at the same clip she is a presentation of the effects of upset. A adult female whose address is equipped with the patriarchal discourse is considered a menace because “ to hold a lingua is at one degree to be equipped with a Phallus ”[ 44 ]. In the instance of colza, a adult female ‘s capacity to talk about her entrancement must conform to the processs imposed by the patriarchy-she must keep an image of herself as a good, chaste adult female. If some conditions were non met, so her accusal of maltreatment may backlash against her.[ 45 ]Lavinia ‘s colza could take on two types-both of which she has to digest. The first 1 is done by Tamora ‘s boies. But anterior to that, her facticity has besides been raped by the treaty Titus, her male parent, and Saturninus agree on. Lavinia, the obedient girl, becomes the movable for exchange. Titus, seeking to secure a reassurance of his trueness to the imperium, buys Saturninus ‘ blessing by merchandising off Lavinia: “ Lavinia will I do my empress, / Rome ‘s royal kept woman, kept woman of my bosom, ” ( 1.1.240-241 ) . If the dealing happens between two males, so the relationship between both parties is characterized by a homosocial exclusivity which, when broken by either party, is a evildoing against another male. For case, Lavinia ‘s colza is non merely a evildoing of Lavinia by Tamora ‘s boies. More so, it is a evildoing against Bassianus by Tamora ‘s boies. If Lavinia is a movable in the patriarchal universe, so her colza is an look of the colza of her owner-Bassianus. Yet this colza is a painful realisation among Shakepeare ‘s male audience. He could non but present the colza of Bassianus as knifing. Martius ‘ description of Bassianus in the hole is filled with phallic symbols which have been desecrated:

Upon his bloody finger he doth wear

A cherished ring that lightens all this hole,

Which, like a taper in some memorial,

Doth shine upon the dead adult male ‘s crude cheeks,

And shows the ragged visceras of this cavity ; ( 2.3.226-230 )

This homosocial relationship that excludes women-or do them as the site for evildoing, a scapegoat-is evident at the terminal of the drama when Marcus asks the immature Lucius to stand beside the deceasing Titus:

How many thousand times hath these hapless lips,

When they were populating, warmed themselves on thine!

O now, sweet male child, give them their latest buss ; ( 5.3.166-168 )

Since colza is a belongings offense, it is the responsibility of the male members of the adult female ‘s household to support her cause.[ 46 ]But as a movable she could be disposed harmonizing to the caprice of her proprietor. Lavinia ‘s decease in the custodies of her male parent shows the power of the male over his girl, by contextualizing the act with the male literary allusion to Virginius killing his despoiled girl to salvage her honor-or the award of his household. Lavinia ‘s weakness in the patriarchal exchange destines her to be the whipping boy who can non speak back to the male. Although it is Saturninus who fancifully abandons her, he blames her for it: “ Lavinia, though you left me like a peasant ” ( 1.1.485 ) . For Saturninus, she is a “ changing piece ” ( 1.1.309 ) . He even sanctions her decease because of the discoloration she has incurred: “ Because the miss should non last her shame, / And by her presence still regenerate his sorrows ” ( 5.3.40-41 ) .

The alteration of tense and the usage of “ object ” as a term mentioning to her confirms her hypostatization:

Marcus: This was thy girl.

Titus: Why, Marcus, so she is.

Lucius: Ay me! This object kills me. ( 3.1.63-65 )

Even Demetrius ‘ syllogism about his relation to Lavinia entails a presupposition of her as an object. The series of declaratory sentence connotes a logic which invites no inquiring:

Why makes it thou unusual?

She is a adult female, therefore may be wooed ;

She is a adult female, therefore may be won ;

She is Lavinia, hence must be loved. ( 2.1.84-86 )

Her hypostatization can merely be matched by her infantilization which empowers the male grownups to construe for Lavinia her ain subjectiveness.[ 47 ]She becomes a text to be read, and non an agent who can talk because “ to talk is to go the antithesis of female virtuousness in its every facet ”[ 48 ]. Lavinia so becomes absorbed as a belongings, who is excluded from the homosocial circle, however she undergoes the “ procedure whereby a symbolic construction is taken into the self-importance so wholly that it ceases to be as an external phenomenon ”[ 49 ]. As the male parent, Titus is entitled to construe her “ martyred marks ” ( 3.2.36 ) . Incapacitated by her entrancement brought approximately by the males who transact their relationships with each other, Lavinia ‘s entree to speech ( patriarchal mark system ) is described in phallic footings:

O, that delightful engine of her ideas,

That babbled them with such delighting fluency

Is torn from Forth that reasonably hollow coop,

Where like a sweet tuneful bird it sung

Sweet varied notes, enrapturing every twelvemonth ( 3.1.82-86 )

Helpless as she is, she is all the more expected to trust on the patriarchate. Marcus asks:

Shall I speak for thee? Shall I say ‘t is so? ( 2.4.33 )

The public presentation of Titus Andronicus has been considered a spectacle because it contains force which audience does non tie in with Shakespeare. However, this paper has shown that the drama is more violent than it is assumed because its force lies on the linguistic communication itself. The drama has ever capitalized its “ ill fame ” on the actions performed on phase. Upon closer scrutiny of the text, the usage of animate being imagination has legitimized the force that it shows on phase. Framed as a address act, the force of the drama is far more utmost compared to what is supposed before because words-poetic or not-legitimizes the public presentation of atrociousness. The drama has utilized the available discourses in Western civilisation to execute the force. There is the usage of the classics as exemplified in the intertextual usage of Ovid and the usage of forfeit as informed by the Biblical narratives to do the force conform to the dominant discourse of the period. Sugarcoated in oratory and aureate linguistic communication, the drama situates Lavinia ‘s hapless predicament which could be interpreted as the synecdoche for adult females who either have to talk the Father ‘s linguistic communication or be silence