Revenge And Violence In Shakespeare's Play Titus Andronicus

Practically the majority of the savagery and catastrophe that comes to pass in Shakespeare's play Titus Andronicus would all be able to be followed back to one thoughtful occasion in the opening scene: Titus' butchering of Queen Tamora the Goth's oldest child, obviously done to relieve the spirits of Titus' own children. Revenge which is the main theme is defined as the act of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands. As in the majority of Shakespeare's disasters, revenge is the driving source behind the plot of Titus Andronicus. Tamora is looking for revenge against Titus for killing her children, and during the time spent pulverizing his family; she infuriates him so much that he pledges retribution upon her. Neither Tamora nor Titus feels any kind of protest of inner voice at their conduct and rather will go to any lengths to cause torment on the other. The two most stunning demonstrations of revenge incorporate the offspring of Tamora and the offspring of Titus — that is, the assault of Lavinia and the homicides of Chiron and Demetrius and the resulting human flesh consumption. These activities stir the inquiry in regards to the rational soundness of Titus and Tamora. Could a normal and sane individual, even one bowed on retribution, carry out such horrendous abominations? Why or why not?

Many people during the Elizabethan era would agree to the fact that revenge is best served on a plate when it comes unexpected. However, Shakespeare makes it widely known that conflicts that arises between family or nations have either a religious, ethical or political effect emerging from the revenge of Titus Andronicus. One conflict I would point out in Titus Andronicus is bitter sweet life of Titus Andronicus. What do I mean by that? Titus has a bitter sweet feeling because he conquered the Goths and at the same time lost two of his sons. This can evidently be seen in when he says “Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds! He has a sad heart for his dead sons but as a man he puts that aside to praise his nation for winning the war against the Goths. When his two sons severed heads are returned to him, Titus rejects mere spectacle as a means of expressing his grief. Frustrated with the uselessness of his efforts, he declares, “I have not another tear to shed”; then he wonders “Then which way shall I find Revenge’s cave?”. The figurative to which he turns to find revenge is that of violent action. The distinction of linguistics between mimetic and performative language perfectly delineates this shift. Before, Titus language of grief south mimesis; he tried in vain to use both oral language and passive form of spectacle to mimic his internal feelings. Now finding these strategies unhelpful, he turns his language of spectacle violently outward attempting to affect the reality around him in simulations of its impositions on him. He does this certainly for revenge, but also so that he can see tangible evidence of his lament, something the tragic universe has this far denied him.

I believe our view of revenge tragedies hews so closely to the Elizabethan one because our times are more like Elizabethan times along a crucial dimension: the sense of the fragility of the rule of law. The beginning of a fully globalized society without an overarching government means injuries will routinely occur without any legal remedy. Enhanced weapons and information technology have created a climate where a revenge cycle need not 'cycle' far to have catastrophic consequences. For this reason, we distance ourselves from Shakespeare's first tragedy at our risk. Titus is not immature. It is inaugural. It depicts the threat of endless private vengeance that calls the law into being. Without understanding that threat, we cannot understand the origins of law-in Shakespeare's world or our own.

Titus stages an Elizabethan anxiety about how quickly private vengeance can spin out of control if the law does not contain it. Revenge never just evens the odds but leads to retaliation. That retaliation triggers counter-retaliation. The escalating tit-for-tat dynamic soon becomes a full- fledged 'blood feud' between the clans to which the perpetrator and the victim belong. In the play, the original sacrifice of Alarbus, the Goth prince, by Titus, the Roman general, begins a cycle of violence that ultimately engulfs all Goths and Romans.

drama because 'it touched important questions of the day: the

social problems of personal honour and the survival of feudal

lawlessness; the political problem of tyranny and resistance; and

the supreme question of providence, with its provocative

contrasts between human vengeance and divine.

The play’s plot is entirely driven by revenge when one of the characters is wronged, he or she turns towards revenge to obtain a solution. One conflict arises in the opening scene as to who should be the successor of the emperor. Such uncertainties, aporias and silences along with binary oppositions‟ decentering are in part responsible for the chaos in Titus. The chaos of the play, which shows itself from the very outset of the play, is in one way or another because the rivals do not vividly and authoritatively announce their claims. In this rivalry between the late Emperor's successors, the Emperor's sons, Saturninus and Bassianus, are struggling over the throne by means of a poetic rhetorical language and somewhat eloquently:

Saturninus

Nobel patricians, patrons of my right,

Defend the justice of my cause with arms.

And countrymen, my loving followers

Plead my successive title with your swords.

I am his first-born son that was the last

That wore the imperial diadem of Rome.

Then let my father’s honors live in me

Nor wrong mine age with this dignity.

This scene is the most chaotic one throughout the play and to some extent in a “danger of becoming unmanageably comic, rather than solemn and frightening” (Brown 2001, p. 30). Meanwhile, Titus remains silent and it is Marcus, his brother and the tribune of people, who speaks for him and declares that Romans “A special party, have by common voice” have chosen Titus to be the emperor. As such, Titus‟ tranquility or aporia, which leaves the group of spectators just as different characters with various decisions, is in charge of the disorder of the play that starts from the earliest starting point. Indeed, the only person who has the authority to be the emperor is Titus but his refusal to declare this claim provides Saturninus with the opportunity to take “in an election for the Roman empery” while he is the wrong person for this position.

Alongside the prior double resistance, there are numerous different pairs all through the play that decentralize or undermine the present qualities and bring a component of chaos into the play. One of these decentered restrictions is human advancement/barbarity, which Shakespeare, through awful practices of Titus and putting some vulnerable sides on the twofold, suspends; in this manner obscuring the limit between the cultivated Romans and uncouth Goths. The socialized Romans are appeared as primitive as the Goths and in some cases significantly increasingly brutal; Chiron Tamora’s son says the Goths have never been “was never Scythia half so barbarous”. Accordingly, the most important binary oppositions related to the language of the play and sustained by aporia are the oppositions of proper/improper language and more significantly the speech/writing opposition. The activity of the characters, especially Titus, is reflected in the language of the play as the verse of the play is not really human and the language is ill-advised which thus impacts the ill-advised demonstrations of the characters. As per the Renaissance shows, a respectable saint ought to be a paragon of excellence whose idealistic manner shows itself in his appropriate and direct utilization of language that therefore will prompt the dependability of the political authority of the play. In any case, Titus‟ inappropriate utilization of language that makes him be ill-advised and virtueless is garbled with these shows.

Likewise, to Derrida, in Titus Andronicus Shakespeare presents a challenge to the speech/writing opposition. In some parts of the play there is a serious tension between the written and spoken languages with Shakespeare's privileging writing over speech that aims at increasing the play's tensions and aporetic mode. When Chiron and Demetrius – Tamora’s sons –rape and mutilate Lavinia, they tell her:

Demetrius. So, now go tell, an if thy tongue can speak,

Who 'twas that cut thy tongue and ravished thee.

Chiron. Write down thy mind, bewray thy meaning so,

And, if thy stumps will let thee, play the scribe.

Demetrius. See, how with signs and tokens she can scrowl.

Chiron. Go home, call for sweet water, wash thy hands.

Demetrius. She hath no tongue to call nor hands to wash,

And so let's leave her to her silent walks. (II.iv.1-8)

Similarly, Titus lamenting his mutilated daughter says that:

“thou hast no hands to wipe away thy tears.

nor tongue to tell me who has martyred thee” (III.i.106-7).

In Lavinia’s case it seems that the traditional view in which speech has always been valued over writing is undermined, since, despite the fact that neither can she speak nor write, Lavinia finally tells her story through writing and it is Marcus who shows her how to tell the story of her being raped and mutilated.

In conclusion, revenge is to get retribution for a wrong doing done to a person. Revenge can bring a closure to the person who feels they have been wronged but what happens after the revenge? Can't the other person take revenge as well. The cycle could continue, which just leads to pain and sorrow. One may look at revenge as justice but in the end all it brings is pain and sorrow.

Works cited

• Brown, J. R. (2001). Titus Andronicus: Shakespeare's First Tragedy. Shakespeare: The Tragedies (pp. 9-32).
• Houndmills and New York: Palgrave.
• Derrida, J. (1993). Aporias. Trans. Thomas Dutoit. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.