Adversity In Titus Andronicus

Connections of commonality and dissimilarity may be drawn between a multiplicity of texts through an appreciation of the values and attitudes with which they were composed. Accordingly, the values and attitudes of the individual being may be defined as an acute blend of externally induced, or contextual and internally triggered, or inherent factors. Cultural, historical, political, religious and social influences, dictated by the nature of one’s surroundings, imprint a variable pattern of values and attitudes upon the individual. Thus any deviation in any such factor may instigate an alteration of the contextual component of one’s perspective. By contrast, the

Some say revenge is a dish best served cold, but in Titus Andronicus this dish is served piping hot and bloody. One of the literary themes presented is critical disability study. Critical disability is when somebody stands out from the norm. One study talks about being socially disabled and not being able to fit in with the rest of the group in the story. Another study talks about the definition of normality, and how those who don’t fit into that category affect the story as a whole. Another story talks about how being disabled in a certain way acts as a catalyst for a character and fuels their actions from then on. In Titus Andronicus each of these forms of critical disability are present. Titus and Lavinia are both crippled in a multitude of ways physically. However, there are other characters who have a disability that cripples them; Aaron the Moor, Tamora queen of the goths, and Saturninus the Emperor. They are crippled in different ways through their views and actions. These crippled characters are a major part of the story. If they were not present or the things that crippled them were not present then the story would not be viewed in the same light.

The world is a sphere that consists of a variety of entities. It has evolved over time due to different encounters. This embodies the people of our world today. Round and dynamic people are fully developed characters of society, and they change throughout the actions in their life. This is the same as round and dynamic characters in a story. Specifically, the characters of Ralph in Lord of the Flies, and Marcus Brutus in Julius Caesar are prime examples of enlivened roles in their stories. Ralph started out as an honorable leader in the beginning of the story. As the story enhanced, he became disorganized with his plan for the group. At the end of the story Ralph began to be sucked into the savagery, but he stayed loyal to his self and

Then, he refuses to listen to Teiresias’s warning prophecies, burying Antigone alive for disobeying his order. Right as Creon realizes his mistake and recalls this order, Antigone kills herself. This leads to the suicides of Creon’s son Haemon, and his wife Eurydice, with Eurydice cursing Creon for the deaths of Antigone and Haemon. At the end of the play, he is left alone with the knowledge of his mistakes, wishing for death. Because of Creon’s pride, he refused to listen to the counsel of others, leading to tragedy. In contrast to Creon, Brutus’s fatal flaw is that he is too trusting of others’ advice and flattery, which leads him into the conspiracy against Caesar. Cassius plays on Brutus’s love for Rome to bring him into the conspirators’ group. He has Cinna put forged letters “where Brutus may but find [them],” (Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 3, Line 144) and Brutus, believing the letters, joins the group. Then, he trusts Antony to give a speech at Caesar’s funeral, even though Antony supported Caesar. Because of this, Antony is able to stir up a mob against the conspirators, forcing them to flee the city and form armies to take control of Rome. The conspirators eventually fall in battle, and at the end of the play, Brutus kills himself, remarking that he did not kill Caesar as willingly as he now kills himself. He realized his mistake, but despaired, knowing that he cannot change what has happened.

Brutus misjudges and underestimates Antony’s abilities and his audience. When giving his speech, Brutus makes the subject on honor and abstract ideas using logos and ethos but no pathos. The mistake that Brutus makes is that he does not appeal to the crowd’s strong feelings over the death of Julius Caesar. Meanwhile, Antony easily overmatches Brutus because he does not overestimate his audience. Understanding the people, Antony begins in his eulogy appealing to the citizen’s feelings. Because of the lack of emotion in Brutus’s speech, Antony’s highly emotional and extemporaneous speech captures the minds and hearts of the crowd through use of pathos and causes them to become an angry mob that sought to scorn those that took part in the murder of

In the play "Titus Andronicus", the theme of parents and children is clearly visible, and the audience get to see a humanitarian side of the presumably purely evil Aaron, that he shows towards his son. Unlike the hero of the play, Titus, who does not hesitate to "slay his son in a wrongful quarrel"(Shakespeare 1.1.294) and disown him:"Nor thou, nor he, are any sons of mine; my son's would never so dishonour me"(Shakespeare 1.1.295-296), Aaron refuses that his son be killed, and makes it clear that he "shall not die"(Shakespeare 4.2.81) and that he who touches his son "will die upon his scimitar's sharp point"(Shakespeare 4.2.91-92).Some might argue that Aaron's actions towards his son are simply egotistical ,and that he sees

Aaron’s statement suggests that he intends to use Lavinia as a message to Titus. The message would show their anger and hatred towards him and his family. The sons do agree with him and Chiron mentions, “Thy counsel, lad, smells of no cowardice” (2.1.690). After they rape her, they cut off her hand and tongue so that she can’t reveal their identities. Lavinia returns home where she tries to hide but is found by her uncle, Marcus Andronicus. He takes her in and reveals to Titus his mutilated daughter. Lavinia tries her best to give away her captors. Marcus goes on to

Marcus criticizes his language for not expressing things which might happen or exist (as the New Cambridge edition glosses his response, "speak with possibility")( III.i.213). What differentiates Titus' speech from any other poetic speech employing apostrophe, hyperbole, simile, and metaphor, is rather than employing them to describe an external event or his own emotions, as Marcus does, Titus is, as it were, putting them into action. Marcus sets his metaphors in the present or the subjunctive, "O had the monster seen those lily hands/ Tremble like aspen leaves upon a lute...he would not then have touched them," and when he does phrase them in the future, or imperative tense ( "come, let us go and make thy father blind") he shows an interest in poetic intensification that stops short of actually executing, or even pretending that he intends to execute, the action or command to which he has metaphorically alluded (III.i.44-47) Titus is, as it were, acting his metaphors out. He speaks of breathing "the welkin dim" as an action he intends to carry out, and in a sense does through his daughter's and his own sighs and tears, and his apostrophe his transformed from linguistic ornament to poetic action, as he kneels down to call upon a "power". To Marcus, this extension of language to an extreme, to the point where it is indistinguishable from the reality that it symbolizes, is a form of madness.

The more he mourns in front of Lavinia by saying “do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee” the more he grieves, the more ineffectual it is, which does nothing to ease Lavinia’s pain or her current circumstances. Since Lavinia is now mute, Marcus feels compelled to lament her pain. Does he refer to Titus on how he will react when he see Lavinia’s situation, “What will whole months of tears thy father’s eyes? Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee.” Marcus believes that Titus will outpour of grief that his daughter has lost her agency – the loss of the ability to talk and the ability to act against the rapists. The passage is focused on Marcus’ speech which contains the best poetry in Titus Andronicus, it is mainly self-consciously poetry. The lines that Shakespear produces for Marcus: “Alas, a crimson river of warm blood, a bubbling fountain stirred with wind, doth rise and fall between thy rosed lips, coming and going with thy honey breath.” These lines mainly describe Lavinia, to the audience, it feels inappropriate when Marcus takes her appearance as an opening to an effective extent her

This is shown in Act 2, Scene 1. It states, “Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius, To cut the head off and then hack the limbs, Like wrath in death and envy afterwards; For Antony is but a limb of Caesar: Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.” Brutus and the conspirators wanted to appear as saviors of the country and their fellow citizens, rather that blood thirsty murderers, so they chose to spare Antony as a way of showing they meant well. It’s not like life was easy for Brutus after this issue though. Life became troublesome.

The reader can see the early development of some of Shakespeare’s most iconic themes in Titus Andronicus. The play’s pages are rife with brutality, corruption, revenge, and death. A cycle of death that is prompted by a war between the Romans and Goths and how death continues to wreak havoc in Rome after the war is over. Although Tamora and her sons’ vengeance seems to direct the actions of the play, Aaron is the one who orchestrates the calamity of Titus’ family. Aaron proudly identifies as the devil and exclaims that his soul is as black as his skin; he embraces the label set on him by Roman society, yet being an outcast may have turned him into that proud devil (Shakespeare). In Titus Andronicus, the reader meets Aaron at moments where he shows concern and distress for his son’s future, humanizing him in the process and making Aaron a complex antagonist. Although Aaron is a cruel character, the abuse he takes from Roman society molds him into a sympathetic, multi-dimensional character.

Rather than romantic love, Shakespeare repeats the theme of his main characters’ strong relationships with their families. Prince Hamlet explicitly states that to “have a father killed, a mother stained” is an obvious reason for his grief (Hamlet IV. iv. 59). He attributes a violent tone to mention the loss of his father and the ruin of his mother. On the other hand, Titus also explicitly uses graphic detail to describe his sons’ heads and personifies them as he believes that those “two heads do seem to speak to me” (Titus Andronicus III. i. 271). In both of these soliloquies, Shakespeare underscores the emotional pain of both characters by constantly alluding to their loved ones’ deaths and downfalls. The repetition highlights the long periods of grief for both characters and builds up their potential thirsts for revenge. Titus Andronicus is a war hero whose sons died in war, but this does not deeply affect him as much as the maiming of his only daughter. Chiron and Demetrius committed a crime great enough to cause Titus, a general who would usually make quick decisions, to enter a state of shock and inactivity. It is also notable that Titus and Hamlet witness the decline of the important women of their lives to the antagonists. Hamlet loses his mother to his uncle while Titus’s daughter is maimed by Tamora’s two sons. The defeat of these two women, done by men, also highlights the powerless status and minor roles of women of Shakespeare’s

There is such a considerable amount of violence in Titus, varying in intensity and degree that it might seem hard to draw any firm conclusions about its impact. One can, however, obtain the idea that the violence within the play has a far greater impact on both the audience and the on-stage characters when accompanied by a rhetoric or language that either juxtaposes or reinforces the brutality. The way in which characters react to violence, evident through their speech and imagery, can manipulate our responses to them and instil either an affinity or indifference to their personalities. Titus' first appearance in Act I Scene I is an example of this manipulation. His cold, calculating rejection of Tamora's plea for her son's life, juxtaposed with the solemn, funeral rhetoric give us the impression of a character who can flit between brutality and normality very easily, and who demonstrates little compassion when doing so.

Hamlet uses his emotion in the opposite way as Titus, but it still inflicts the same type of action, creating the sense that Hamlet will finally act on his emotion. Both of these characters use language as a motivator for their final way in which they intend to act. Titus’s realization comes in a sensitive, caring way whereas Hamlet’s drives from a dark and more pessimistic view. Either way, both characters have been sent into action through their emotions. Shakespeare shows us this comparison to show how language can motivate a character, and by doing so within these characters it has mirrored them and proved a provisional aspect amongst the two works.

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