Titus Andronicus Violence

The speech draws important parallels between Shakespeare’s characters and those of the Trojan War. Particularly, the end of the speech focuses on the Queen of Troy, Hecuba, and her sorrow which creates a clever dichotomy between her, the archetypal mourning widow, and Gertrude. Proclaiming that “the instant burst of clamor that she made” upon seeing Priam’s slaughter by Pyrrhus, the First Player conveys both the depth with which Hecuba mourns, and via his energetic diction, the involuntary suddenness with which her grief “bursts” from within her (Shakespeare 2.2.509). Further, Hecuba seems to be driven almost mad with her grief so that she goes “barefoot up and down, threatening the flames” with such woe that her grief has the power to suade “passion in the gods” (Shakespeare 2.2.498-512). Darkly, the First Player conjures an image of a wife grief stricken to ruin such that her predicament would sadden any onlooker. He also unwittingly criticizes Gertrude in doing so by essentially expressing that a wife should

In the novel ‘Lord of the Flies’, Golding uses the theme of violence surfacing throughout the text. One reason for this was, Golding believed that every individual has the potential for evil and that the flawed human nature is seen in ‘mankind’s essential sickness’. His belief in this arrived through his time spent in war, so his aim was to challenge Ballantyne’s novel ‘Coral Island’, and in which Golding’s book the truth would be shown about his own thoughts of the darkness of mankind. As the theme of violence is in the heart of the novel, another reason of this is due to the quick breakdown of civilisation on the island. Through the breakdown, an ideal situation of

In the novel East of Eden, by John Steinbeck, two main characters, Cathy and Adam, both commit acts of violence, but in different ways. Cathy is a prostitute who killed her parents and left her husband, Adam, to take care of their children, Caleb and Aron. Adam stuck around with the twins, but he was there for them mentally leaving them with their housekeeper Lee. This caused the boys to endure the pain of having parents not around for them during their childhood. At a first glance, Cathy’s actions were obviously more terrifying and vicious than what Adam had done, but this does not mean they were more violent.

He uses body politic, not only as a way to emphasize certain points, but also as a key theme and plot line. The play begins as Titus, a revered war hero, returns from battle with his captives: the Goth queen, her three sons, her servant, and other various Goths. He immediately orders the killing of the queen’s son, and refuses to show mercy. Titus’s sons “hew his limbs [into the fire] till they be clean consumed.” ()This is a gruesome scene, but it is not the only scene that involves dismemberment in the play. In the second act, Titus’s daughter, Lavinia, is raped and physically mutilated so that she cannot reveal her assailants. They cut off her hands and tongue to ensure that she could not communicate with anyone. Lavinia remains extremely important to the play after her assault, because, unlike other characters who suffer similar fates as her, she lives through her torture and becomes a somewhat permanent presence on stage until she is killed in the final scenes of the play. This presence serves as a reminder of what her assailants have done and an indication of the chaos that the characters have caused. Lavinia’s rape marks the beginning of a downward

“I done a bad thing. I done another bad thing (91).” In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck these “bad things” happen continuously. Do each of these instants prove that Lennie is violent? In this novel, Lennie is not a violent person because he doesn’t have mental stability, he doesn’t realize his strength, and he has never shown intentional violence.

“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” The words of Martin Luther King perfectly illustrates the difficulties of fighting for social injustice. Similarly, the two works of literature Antigone and In the Time of the Butterflies can also teach us about the sacrifices and rewards from taking direct action against injustice. Antigone is about a girl sentenced to death by the king for burying her traitor brother. In the Time of the Butterflies is the story about three sisters who fight for freedom against the Dominican Republic’s dictator,

According to the Odyssey, and Agamemnon, ancient Greeks value violence as a way of maintaining their society because the stories showcase how violence functions in ancient Greece polis system. The stories indicate the structure of ancient Greece society and the ideal principles that held the people together. Because works of Homer and works of Aeschylus represent a different period of ancient Greek culture, the form of society differs. However, the fundamental principles of ancient Greek society remain similar. Regardless of what period of ancient Greece, the admiration of violence by the ancient Greek can be seen from both Homer and Greek Tragedy.

Titus begins by describing his tears after he receives the heads of his sons. He says “I have not another tear to shed,” (III. 1. 266) and that he hopes his eyes will make his enemies “blind with tributary tears,” (III. 1. 269). Tears typically represent defeat and self-pity so Titus refuses to cry. He has lost many sons and Lavinia is physically broken so his family has experienced a large amount of pain. The tears that Titus speaks of will blind his enemies as a tribute. This tribute is to all of Titus’s children that have suffered and he

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.

"Well, you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain't even funny."

Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy, Titus Andronicus, features what seems to be an endless cycle of vengeance, violence, and uproar, but amidst this chaos, there is a character who is silent for majority of the play. Titus Andronicus’s virtuous daughter, Lavinia, is a character who is tragically raped and mutilated by Demetrius and Chiron. They cut off her tongue and hands so that she is unable to name them as her attackers. With the play alone, it is difficult to illustrate and interpret Lavinia’s thoughts or feelings since she cannot speak nor use her hands. However, the movie version, Titus, allows the audience to expand their knowledge of Lavinia’s character whether it is through her clothing or expression.

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.

One of the instructors, Gary Kruger, claims that this institution uses the instructional period as a way to expose men to the reality that as Christians, they are in a spiritual fight and are called to fight the good fight of faith (Warren, 2011). Arya et al. (2010) argued that there is an experience within sports that can collectively transport the crowd from the state of ordinariness to a state of the sacred. She then continues to explain that rituals foster this passage from the ordinary to the sacred, where the ritualistic behaviour alters the individualistic identity to a collective experience, where the whole is greater than the sum. Girard (1972) discusses through his influential anthological book, Violence And The Sacred, the build-up

    Ophelia falls to the floor, her screams contrasting eerily with the song pieces she uses as her speech.  In an instant she is writhing and thrusting her pelvis in such a gross sexual manner that it becomes clear that, in his film interpretation of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Kenneth Branagh wants to imply a strong relationship between female insanity and female sexuality.  Such a relationship is exactly what Elaine Showalter discusses in her essay -- "Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism" -- "I will be showing first of all the representational bonds between female insanity and female sexuality" (Showalter 223).