Titus Andronicus

William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus is a play full of gore and violence from its very core. The play continually compares the two nationality groups, the Goths, and the Romans. The title character and his family are considered the protagonists, and the Goths, are mainly the antagonists. Each group has noble attributes, but also darker and sickly attributes. There is the constant question of civilized versus uncivilized characters throughout the play. Shakespeare uses animal imagery and references to convey the brutality and beastly viciousness the characters have. The use of animals and comparing characters to them is a metaphor for the civilization of the characters. These comparisons to animals is a symbol of how both the Goths and the
Romans are uncivilized when provoked or when animal instincts kick in. Shakespeare uses animal imagery, metaphors, and similes to convey when characters in the play have become uncivilized.
The title character, for references in this essay, will be called Titus, the play will be referred to as Titus Andronicus. Throughout Shakespeare’s plays there are the good protagonists and the bad antagonists. Examples come from King Lear’s Edmund and Edward, Macbeth’s Macduff and Macbeth. For readers and viewers of the plays it is easy to label whom they should be cheering for and whom they should be wishing to see ruined. In Titus Andronicus the line between good and evil is skewed. The Romans, mainly the Andronicus family, are the bad protagonists, and the Goths, Tamora, her sons and Aaron the Moor, the even worse antagonists. The play opens and within the first hundred or so lines the main “good” character, Titus calls for the death of Tamora, Queen of the Goths, the antagonist’s son Alarbus; “religiously they ask a sacrifice . / To this your son is marked, and die he must” (1.1.127-28). Tamora pleas for her sons life “Draw near them [the gods] then in being merciful…spare my first born son” (1.1.121-23). Shakespeare immediately exposes his audience to the cruelty and violence that will be throughout the entire play. It is clear that the Andronici are not the epitome of hope; or the goodly, wholesome protagonist that some stories produce.
Littered amongst Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter verse is the comparison to a tiger. Furthermore, it is not limited to one character. Titus describes Rome as “a wilderness of tigers” (3.1.54). This is in reference to how wild and ferocious the city and its inhabitants can be. Titus, by use of this metaphor, is describing himself as a tiger. Subsequently Titus remarks that “Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey / but me and mine” (3.1.55-56). Titus is the tiger. He is the predator, and cannot afford to become preyed upon. This violent description of himself has not been placed upon him by another character, but rather of his own intellect. Titus is alluding to his own violent tendencies, brought on by his rage toward the events of Lavinia’s rape. These tendencies bring about an uncivilized character. The metaphor of the tiger is not limited to the Roman Andronici, but also to the Goths. The savage traits are applied to Tamora on various occasions. The first is when Lavinia is being harassed by Tamora’s sons Chiron and Demetrius; Lavinia asking “When did the tiger’s young ones teach the dam?” (2.2.142) due to the cruelty all three are showing Lavinia. Lucius, later on at the closing of the play, indicates that she is a “ravenous tiger” (5.3.194). Tamora, according to Titus’ earlier remark, “must prey,” since she too is vicious. Both the Romans and
the Goths (at least those who reside in Rome) are all a part of the wilderness. Aaron, another Goth, additionally is described as a “ravenous tiger” but also a “barbarous Moor” (5.3.5) by Lucius. Titus’ previous tiger lines of speech were in conversation with Lucius, who would be well aware of the connotations. The correlation of tiger to character emphasizes the brutality that each character has. Based upon this understanding, all the characters have deceitful, savage intent.
The only exception to this standard is Lavinia. Lavinia is not described as a tiger, on the contrary she is twice described as a deer. The first is by Demetrius calling her “a dainty doe” (2.1.26). The second is by her uncle Marcus after her rape; “Seeking to hide herself, as doth the deer / that hath received some unrecuring wound” (3.1.90). Lavinia is the prey that the tigers of Rome seek. In the second act of the play Titus and his collective go on a hunt for animals, on the other hand Lavinia is being hunted. Tamora in conversation with Aaron recalls “As if a double hunt were heard at once” (2.2.19). Demetrius and Chiron, the “bear-whelps” (4.1.96), the “tiger’s young ones” (2.2.142), “hunt now…with horse nor hound, / But hope to pluck a dainty doe to ground” (2.1.25-26). The sons plan on treating Lavinia as if she were a creature that is hunted. Lavinia will be mutilated and ravaged as if she were a deer that would be slaughtered. Lavinia is the only character that does not have a vicious agenda. She is in turn sacrificed by her own father, “die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee” (5.3.45), so that she will not be preyed upon any longer by the predators that linger around
Rome. The parallel between the beast and the character often occurs once an uncivilized action has been committed. Lucius, when looking back on the events recently passed, recalls that Tamora’s “life was beastly” (5.3.197-198). On account of her actions she is uncivilized she does not deserve a “funeral rite, nor man in mourning weed, / No mournful bell shall ring her burial” (5.3.195-96), which would have been expected as she was an Empress. Once a tiger, Tamora has now been “[thrown] to beasts and birds to prey” (5.3.197). The animals will act on their primitive instincts instead of humans reducing to theirs. Lucius tells the account of his sister Lavinia’s rape with Aaron, calling the sons “barbarous, beastly villains” (5.1.97). Aaron, typically viewed as the villainous antagonist commits many an uncivilized act. Titus refers to him as a “raven” (3.1.160) after he calls that he needs an Andronici hand. Lucius christens him an “inhuman dog” (5.3.14). Once Aaron has killed a nurse in cold blood due to the fact she knew about his affair with Tamora, he determines the nurse to be like a “pig prepared to the / spit” (4.2.149). The nurse is the pig because according to Aaron her knowledge of the affair makes her uncivilized. She can no longer be allowed to live in civilization. Throughout William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, animals are seen as the uncivilized. Animals have primal needs that are fulfilled often through violent means. The Romans and the Goths resort to these brutal means because their animal, primitive instincts are too strong in them. The majority of the characters are uncivilized. The only civilized character, Lavinia, is mutilated resorting her to becoming uncivilized, as she can no longer be apart of an enlightened and sophisticated society. The characters in the play are full of bestial nature. When given an opportunity, they prefer to be the predator than have any chance of becoming the prey. Furthermore, the idea of man being savage has been echoed in scholars like Darwin, and Freud, whose insights are still being studied and analyzed to this day. Perhaps those scholars read Shakespeare’s scripts and noticed the shocking similarity in those characters to people of today.