First Impression - Titus Andronicus

 

I must be honest. When reading this play, it was very disturbing to me. From research before reading the play, I discovered this was Shakespeare’s first tragedy he wrote. For his first tragedy, it had many elements that were disturbing. Subjects of rape, murder and cannibalism were constant throughout the play. The thing that stood out to me the most in this play was the constant subject of violence. There was so much violence. By the end of the play, almost everyone dies. When reading a play, I like to pick out something that stood out the most to me. With this play, that was hard to do. The rape mutilation of Lavinia was very graphic. After Demetrius and Chiron rape her, they cut off her tongue and hands so she cannot tell anyone who did this to her. Visualizing that really affected me. When Lavinia took a stick and wrote in the dirt who did these vile things to her, I was visualizing that. That’s one thing about this play. I was visualizing the violence strongly. Murder was a constant subject. At the beginning, Titus kills Alarbus. Tamora and Aaron have Demetrius and Chiron kill Bassianus. Aaron kills the nurse. Quintius and Lucius get beheaded. Titus cuts the throats of Demetrius and Chiron, then kills his daughter, then Tamora. Saturninus kills Titus. Lucius kills Saturninus. The play ends with Lucius putting Aaron to death. There is so much death. Why do all these people have to die? Then there was the grinding and baking of Demetrius and Chiron’s bones for Tamora to eat? Those scenes made my skin crawl. Another note, when reading this play, I was constantly picturing Anthony Hopkins at Titus and Jessica Lange as Tamora.

If I had to pick one theme for this play, it would be revenge. So many people in this play want revenge. First, Tamora wants revenge on Titus. Then the violent acts that her and Aaron have Tamora’s sons do create an element of revenge for Titus and his family. In my eyes, revenge starts in the play with Tamora, and ends with revenge for Titus. This is a strong theme in the play.

It’s hard to believe this play was written over 500 years ago. In today’s culture, I could not visualize a play like this being performed. That being said, to me, that means it should be performed today more than ever, to disturb people and open their eyes to another era. Today, it would be hard to imagine a character being raped, mutilated, and later killed. I can’t see a modern play where main characters take joy in having people killed like Aaron does. Many things in this play are not appropriate for today’s times. I think that’s why someplace should have the courage to perform a play like this.

Aaron was so evil in this play. Even in death, he regrets not being able to be even more evil. That came across as haunting to me. Aaron is also the only black character in the play. Does this symbolize something? When reading this, I was wondering with Shakespeare making the only black character evil and taking joy in his evil deeds, that had to symbolize something. I just don’t know what it symbolized.

When reading Titus Andronicus, it came across to me like an epic story. Each of the 5 acts continued a storyline with such a range of acts that I felt I was reading a mini-series. The family element was strong in this play. The family bonds of Titus, Tamora and Saturninus stood out. Family, revenge, and death were the things that stood out most to me when reading this. It would be easy to do an analysis on each of those subjects in this play. I enjoyed reading a disturbing play like this. It made my skin crawl and made me think.