Titus Andronicus

The opening of this Act sees Lucius marching on Rome with a Goth army, building tension as the plot moves toward its climax. The armed forces threaten destruction on a mass scale alongside the personal destruction of the main characters: Shakespeare continues to parallel the personal and the political, indicating their intertwined relationship. The army’s appearance also completes Shakespeare’s subversion of The Paradigm of “Civilized” Rome against “Barbarian” Other, as the two have now joined forces, with the Goths wanting revenge on their Queen while Lucius marches on his own city. This alliance echoes the play’s opening, in which Titus has returned victorious from protecting Rome: Shakespeare imbues this world of constant conquest and revenge with a cyclical quality.

Shakespeare shows that prejudice and ideas about cultural differences are put aside for the sake of expediency and pragmatism, as Lucius praises his new allies. Lucius’s flexible moral compass is also explored through his interactions with Aaron. He initially deflects Aaron’s request to assure his baby’s safety, arguing, “Who should I swear by? Thou believest no god. / That granted, how canst thou believe an oath?” (5.1.71-72). Aaron replies that he should swear by whatever god has value to him—as long as his oath means something to him, he will keep it. The exchange suggests that Lucius sees interactions with Aaron as a framework in which he does not need to apply his usual set of moral codes; Aaron communicates that Lucius’s apparent values should operate with all people alike, reflecting on Lucius himself rather than the subject.

However, Aaron also concurs with Lucius's assessment, and reinforces the Early Modern connection of atheism to amorality and capriciousness: He says he’s heard that Lucius, as a religious person, has something called a conscience. Aaron leans into the archetype of the villain in this scene, reflecting the role he has been placed in: This discourse around religion echoes the Nurse’s association of his skin color with the devil in the previous Act, something he willfully plays into. Aaron claims primary responsibility for everything he recounts; however, although he suggested and manipulated acts of violence, he did not perform any of them himself other than consensually amputating Titus's hand. Everyone else very willingly engaged in the violence he suggested. This gives Aaron’s role as the archvillain an air of scapegoating. His provocative statement of regret that he did not do worse positions him as a conscious, deliberate villain—an agent of chaos.

Shakespeare also plays with roles in 5.2, in which Tamora, Chiron, and Demetrius dress up as Revenge, Rape, and Murder, respectively. As with Aaron, Shakespeare creates an awareness of crude archetypes which the characters themselves play into, suggesting that they are products of the simplified world of theater, or of cultural stories. In the overall narrative, Demetrius and Chiron are presented as unremittingly immoral and cruel; from Alarbus’s death in 1.1, Tamora is motivated entirely by revenge, the same driving force that motivates Titus.

Their disguises also play into the overall atmosphere of this Act, which is laden with anarchic dark humor. Titus also dresses up as a cook; people are cooked into pies in an echo of an old classical myth; a parody of civilization is performed as everyone attends a banquet and eats the pies. Shakespeare also uses dramatic irony: Titus notes that these characters look a lot like the empress and her sons, pretending guilelessness. These absurd scenes physically enact Titus’s supposed “madness”, which is also an unpredictable entity, as it is never clear how much of his erratic behavior is feigned, which contributes to the tone of over-the-top anarchy. The theme of Order Versus Chaos is thus central to the play’s denouement. The Goth army is present within Rome, and four primary characters are killed one after the other—chaos reigns.

The play’s denouement also reflects The Value of a Human in this world. Everyone dies in quick succession, with characters killing each other first and asking questions later. Very little is said as these characters rapidly slaughter each other, subverting the usual revenge tragedy tropes in which characters have long speeches that afford a cathartic response to the deaths of their enemies or loved ones, or their own impending fate. The narrative itself treats its characters as dispensable, mirroring the way they treat each other. Lavinia, meanwhile, acts as a puppet or stage prop. She is Titus’s helper in enacting revenge and is then veiled and unveiled by him until ultimately killed by him as a dramatic reveal. Her presence merely serves Titus’s agency, reinforcing The Complications of Female Expression as she becomes permanently silenced.

The play’s ending is similarly abrupt. Lucius organizes Aaron’s punishment and the Andronici burials before closing with his instruction to throw Tamora’s body to be eaten by beasts and birds. This again subverts the tone of many tragedies, which usually offer a glimpse of renewal, typically through smaller, morally upstanding characters who grieve but also look to the future. Shakespeare plays into this trope to some degree as Lucius vows to rule well and encourages his young son to mourn his grandfather, representing future generations. However, his closing words remain in the vicious cycle of revenge from which he has emerged. They create a sense of finality at the deaths of the main players but do not propel the ending into a sense of a true new beginning.