Titus Andronicus is Shakespeare’s exploration of violence of all kinds -religious, domestic, political, sexual, and corrective violence. Titus shows how quickly private vengeance can spin out of control if the law does not contain it. Revenge never evens the odds, but rather triggers counter retaliation and creates an escalating cycle of revenge. The increasing dynamic soon becomes a full-fledged blood feud between two clans to which the perpetrator and the victim belong. In the play the sacrifice of Tamora’s eldest son Alarbus by Titus begins the cycle of violence that ultimately engulfs all the Goths and Romans.
The play begins with Titus Andronicus returning triumphant in his war against the Goths. It was during his ten-year campaign, that he lost all but four of his twenty-five sons yet he has now won a final victory, as shown by his prisoners—Tamora, her three sons, and Aaron, who is Tamora’s servant and her lover. As Titus buries his dead sons in the family tomb, he is reminded by his eldest surviving son Lucius to make a human sacrifice. The sacrifice is being offered “ad manes fratrum”—“to the shades of our brothers”—to keep them from disturbing the Romans with “prodigies,” or supernatural calamities. Titus offers up Alarbus because he is highest ranked male among the prisoners of war. Tamora begs for her son’s life and pleads for Titus to be merciful. She tries to appeal to Titus as a parent. Tamora then extends goes to argue that the Romans and Goths alike died on the battlefield, fighting with “piety” for their respective countries. To kill more Goths after they have been taken as prisoners of war from that field is cruel excess. Titus sees the balance differently and in his view, the Roman dead cry out for retribution...
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...as even expected and fully supported in Shakespeare’s time period. The political as well as religious structures of the time did not reject the vengeful mindset that was prevalent during the age. To many people it was the right of the King or God to extort revenge for the wrongs of others for they were believed to be the ones who had been caused the most offense.
“Rome is but a wilderness of tigers” is the perfect summary of the conflicts that Shakespeare makes between morals, ethics and philosophies. Many of these ideas are introduced and foreshadowed throughout the play. Shakespeare presents us with characters so set in their own views of honor, justice and devoutness that it may seem there is a clear line between what is right and wrong and just, however, he proceeds to blur that line through the resolve and attachment each character has to their own moral code.
Shakespeare’s complex play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar contains several tragic heroes; a tragic hero holds high political or social esteem yet possesses an obvious character flaw. This discernible hubris undoubtedly causes the character’s demise or a severe forfeiture, which forces the character to undergo an unfeigned moment of enlightenment and shear reconciliation. Brutus, one of these tragic heroes, is a devout friend of the great Julius Caesar, that is, until he makes many execrable decisions he will soon regret; he becomes involved in a plot to kill the omniscient ruler of Rome during 44 B.C. After committing the crime, Mark Antony, an avid, passionate follower of Caesar, is left alive under Brutus’s orders to take his revenge on the villains who killed his beloved Caesar. After Antony turns a rioting Rome on him and wages war against him and the conspirators, Brutus falls by his own hand, turning the very sword he slaughtered Caesar with against himself. Brutus is unquestionably the tragic hero in this play because he has an innumerable amount of character flaws, he falls because of these flaws, and then comes to grips with them as he bleeds on the planes of Philippi.
The play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare showcases many characters and events that go through many significant changes. One particular character that went through unique changes was Julius Caesar. The 16th century work is a lengthy tragedy about the antagonists Brutus and Cassius fighting with the protagonists Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus over the murder of Julius Caesar. Although the play’s main pushing conflict was the murder of Julius Caesar, he is considered a secondary character, but a protagonist. Throughout the theatrical work Julius Caesar’s actions, alliances, character developments, and internal and external conflicts display his diverse changes.
Strangely, regardless of the fact that Aaron immediately returns to behaving diabolically, it is noteworthy that out of all the parents in Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare portrays Aaron as the parent who sacrifices all for his child. Tamora believed herself to be wholly degraded after begging for Alarbus’ life, and she made no further sacrifices for her children. To Titus’ credit, he chopped off his hand in an effort to save two of his sons, but Aaron gave his life for the benefit of his child. Shakespeare skillfully salvages the noble family line, and the remaining Andronicus family members, mainly Lucius and his son, will continue as imperialists. Plainly, although Titus lost many sons in the war with the Goths, he did not despair over his losses.
One of the distinguishing factors in portraying Titus centers in its origin: "Titus Andronicus [...] must be considered as an experimental play" (Bowers 118). Being Shakespeare's first attempt at tragedy, it obviously has room for error. Yet, as some critics and scholars would say, I believe there is a similar element found in all of Shakespeare's works, no matter when they were written: "Shakespeare constantly reminds us that the character's predicament and humanity is very like our own" (Barton 184). No matter what the plot is, or where he chose to set the story, Shakespeare captures a fundamental element of humanity. Within Titus Andronicus, it is undoubtedly humanity's search for revenge: "Titus Andronicus is a play of social piety, outrage, suffering, and revenge" (Barber 133). The first three elements that Barber attributes to the work are consequential to the fourth; it is the revenge and spite of Titus, Tamora, and Aaron that fuel the other three elements.
...haracters to compliment Shakespeare’s work. With the opening she captures the aspect of war without using the original opening. Instead she uses a child and modernizes it. In ACT III SCENE I. Rome. A Street, she examines every word and portrays the art of revenge, loss and justice. She digs into the bible and relates them to Titus and his morals and actions. Taymor made many interesting choices when directing Titus, many staying true to the book, and character analysis bringing Titus Andronicus to a visual art.
The main character in the play is Titus Andronicus while the antagonists are Tamora, Aaron and Saturninus. Titus is a roman hero because he has aided in defeating the Goths. On the other hand, he has lost his own sons through conflicts. In the play, he has a strong urge of revenge. Saturninus, late emperor of Rome’s son, does not obey the authority. Bassiunus is Lavinnia’s lover. Tamora is the Goth’s queen with a strong urge to revenge because her son, Alarbus, was executed. Aaron is a moor who has been given evil personification. Marcus, Titus’s brother, always defends the rights of the people. Titus’s sons include: Lucius, Quintus, Martius and Murtius. Publius is Marcus Andronicus son. Sons of Tamora are Alarbus, Larbus, Demetrious and Chiron. Lavinnia is a vey innocent girl who suffers from unpleasant offenses.
Rome had just finished having a war with the Goths, and as a result of this, Titus’s sons were killed in the war. They were to execute Alarbus because Titus wanted to sacrifice a traitor for the lost lives of his sons. Tamora begs Titus not to kill her son, but Titus insists that he can't do anything about it because it will please the gods as the sacrifice would make up for his sons’ deaths in war. This would result in Tamora being furious towards Titus for what he has done. Tamora would get her revenge towards Titus with the help of Aaron, her secret lover. She constructs a devious plan with Aaron, which would lead Titus to lose his sanity, resulting in Titus to be murdered by
Titus Andronicus is a play marked by acts of horrific violence and littered with death and the destruction of others. Each violent act, however, serves to explain and sometimes encourage the motives of the play's memorable characters and impart a very tightly knotted plot. The structure of the play employs well-defined heroes and villains. Revenge is their key motivating factor. All of these elements combine to form a cohesive plot and contribute to the overall success of the story.
Written one year apart from the other, one cannot fail to recognize the parallels between William Shakespeare's tragedies Julius Caesar and Hamlet. To begin, they are both stories of assassinations gone horribly wrong. Although the details of the plays are different, the two assassins (Brutus and Hamlet) provide interesting comparison. Through these two killers, Shakespeare reveals the different levels of justice; one’s personal sense of justice; others’ perception of justice; the justice of the monarchy that supports Shakespeare’s craft. Through this, the audience realizes that a just person is not always a humble one, a condition that may turn out to be a fatal flaw in the end. When a man decides to play God by taking justice into his own hands, the world can unravel much more quickly than he had ever imagined.
...f his honor. When Titus allows Aaron to cut off his hand, he is letting Aaron take away his honor. By the end of the play, Titus has nothing to show of the honor he once killed for.
The puzzling tragedy that is Hamlet will forever be speculated, which is why it has attracted such attention and praise. The madness in which Hamlet lives draws decisions of polarizing weight. Stay righteous and live out your life with your father’s killer? Or do you slay him and suffer before god and the law? It bears moments of wisdom, followed by inexplicable actions and Vis versa. One moment you find the protagonist staring at his girlfriend with his pants at his ankles, the next you find him contemplating the value of life. It’s hard to determine what the message behind the wildcard character that Hamlet is. William Shakespeare’s tragedy “Hamlet” unravels opposing subjects, superstition instead of righteousness, private revenge or public revenge; it portrays the contradictions emerging in the religious revival of the Renaissance as “Christian humanism” was taking form in Western Europe. An aspect of the play reveals and mocks the hypocrisy of the kingdoms as they exert authority and pose as the ideal of religion. The king is a murderer who prays to god without belief. The one who attempts to remain righteous is an outcast amongst his kingdom. The biggest speculation is drawn on the rectitude of revenge. Does Hamlet have the right to kill his uncle? If so, does Laertes then have the right to kill Hamlet? Is Fortinbras the only exception of just revenge when he is motivated by honor, while the others rage over personal revenge? In the wake of these quarrels, the most evident and obvious Christian Humanist belief is held true...evil never wins. The punishment of those who died in Hamlet is virtuous and deserving. Those who stooped to treachery suffered the consequence.
Throughout Hamlet, each character’s course of revenge surrounds them with corruption, obsession, and fatality. Shakespeare shows that revenge proves to be extremely problematic. Revenge causes corruption by changing an individual’s persona and nature. Obsession to revenge brings forth difficulties such as destroyed relationships. Finally, revenge can be the foundation to the ultimate sacrifice of fatality. Hamlet goes to show that revenge is never the correct route to follow, and it is always the route with a dead
In Hamlet Shakespeare is able to use revenge in an extremely skillful way that gives us such deep insight into the characters. It is an excellent play that truly shows the complexity of humans. You can see in Hamlet how the characters are willing to sacrifice t...
Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most well-known tragedies. At first glance, it holds all of the common occurrences in a revenge tragedy which include plotting, ghosts, and madness, but its complexity as a story far transcends its functionality as a revenge tragedy. Revenge tragedies are often closely tied to the real or feigned madness in the play. Hamlet is such a complex revenge tragedy because there truly is a question about the sanity of the main character Prince Hamlet. Interestingly enough, this deepens the psychology of his character and affects the way that the revenge tragedy takes place. An evaluation of Hamlet’s actions and words over the course of the play can be determined to see that his ‘outsider’ outlook on society, coupled with his innate tendency to over-think his actions, leads to an unfocused mission of vengeance that brings about not only his own death, but also the unnecessary deaths of nearly all of the other main characters in the revenge tragedy.
In the tragedy of Hamlet Shakespeare does not concern himself with the question whether blood-revenge is justified or not; it is raised only once and very late by the protagonist (v,ii,63-70) and never seriously considered. The dramatic and psychological situation rather than the moral issue is what seems to have attracted Shakespeare, and he chose to develop it, in spite of the hard-to-digest and at times a little obscure, elements it might involve [. . .] . (118-19)