Titus Andronicus Language Analysis

Language is the pivotal foundation of all communication. With it, one can reveal one’s thoughts, emotions and desires or more so, what one wishes to achieve. In this assignment, the empowering nature of such a concept will be explored with close reference to Lavinia of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, and Harrison’s internal monologue in V. The focus on such proves that to a great extent, language does in fact empower the individual. In Titus Andronicus, the inexorable brutality of Demetrius and Chiron provides a perfect example of this; a silenced Lavinia. Due to their mutilation and sexual assault of the general’s daughter, Lavinia’s vulnerability becomes a reflection of the importance of language and how it can empower one. In this case, she digresses and is suppressed into a state of disempowerment when her body is severed to the extent that she has no tongue and thus, can no longer speak. Prior to this assault, Lavinia did in fact prove herself to be a strong character as far as Shakespeare’s feminine characters go. For instance, in the same scene as her rape (Act Two, Scene Three), she threatens to tell of Tamora’s sexual advances with Aaron. Although this is in

Firstly, her tongue is removed from her mouth and this results in her inability to communicate through language as she had done before. What is particularly interesting about this is that her second to last line is ‘the blot and enemy to our general name!’. For Lavinia, this is an incredibly defiant speech and it is thus made even more tragic when the line that follows is ‘confusion fall’. This line in itself is cut short by Tamora’s imperative to silence Lavinia for certain. And so, this defiance (which goes against the norms of the hierarchical society and her gender) proves that until it is no longer physically possible for her to speak, language empowered Lavinia and was her only means of