Titus Andronicus Trauma

As has already been shown, Shakespeare’s bodies are not simply constrained to the individual but encode the memories of wider groups of people. Throughout Titus Andronicus Shakespeare is interrogating how to understand the trauma that our family experiences; when faced with Lavinia’s mutilation, Titus asks ‘shall we cut away our hands like thine?’ (III.I.131) suggesting that to understand another’s trauma is to inflict the violence on yourself. This is particularly interesting when considering Tamora’s lack of disfigurement although she suffers familial losses throughout Titus Andronicus – but rather than this absence suggesting her lack of emotional trauma, Shakespeare instead uses it in contrast to the Andronicus family to display the specific

For Lavinia, her suffering is not something which is separate and individual but in fact a blight on the family tree – and this extends further, until her rape does not only signify the beginning of the end for her family but also the end of an uninterrupted Roman history. The amputations and brutalities that the Andronicus family experience can therefore be viewed as symbols of political and cultural loss, as well as the inheritance of trauma which embeds itself in the

Without her body on display her identity becomes void; she becomes merely a shadowed figment of the virginal bride she was presented as at the outset (although the bridal veil, or flammeum, did not cloak the face, suggesting Lavinia is entirely separate from the version of herself presented at the opening of the play). It is difficult to extricate Titus’ alleged mercy-killing from the indictment that Lavinia’s death can be seen as a peace-offering in order to purge both the Andronicus family and Rome from the sins of its history – only once all of the dismembered and mutilated bodies are removed from the stage can there be renewal.
Whilst Titus Andronicus uses mutilation as an attempt to hide truth (Chiron and Demetrius disfigure Lavinia so she cannot accuse them of her rape) Richard’s deformity is an emblem of both his own nature and the diseased political state of England. The identity of a community desires a figure to form itself against, and Richard functions as the much-needed scapegoat in history; yet Shakespeare presents an opposing view in the play