Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus explores and problematizes the paradigm of a supposedly “civilized” Rome against the idea of a “barbarian” other, questioning the characters’ assumptions of superiority based purely on nationality or ethnicity. As the play progresses, it becomes increasingly apparent that the Romans are just as capable of cruelty or violent disorder as any of the “barbarians” they claim the right to rule.  

The non-Roman characters are often identified by their group identification as “Goth” or “Moor”; they eschew Roman law and values. Tamora and Aaron are lovers outside the structure of marriage; Chiron and Demetrius lust after Lavinia regardless of Roman law. All endorse or commit acts of extreme violence. They are all compared to animals by the Roman characters and are denied human burial rites: Their bodies are relegated to the chaos of the wilderness rather than the order offered by formal ritual. In Aaron’s case, the paradigm is also underscored by racial discrimination: Both he and others frequently refer to the color of his skin, relating his dark skin to his godlessness. While Aaron sometimes appears to embrace the idea of himself as someone inherently evil, only regretting that he did not do more bad deeds, his humanity is still apparent in his tenderness and protectiveness of his child, which suggests that his character is not as one-dimensional as the Romans assume it to be.

The play also strongly contrasts the theoretical Roman order with the chaos of the violent Roman reality. It is Titus and his sons’ torturous execution of a helpless prisoner that sets off the chain of violent action to which the non-Romans respond. Tamora’s rhetoric in pleading for Alarbus’s life points out their shared fundamental humanity. She argues that just as Titus loves his sons, so she loves hers. She highlights that the Goths, like the Romans, have behavioral codes of honor, insisting, “if to fight for king and commonweal / Were piety in thine, it is in these” (1.1.117-118). All characters, including Tamora, Aaron, and the other Goths, use classical references throughout the play, emphasizing that they all inhabit the same fictional cultural sphere.

At the end of the play, Lucius and the Goths even join forces, eliminating the distinctions between Romans and Goths entirely. They find affiliation through a shared notion of retributive justice, despite their different identities and their groups’ historic enmity. The play thus challenges the binary of civilized Roman order versus “barbaric” chaos, suggesting that all humans are capable of both.

Another key theme in the play is the value of a human life, and how this value is often undermined or entirely disregarded by characters consumed with revenge. The characters’ obsessions with revenge and the domination of others create an atmosphere of unrelenting debasement and violence for everyone.

While the characters claim to care about their family members and will often justify their quest for revenge due to the harm or murder of their kin, there are many acts of interfamilial violence in the play. The play opens with Saturninus and Bassianus vying for the imperial throne, threatening to unleash violence against one another in their desire for control of Rome. Titus kills two of his children as they no longer fit the narrative of Andronici honor, and kills Lavinia at the play’s end just because she was the victim of a rape. Tamora desires to kill her illegitimate son by Aaron to hide her extramarital affair, which contrasts with the professed maternal love she voiced at the play’s opening. In the world of the play, human life is thus held cheaply, with violent dehumanization occurring even within families.

Characters dehumanize each other in words, enabling their acts of violence. For example, Tamora refers to Lavinia as her sons’ “fee”, and Lucius calls the baby the “fruit of bastardy,” seeing him as an embodiment of dishonor rather than a human. The acts of violence themselves are also dehumanizing. The removal of Lavinia’s tongue and hands represents a removal of her voice and her agency, denying her humanity and making her an object in the story. Aaron describes her rape and mutilation as “she was washed and cut and trimmed, and ‘twas / Trim sport” (5.1.95-96)—the violence against her is belittled and made into an object of wordplay, as though she were not a person at all. Other bodies are also mutilated, such as when Titus cuts off his hand in an attempt to save his sons, only to receive their heads in return. These acts of physical mutilation embody the moral and ethical mutilation that the characters undergo throughout the play.  

The baking of Chiron and Demetrius into pies, which their mother eats at the play’s end, is a final example of the denial of human value. They become dead meat, indistinguishable from animals to be eaten. This is given a comic edge through the juxtaposition of the horror of their fate and the domestic, harmless imagery of the “pasties.” The play thus suggests that violence fundamentally alienates humanity from itself, undermining the value of a human.