Analysis: The Rape Of Lucrece

In William Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece, Lucrece is the portrait of the ideal Roman wife– beautiful and chaste, but also sensual and romantic. However, as Collatine describes her in ekphrastic detail, Lucrece is more of a painting than a human being. Moreover, Roman society does not only decorate Lucrece for her beauty, but for her violent rape; while Lucrece is the image of virtue before her assault, she becomes the image of martyrdom and the Roman code of honour after her suicide. That said, the poem’s narrator alternatively uses ekphrasis to capture Lucrece’s authentic self and her palpable trauma. The narrator particularly demonstrates this subversion after Tarquin’s offense, whereupon Lucrece uses artistic descriptions to depict Tarquin’s
However, Lucrece’s new-found self-possession only appears after her rape– before, her husband Collatine crafts her image, referring to her as “the treasure of his happy state” or “his beauteous mate” (Shakespeare 16; 18). Tarquin adopts the same romantic but insubstantial language, as he engages in the clichéd and shallow tradition of the blazon when standing over Lucrece’s sleeping figure. (393-413) However, Collatine and Tarquin’s fragmented descriptions of Lucrece’s body are more than just praise– in fact, they condone her rape. In her essay “‘Lucrece the Chaste’: The Construction of Rape in Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece,” Sara Quay explores the causal relationship between Lucrece’s gender and her fate, arguing, “Lucrece is not able to be raped because she is a woman, but because she is constructed as a woman able to be raped” (Quay 2). Ekphrasis is integral to this construction– by framing her as a work of art, Tarquin strips her of her humanity and categorizes her as an object he is able to manipulate. However, Lucrece subverts and applies the oppressive institution to Tarquin, stating, “In Tarquin’s likeness I did entertain thee; / Hast thou put on his shape to do him shame? [...] Thou art not what thou seem’st; and if the same, / Thou seem’st not what thou art” (596-97;