Stereotype Hold True In Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus

I love literature, because it shares the beauty of its language. Literature according to me is the most elegant medium of human expression. A medium so elegant, that it informs you not only about the characters being written about, but also about the writer, and indubitably yourself. Literature has the power to influence society, while simultaneously reflecting it.

Hidden in the pages of fiction, is often a lot of knowledge about the real world. One of the other reasons, I love studying literature is because I believe it helps me understand human psychology better. From all the characters I have ever studied, Lavinia and Tamora from Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, are definitely the two I have studied in the most detail. This is because I chose to base my extended essay in English on their analysis, since as women they really stood out in an otherwise male-dominated setting. Moreover, the interpretation that I saw of the play in Stratford’s Swan Theatre represented the women as strikingly dichotomous stereotypes. Tamora’s character was a conspicuous depiction of the
This led to me basing my extended essay on the topic “To what extent does the virgin-whore stereotype hold true in Titus Andronicus?”. After studying the text closely, and exploring the language, the reaction of the characters to different situations and people, as well as their general attitude, I realized that the stereotypes weren’t actually absolute. What I concluded from my study, was that though on the surface, both the women appeared to abide by the classic good woman-bad woman dichotomy, when looked at more closely, they displayed more qualities than just the ones associated with their stereotype. Both the characters were in fact, in a typically Shakespearean manner as well rounded and well-nuanced as people in real