Titus Andronicus

“Rome is but a wilderness of tigers” (III.i.54) is the perfect summation of the conflicts and juxtapositions Shakespeare makes between morals, ethics and philosophies; many ideas of which are introduced and foreshadowed in I i of Titus Andronicus. Shakespeare presents us with characters so set in their own views of honour, justice and piety, that it may seem there is a clear line between what is right and wrong and just, however, he systematically proceeds to blur that line through the insistence and attachment each character has to their own moral code. This brings into question the difference between ‘civilised and barbarian...good and evil...religious and irreligious’ and who is the more of the either extreme, the Romans or the Goths.
Obviously all very good qualities to posses. He stands in contrast to Tamora and Aaron who have both been called ‘ravenous tiger(s)’, the two main figures of barbarianism in Titus Andronicus. Titus, being the model man of piety and honour in Rome, so much so that the people have unanimously agreed to offer him the crown, is so set in his traditions that one may say he is blinded by them. He refuses the crown, and instead of offering it to the more virtuous and noble of the previous emperor’s sons, he passes it to Saturninus based on pure tradition and his adherence to it. Shakespeare has put into play the question of tradition as a true and apt measure of decisions; when does an observance of tradition become the wrong gauge by which one evaluates a situation? Strangely enough it is also the Andronici’s strict following of traditions in I i which inevitably leads to their down-fall. Lucius calls for the proper sacrifice to be made in honour of his fallen brothers, and despite the desperate, touching pleas of Tamora, who argues very logically appealing with reason, that her son not be taken from her, Titus refuses her and sends Alarbus to be sacrificed to appease the spirits and the gods. This action prompts two very interesting concepts dealt with in Titus. Firstly that of revenge, for the revenge of his sons’ deaths by the Goths, he has the
We are constantly called to question who is just and deserves justice, for example is Tamora just in exacting her revenge to such extremes, for the single death of her son, and how far is she to blame for what happens? She doesn’t actually rape Lavinia, nor does she exactly sentence Titus’ two sons, Quintus and Martius, to death for the murder of Bassianus in II ii, Saturninus does, she just agrees. It is obvious that she is evil and wicked, but so the same can be said of Titus, and with Lavinia being the only marker to compare her lack of goodness and kindness to, we cannot fully single her out as someone so wretched and vile, when what she is doing is what has been done unto her by