During his era, Shakespeare had plays that were full of violence and they were very popular. Today’s audiences get disgusted because his plays are full of blood shedding and cruelty. In Shakespeare’s work, violence is portrayed in many ways such as in rape and sexual violation, mutilation, brutal murder and suicide. Specialists in the modern world have criticized violence as it has been used by Shakespeare and others have defended it. The way he uses violence shows the attitudes that people had during those times.
There are so many violent episodes in Shakespeare’s work which make many people think that he was so much addicted to it. In Titus Andronicus there are scenes of blood shedding especially in the last scenes. Shakespeare makes Lucius, the new emperor in Rome, to become a superior man in the play.
There is a quarrel between the Andronicus family and the Roman Empire that intensifies as the play continues. This results to grudges that are very irritating as well as dreadful acts. In the play, violence dominates and Lucius demonstrates this by integrating Titus and Marcus but frustrates Aaron.
At the beginning of the play Alurbus is murdered, according to Roman law it was deemed as appropriate (Scott 264). At the end of the play, Titus becomes horrible especially to his enemies. This can be seen when he brutally murders Chiron and Demetrious in a very tricky way. This kind of brutality that has been exemplified by Titus contributes to one of the moral dynamic of Lucius that is about how well trickery can be used to commit violent acts.
On the other hand, Marcus is a character who exists in the background and acts as a go- between. He clarifies revenge and blind violence when he states “you sad faced men, people and sons of Rome; by uproars severed as a flight of fowl; scattered by winds and high tempestuous gusts; oh let me teach you how to knit again ; this scattered corn into one mutual sheaf; these broken limbs again into one body” (Bevington 111).
He accuses Titus and his enemies for the vengeance acts because of the ruin they caused. In his statement he talks of the’ uproars’ and ‘the flight of fowls’. This simply refers to the murder that mess the play. In addition to that, he associates Titus’s actions with the natural calamities that destroy without discriminating. From his speech, he also talks of the ‘broken limbs’; meaning that Rome has been destroyed by riots and calls Titus a ruthless animal. He is very determined to take care of Rome instead of destroying it.
Horatio, Hamlet’s best friend, does not kill anybody in the play and refrains from things that may incite him to revenge. At the end of the play, Horatio states: “and let me speak to the yet unknowing world; how these things came about, so shall you hear?; of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts; of accidental judgments, casual slaughters; of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause; and in this upshot, purposes mistook; falling on the investor’s heads” (Bevington124).
He makes a promise to these people and stresses on the dangers associated with revenge. In his speech, he talks of the ‘carnal, bloody and unnatural acts’, basically he is referring to the killings that took place when his friend Hamlet tried to retaliate his father as well as the sexual act between the Claudius and the queen. He calls for reasoning to help in avoiding unnecessary blood shedding.
Further more, Horatio talks of ‘deaths put on by cunning’ from the speech. He is referring to the accidental deaths that occur and still criticizes the intentional brutal that occur as a result of personal hit-back. Besides, he talks of ‘purposes mistook, falling on the investor’s head’. By this he talks of the plans that were rooted maliciously and vengeance that did not achieve anything, but instead resulted to the death of spectators like Polonius and Gertrude who were murdered by mistake in the play.
Aaron is given the title ‘complete foil’ in the play because he has contrasting characters with Lucius. Aaron does violent acts deliberately without any reason since he enjoys doing wrong while Lucius describes his violent acts in a positive way. The foil relationship between Aaron and Lucius can be clearly seen, for instance, in the case where Mutius is innocently killed by Titus, Lucius refers to this as unjust while Aaron observes the dead body and laughs his heart out (Bevington 135).
Lavinia, Titus’s daughter, is assaulted sexually and tortured by a number of men who threaten her not to name them. This portrays the superiority of men in the play because the woman is denied the right to talk. This kind of silence can cause so many disturbances especially to women.
Tamora wanted to kill Lavinia but his sons stop him and rape her instead. She gets so shocked because of that violation and wishes to die instead of being raped. She then requests Tamora to intervene with her sons but she does not agree. The mutilated body of Lavinia is shown to the audience indicating beauty that has been transformed to a beast (Lewis 258).
Shakespeare wrote a poem called the ‘the rape of Lucrece’ that was mainly criticized in the sexuality and gender areas. Lucrece is raped by Tarquin who did not respond to her cries of mercy during the act. She sends messengers to tell her father and husband what happened to her and they soon arrive with other two men. She narrates to them what happened and they promise to punish Tarquin. Immediately after that, Lucrece commits suicide by stabbing herself.
Violence can also be seen when Hamlet kills Palonius in the hamlet’s play by Shakespeare because of meddling in his affairs. The entire play is full of bloody acts thus bringing out underlying themes. Palonius’s death results to bad actions, because, later Ophelia gets insane after she gets the news of her father’s death and after a short while she also dies through suicide.
Laertes gets so angry with Hamlet since he is the one who causes the death of Palonius, his father, and Ophelia, his sister. This leads to hatred between Laertes and Hamlet. Later in the play, Laertes and hamlet are poisoned by Claudius but instead of hamlet dying, Claudius is the one who is killed by the poison that he intended to give Hamlet.
Shakespeare associates men more with violence than women in his plays. In the Old Testament, violence has been seen as a punishable act because it makes other people suffer in a serious way (Lewis 11). God is so much against it even in the New Testament because it is a sin.
Violence inform of war in Shakespeare’s work is related to the violent wars occurring in the Bible. The Bible gives a very good example of violence between two brothers, that is, Cain and Abel, which led to Cain killing Abel ruthlessly. Shakespeare portrays such scenes where closely related people kill one another as a result of unreasonable violence such as in the case of Hamlet where he kills his father.
Stage violence can be seen when Hamlet gets so upset with Gertrude, his mother, yelling at her, and also when he describes Claudius, his mother’s new husband, as a villain. He moves on to tell Claudius that he can not be like his father and were it not for his fault, his father would still be alive. This is a violent act because Hamlet is using words to tell his mother indirectly that her new husband, Claudius, is a criminal and the mother is an adulterer. Hamlet also does this for vengeance on his father’s death.
In Shakespeare’s Othello story stage violence can be seen clearly especially at the end of act V. This act ends with many conflicts as well as events of death. Somebody like Desdemona dies and Roderigo is severely wounded by Cassio. There are scenes of murder and death observed by the audience who tries to get the horror of these actions.
These actions present a full extent of violence and the audience understands the play in a better way since it shows exactly what happens. The disadvantages of the stage violence are that the audience might not enjoy seeing the horrifying actions because they are shocking. The audience is also not given room for imagination since they can see all what is happening (Bevington 198).
According to some people’s perspective, the use of violence by Shakespeare is gratuitous because they think that his aim was to attract those who watch ‘slasher films’. This can be true because the scenes are enjoyed by those people who like horror movies. In addition to that, Shakespeare used spectacular violence at the beginning of the play for entertainment purposes.
On the other hand, Shakespeare might have used violence in his works to make the plot more sensible in spite of the negative occurrences. He uses violence to bring out the main themes in his work such as; the price people get after their actions, the differences between the reality and looks, from the themes violence improves their meaning (Bevington 254).
Generally, violence of Shakespeare makes an interesting statement about violent impulses in human nature. This is because; the generic research demonstrates a connection between committing unreasonable acts of violence such as murder with specific inherent characteristics that are altered by experience.
Violent impulses can be caused biologically, develop in a more complicated way and affect individuals in various ways and to certain extents. From a rational context, human violence in Shakespeare can not be privileged at all. The natural urges in human beings are the ones that accelerate violence due to the influence of both nature and nurture.
Shakespeare links the current problems caused by violence and brings them out in the same way through his plays. At the beginning of the play, he uses violence to entertain the audience but as the play progresses there is more human violence which is unreasonable.
In his main calamities, he relates masculinity with power and sidelines the females because men are associated with bravery. In the last plays, Shakespeare associates human violence with today’s violence that occurs in the world. Both types of violence lead to many problems as well as accidents and deaths.
Works Cited
Bevington, David. Othello, the Moor of Venice, The Necessary Shakespeare. ( 2nd ed). New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2005. Print.
Lewis, Clive. Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and renaissance. Cambridge, Mass: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Print.
Scott, David. Shakespeare After Theory. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. Print.