Male Dishonor as Guilt and Shame in The Rape of Lucrece

Male Dishonor as Guilt and Shame in The Rape of Lucrece

Inasmuch as a woman’s virginity or chastity is imagined as an object that can be "owned," rape becomes a property crime, consisting in the theft of a woman’s "virtue" from its rightful "owner," her male guardian. Bernice Harris articulates this view with respect to Titus Andronicus: "The definition of the word is based on ownership: ‘rape’ is an appropriate term only if what is taken is not rightfully owned" (388). The man who can claim ownership of a woman is subsequently "dishonored" when she is violated: "‘Honour,’ then, is a function of ownership" (389).

While it is tempting to see the Shakespearean concept of rape entirely in such terms, such a view is not adequate to explain the complex interactions of dishonor, shame, and guilt found in The Rape of Lucrece. Carolyn Williams, by contrast, focuses on the tensions in early modern thought between a culture of "shame" and one of "guilt," two codes which differ not only in their account of the nature of the crime, but also in the consequences for the victim and the importance of her statements in determining her status. In the "shame culture," rape is "a crime against property," (like Harris’s definition) and "the victim’s refusal of consent…is irrelevant: her physical condition determines her status" (94). In the culture of "guilt," however, the woman is seen as a "responsible human agent." Therefore "her utterance is crucially important. Lack of consent defines the rape…Her ability to tell her story afterwards vindicates her honour" (95).

More broadly, it is possible to see the opposition between "guilt" and "shame" as representative of a larger tension in early modern thought between Christian and p...

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...y seen as murder by Tarquin’s hand, and hence the display of her "bleeding body" (1851) testifies more eloquently than any words to his guilt. This refiguring of suicide as murder, however, is only possible if the men themselves understand her death as the logical and, indeed, only possible consequence of rape. Thus, in order for guilt to be properly and explicitly assigned, the men must implicitly accept the code of shame which compels Lucrece’s choice.

Works Cited

Harris, Bernice. "Sexuality as a Signifier for Power Relations: Using Lavinia, of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus" Critcism 38 (1996): 383-407.

Watson, Curtis. Shakespeare and the Renaissance Concept of Honor Princeton: Princeton UP, 1960.

Williams, Carolyn. "‘Silence, like a Lucrece knife: Shakespeare and the Meanings of Rape." Yearbook of English Studies 23 (1993): 93-110.