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Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus - A Powerful Tragedy
Titus Andronicus is a play marked by acts of horrific violence and littered with death and the destruction of others. Each violent act, however, serves to explain and sometimes encourage the motives of the play's memorable characters and impart a very tightly knotted plot. The structure of the play employs well-defined heroes and villains. Revenge is their key motivating factor. All of these elements combine to form a cohesive plot and contribute to the overall success of the story.
Shakespeare's sources for the play are quite clear. He makes it no secret that the rape of Lavinia is analogous to the rape of Philomela in Ovid's Metamorphosis. In this tale, The daughter of the King of Athens, Procne, marries the King of Thrace, Tereus, and the two of them have a son, Itys. After a number of years, Procne desperately wishes to see her sister, Philomela, and sends Tereus back to Athens to bring her to Thrace. When Tereus sees Philomela, he becomes obsessed with her and carries her into the forest, rapes her and cuts out her tongue to prevent her from telling anyone. Upon returning to Thrace, he informs his wife that Philomela is dead. In the meantime, Philomela weaves her story into a cloth and sends it to Procne. Procne becomes so enraged by this knowledge that she and Philomela plot and kill Itys, cook his flesh and serve it to Tereus. He discovers their ploy and tries to kill them, but Philomela is changed into a nightingale, Procne a swallow and Tereus a hoopoe (Bullough, vi. 48-58).
This exhibits a very distinct parallel. Demetrius and Chiron used the same measures to prevent Lavinia from disclosing their deeds, though Shakespeare (always improving on his sources) to...
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... to become wrapped up in his evil schemes. Also, like Richard III, the character of Aaron the Moor has a great deal of staying power, and we continue to see characters like him four-hundred years later.
Titus Andronicus is very successful as a tragedy. Second guessing of the character's actions is held to a minimum because most of the tragedy is imposed by the other characters' revenge tactics. The notable characters are easily distinguishable because of their very distinct personalities. Titus and Aaron are a prime example of this type of opposition. The solid plot, memorable characters and striking depiction of violence combine to make Titus Andronicus one of Shakespeare's best works.
Works Cited
Bullough, Geoffrey. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare , 8 vols. (1964-75)
Waith, Eugene M. ed. Titus Andronicus. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1984.
Titus Andronicus is known to be Shakespeare's first tragedy, performed around the 1580s. The story is based on fictional Roman general, Titus Andronicus, whose daughter Lavinia is raped and mutilated by Roman Queen Tamoras’ two sons, Chiron and Demetrius. Tamoras eldest son is sacrificed and for that reason she seeks revenge on Titus’ daughter. After Titus figures out who did this atrocity to his daughter, he also strives for revenge against Tamora.
... work is timeless. The permanence of this play is owed to a clever intermingling of opposing belief systems. Shakespeare took the ancient contrasting themes of revenge and Christianity, he tossed in hypocrisy, and he mixed them up with the judgmental fingers of Tamora and Aaron. Although the legalistic demands of the Andronicus family are met with a storm of indictments of hypocrisy by the non-religious Tamora and Aaron, there is one unifying factor. All can agree on the importance of the first born son.
One of the distinguishing factors in portraying Titus centers in its origin: "Titus Andronicus [...] must be considered as an experimental play" (Bowers 118). Being Shakespeare's first attempt at tragedy, it obviously has room for error. Yet, as some critics and scholars would say, I believe there is a similar element found in all of Shakespeare's works, no matter when they were written: "Shakespeare constantly reminds us that the character's predicament and humanity is very like our own" (Barton 184). No matter what the plot is, or where he chose to set the story, Shakespeare captures a fundamental element of humanity. Within Titus Andronicus, it is undoubtedly humanity's search for revenge: "Titus Andronicus is a play of social piety, outrage, suffering, and revenge" (Barber 133). The first three elements that Barber attributes to the work are consequential to the fourth; it is the revenge and spite of Titus, Tamora, and Aaron that fuel the other three elements.
Julie Taymor’s film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus has many theatrical elements that aid in creating an interpretation of the written play. One of the most prominent elements that Taymor uses is color. Taymor uses color to develop Shakespeare’s characters. Many times throughout the film, color is used to represent a character’s mood or their hidden agenda during a scene. We also see color used to represent good versus evil. The three colors that are most widely used during the movie to show symbolism and imagery are black, white, and red. While there are some references to color in the written text of Titus Andronicus, Taymor’s use of color allows the viewers to see a more clear representation of mood, tone, and character. The colors may be used in costume or in setting. Regardless of how they are used each color plays a large role in distinguishing the tone that is being set for a scene or character.
Openness - People who like to learn new things and appreciate new encounters typically score high in openness. Openness incorporates
To begin, the Big-Five traits of the Five Factor Model of Personality are each unique in their own way and offer hints or clues into an individual’s personality. The Big-Five traits can be easily remembered by using the acronym O.C.E.A.N. O represents the trait openness, C represents conscientiousness, E represents extraversion, A represents agreeableness, and last, but not least, N represents neuroticism. Openness is a trait that is characterized by a multitude of positive components. For example, individuals who score high in the trait openness often tend to be imaginative, creative, intelligent, broad-minded, and curious. They are likely to be more motivated, and they enjoy pursuing diverse and new experiences. Individuals high in openness are also more likely to be proactive meaning they actively seek more challenging and complex opportunities (Choi, Colbert, & Oh, 2015). Low scorers of openness are more practical, conventional, narrow-minded, and tend to avoid new experiences. The next trait, Conscientiousness, is a trait which is characterized by more efficient elements. For instance, individuals who score high in
The Big Five is currently the most accepted personality model in the scientific community. The Big Five emerged from the work of multiple independent scientists/researchers starting in the 1950s who using different techniques obtained similar results. Those results were that there are five distinct personality traits/dimensions. Here are your results on each dimension:
After Allport, came along two psychologists, Raymond Cattell and Hans Eysenck, who each formulated their own theories regarding traits. Their theories have been the subjects of considerable research in the world of psychology. Cattell seemed to focus on far too many traits, while Eysenck seemed to focus on too few. As a result, psychologists have combined the two theories to make one satisfactory theory (Cherry), called “The Big Five Factors” (Myers). They are: conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion. These five factors merge to create the human personality (Cherry). Where people fall into these factors s...
To humans, life appears to be a dynamic, unpredictable environment to which diversity they react and behave in a certain particular way best suiting to their respective preferences introducing the notion of personality; Psychologists, over time, after various studies, have come along with a series of standardized characteristics that tend to be the mostly manifested while examining personalities and finally came up with the popularly known as The Big Five Theory. On this paper I will get into a description of myself according this theory’s 5 aspects which are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, agreeableness and Neuroticism;
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Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is often referred to as a classic love story. It is a story of love at first sight and fighting between families. The classic is a true tragedy because of the way it is created. Romeo and Juliet is an Aristotelian tragedy because it clearly follows the model shown by Aristotle. All aspects of the plot and characters perfectly follow way Aristotle defined. The plot follows the events that need to occur and the main characters have a flaw. Pity and fear is felt for the characters throughout the play. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is a true Aristotelian tragedy because of the characters, plot, and the fact that it triggers pity and fear.
(1997). McRae et al. (1997) attempted to find if the Five-Factor Model was a universal constant in all cultures. They also attempted to see if cultural views would change how the five traits were viewed. The researchers collected data from 6 different translations of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory, this inventory looks for universal trait dimensions in a variety of languages. These 6 translations were then compared to the American counterpart. It was found that while some cultures did differ slightly in their view of the five traits found in the Five-Factor Model in comparison to Americans, the traits were still universal. All six translations found the big five traits of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and opens to experience to be
William Shakespeare is a famous writer who wrote many plays. Most people would concur he is the greatest writer of all time. His plays fall under the categories of histories, comedies, and tragedies. Troilus and Cressida is a tragedy, but many would say it is not because Troilus does not die. Instead a noble fighter named Hector dies. Betrayal, love, and love causing betrayal is expressed in Troilus and Cressida when Cressida betrays Troilus by not railing against the Greeks, Troilus falling in love with Cressida, and in a way, Paris betraying the Trojans because he would not give up Helen which made the Trojans continue fighting.
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