Let them Satisfy Thus Lust on Thee

Constructions of Rape and Trauma in Shakespeare’s Time

Throughout history, women have been characterized in varying ways including both powerful and powerless; sexual agents and victims; dangerous and in need of protection (Smart, 1991). Nowhere has the tension generated by this characterization been more evident than when society is confronted with women who have been victimized by men. It is this situation that throws light on generally masked inequities in socially and legally ascribed power, entitlements, and protection; and the value placed on women as individuals and contributors to society (Regehr & Glancy, 1993). Whether a raped woman is a “designing woman” or a “virtuous maiden” has always been determined by the morals and social values of the time in which she lived (Dubinsky, 1992). Would she be pitied or scorned? Was the aftermath of her rape and torture viewed to be pain and suffering endured by the victim, or shame and dishonor to her family—most particularly the male members of her family?

The definition of who qualifies as a victim of rape under the law has shifted throughout history and is bound within legal and societal views regarding rights of women. In England during the 1100s, laws focused on bodily injury resulting from various assaults, including rape (Solga, 2006). Until the 13th century, this could result in blinding of the offender (for having seen the maiden) or forfeiture of a limb (Baker, 2002), a punishment that could be avoided through marriage to the victim (Brownmiller, 1975). By the 1200s however, the legal emphasis had shifted from the physical consequences of rape to the “symbolic commodity value” of the victim (Solga, 2006, p. 58). Women in Shakespeare’s 16th- and 17th-century England could not own property or enter into a contract; neither could a man be held liable for his wife’s prodigality or extravagance (Baker, 2002; Hardwick, 1992). Thus, a woman’s financial worth was tied to that of her father or husband. The crime of rape extended only to those women whose chastity was viewed as having value, that is, a wife or a daughter (Clark, 1987). This is perhaps not surprising as the term rape itself is derived from the Latin raptus meaning theft of property (Brownmiller, 1975).

In the 16th century, the law faced a troublesome paradox with respect to rape (Clark, 1987). The rapist had attacked the chastity of a woman, a valuable possession. However, an unchaste woman had lost her credibility to testify in court. This left two possible solutions. Either the woman had fought off her attacker and remained chaste, resulting in a charge of attempted rape. Alternatively, if she was raped, her husband or father could claim redress in the courts. Punishment for attempted rape included fines, one week imprisonment, or public humiliation in the pillory. A convicted rapist could also be sued by the wronged husband or father resulting in a substantial sum of money (Stevenson, 2007). A further issue was that the courts did not differentiate between whether the woman was raped or consented to the sexual activity; in either case, the financial redress remained unchanged (Clark, 1987). Johnson (2003) in reviewing French legal records of the late 1600s and early 1700s similarly identifies the confluence of rape and seduction in legislation and court transcripts of the time. That is, the words rape and rapt are used interchangeably. Rape was seen as an act of desire and the violence was erased.

From a mental health perspective, the experience of psychological trauma in response to exposure to horrific events is a theme that can be found in the earliest of literature. Achilles in Homer’s The Iliad and Hotspur in Shakespeare’s Henry IV are frequently cited as excellent portrayals of what we now understand to be traumatic stress reactions following involvement in combat. Psychiatrist Pierre Janet wrote in 1919:

All famous moralists of olden days drew attention to the ways in which certain happenings would leave indelible and distressing memories—memories to which the sufferer was continually returning, and by which he was tormented by day and by night. (van der Kolk & van der Hart, 1989, p. 1530)

Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy published in 1651 describes the causes of melancholy as being divided into two primary causes: supernatural causes (such as spirits, witches, and demons), and natural causes (such as diet, poor air, and old age). Among the various natural causes identified is “perturbations” which include sorrow. A sorrow-related perturbation is described as

A cruel torture of the soul, inexplicable grief, poisoned worm, consuming body and soul, and gnawing at the very heart, a perpetual executioner, perpetual night, heating worse than fire and a battle that has no end. It crucifies worse than any tyrant; no torture, no stappado, no bodily punishment is like unto it. (Burton, 1651, p. 167)

Shakespeare’s Depiction of Trauma

As noted earlier, during Shakespeare’s time, rape was viewed to be primarily a legal and political problem. Several commentators have noted that these laws focused on rape as a crime not against a woman, but rather her father who was dishonored and robbed of his property rights (Clark, 1987; Regehr & Glancy, 1993; Smart, 1991). Rape represented a threat to political power and social standing. In this vein, Hadfield, when commenting on republicanism and material culturalism in Shakespeare, notes that Lavinia is fought over by rival factions. “Her role here prefigures her larger symbolic function in the play as Rome’s body politic, mistreated and abused by its inhabitants to their own cost.” (Hadfield, 2003, p. 473) Woodbridge (1991) similarly argues that the body of Lavinia represents the image of society, the invasion of the body of a single woman representing political siege. This is consistent with the research of Rudolph (2000) that describes the “rhetoric of rape” used by Whig political theorists of 1688/89 in justification of the resistance to James II. Political acts of the time were referred to as the “rape of wives and virgins” and “ravishment, deflowering, violation and adultery” (Rudolph, 2000, p. 161). Thus, the impact of rape on Lavinia is unimportant, overshadowed by the political implications of the act. Indeed, Shakespeare’s Lavinia has no voice following her victimization, underlining both her position as extraneous to the central issues of the play, and the powerlessness of women who suffered rape in that era.

Several of Shakespeare’s plays including Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Tempest, draw upon stories from Ovid’s (1955) Metamorphoses. In this vein, Lavinia’s story in Titus Andronicus parallels that of Ovid’s Philomela. Philomela is raped by her sister’s husband Tereus. Filled with fear and fury, Tereus then cut out Philomela’s tongue and imprisoned her, so she would not reveal the crime. He returned to his wife, Queen Procne, with a false story that her sister had died. Philomela turned to her loom and wove an intricate story of the offense committed against her on a tapestry that was later delivered to Procne to reveal the truth (Hamilton, 1969).

Raped her, a virgin all alone, and calling

For her father, for her sister, but most often

For the great gods. In vain. . . .

But Tereus did not kill her; he seized her tongue

With pincers, though it cried against the outrage,

Babbled and made a sound something like “Father,”

Till the sword cut if off . . .

And a year went by

And what of Philomela? Guarded against flight,

Stone blocks around her cottage, no power of speech

To help her tell her wrongs, her grief has taught her

Sharpness of wit, and cunning comes in trouble.

She had a loom to work with, and with purple

On a white background, wove her story in,

In Titus Andronicus, Marcus, on discovering Lavinia raped and mutilated, draws the parallel to Philomela in Ovid’s myth (Hamilton, 1969). Lavinia, like Philomela devises a means to tell her story first by obtaining a book telling the myth of Philomela’s plight and second by holding a staff in her mouth and handless arms to write in the dirt the offense that has been committed against her and the name of her attackers. Thus, although unable to speak, Lavinia is not powerless and is nonetheless able to share her story. Solga (2006) notes that in doing so, Lavinia replaces the “map of woe” that she had become by symbolically acting out the rape, revealing both the act, and the offenders in written words. Lavinia’s actions could thus be interpreted to be evidence of personal agency.

Alternatively, the manner in which Lavinia reveals her rape is important. A common approach in theater at the time was to depict the raped woman as angry and in search of revenge rather than as a suffering victim (Enders, 2000). This effectively shifted the character from the category of innocent victim to designing woman when Lavinia reveals her vicitmization and the focus of others becomes one of revenge on behalf of the “chaste dishonored dame.” In response, Titus kills her attackers and has Lavinia hold a bowl to collect their blood. Her suffering and possible retraumatization caused by exposure to additional horrifying events is secondary to the need to avenge the dishonor. In the end, her death serves as the final means of erasing the dishonor she represents or perhaps even has caused.

Melancholy and grief were well-known phenomena in Shakespeare’s time and are often depicted in his plays, the most famous of these being Hamlet, the Melancholy Dane. Grief and trauma in Titus Andronicus is described in the reaction of Titus to his daughter’s mutilation. Titus states “It was my dear, and that he wounded her, Hath hurt me more than had he killed me dead:” (Shakespeare, 1590, 3.1.91-92). Lavinia’s grief however is only described briefly by others and is interpreted to be linked to her father’s suffering. Lucius states “Sweet father, cease your tears, for at your grief, See how my wretched sister sobs and weeps.” (Shakespeare, 1590, 3.1.136-137) Titus and not Lavinia is the victim of the crime, it is his suffering that is important.

Changing Views on Rape and Trauma

In the late 1800s and early 1900s many physicians began describing reactions to traumatic events in terms of physical responses such as “irritable heart” (DaCosta, 1871), posttraumatic spinal cord injuries due to nervous shock and without apparent legions (p. 1885), and “neuraesthenia,” a physical disorder associated with fear (Mott, 1918); as well, reactions were seen to be psychological, such as “war neurosis” (McKenzie, 1916) and “shell shock” (Southward, 1919). Notably, although recognition of trauma associated with war and physical injury were acknowledged, trauma associated with sexual violence was not. Acknowledged victims of trauma were thus primarily men. Sigmund Freud, one of the first to identify the psychological impact of sexual trauma in his earlier theory, suggested that disturbances in adult women could be linked to sexual abuse histories (Freud, 1917/1957). This theory was later recanted by Freud who then relegated the accounts of sexual abuse to a woman’s fantasy life. “What had been a deeply disturbing, even threatening account of external reality was turned into a theory about the power of internal fantasy, one that was far less threatening to the fabric of society.” (Masson, 1986) Those psychiatrists who believed that sexual violence in childhood was imagined, viewed women who had reported to be victims as suffering from hysteria (Fleshig, 1884; Freud, 1917/1957; Zambaco, 1886). Women’s mental health problems were linked to their biological make-up, most particularly, their reproductive organs (Ehrenreich & English, 1978). This formulation remained largely unchallenged until the women’s movement of the 1970s.

In 1974, Burgess and Holmstrum’s article, Rape Trauma Syndrome appeared in the American Journal of Psychiatry. This ground-breaking article was the first to identify response to rape as a distinct entity and outlined symptoms of trauma in victims of rape. It set the stage for subsequent changes in law (Koss, 2000; Regehr, Alaggia, Lambert, & Saini, 2008), mental health diagnosis, and treatment regarding sexual violence. The following year, Brownmiller (1975) suggested that rape was traditionally defined by men rather than women; and that men use, and all men benefit from the use of rape as a means of perpetuating male dominance by keeping all women in a state of fear. Her work spearheaded feminist outrage with respect to rape.

The focus on rape within the 1970s and the concurrent return of U.S. soldiers from Vietnam, resulted in the official recognition of PTSD in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Third Edition (DSM III) of the American Psychiatric Association in 1980. Since the inclusion of PTSD in the DSM, scholarly inquiry and societal interest in this area has burgeoned focusing on concepts of etiology, consequences, and possible treatments for traumatic stress. In both DSM III and the more recent DSM IV (APA, 2000) a diagnosis of PTSD requires that a person has experienced an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of oneself or others for which they suffered intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Rape is viewed as one of the archetypal events leading to PTSD (Herman, 1992; van der Kolk, McFarlane, & Weisaeth, 1996). In this vein, Shakespeare gives us a young woman who witnesses her husband’s murder and is then dragged off by his killers who proceed to rape and mutilate her by removing her hands and tongue. It is irrefutable that Lavinia meets Criterion A for PTSD. Other symptoms of PTSD fall into the clusters of reexperiencing, hyperarousal and avoidance.

Modern-Day Depictions of Trauma in Titus Andronicus

In Jane Howell’s 1985 film version of Titus Andronicus, the horrors of the rape and mutilation occurred off camera (or stage) as directed by Shakespeare and emotional turmoil of the victim was limited. Lavinia’s role is to communicate information about her assault to her uncle and father for the purposes of revenge. She does not express grief or torment, indeed, there is almost a direct avoidance of the issue of rape (Aebischer, 2002). Lavinia, played by Anna Calder-Marshall appears simply stunned and confused. In an interview about the film, Calder-Marshall attributes her stunned performance to Lavinia being “in shock and beyond tears.” Interestingly however, the actor then states that “I go home every night and cry from the strain of being Lavinia” (Aebischer, 2002, p. 138). Calder-Marshall’s statement presents an interesting window into the artist’s personal experience regarding portraying rape and trauma. Nevertheless, this emotional state was not communicated to the audience. Perhaps, if Howell had worked with Calder-Marshall in finding a way of sharing these feelings with her audience, Lavinia would have come across in a more sympathetic manner and the centrality of rape within the text could have been underlined.

Under Howell’s direction, the aftermath of rape as we currently understand it, is not apparent and consequently the audience does not develop compassion for Lavinia or her emotional state. Howell’s concern for Lavinia was not so much for her personal emotional aftermath or suffering in her own right, but rather the manner in which her family’s grief culminates in her (Aebischer, 2002). In this way, Howell maintained a closer affiliation with Shakespeare’s world.

From a societal standpoint, although rape crisis centers developed quickly throughout North America and England in the 1970s, resulting in an estimated 1,000 centers in the United States by 1979, the focus was on advocacy and volunteerism. It was not until the mid-1980s that the focus shifted to treatment of the aftermath of rape by mental health professionals (Burgess, Regehr, & Roberts, 2010). Thus, at the time of Howell’s production, rape remained relegated to the world of social advocates and was not a commonly discussed theme in schools and living rooms. The aftermath of rape as a form of trauma was not yet general public knowledge. As Howell’s film was produced for the BBC for general audience viewing, it may not have been acceptable to focus on rape trauma.

Julie Taymor’s film Titus Andronicus, produced 15 years later, is remarkably different. In this production, Lavinia played by Laura Fraser, wails and is visibly tormented when asked to reveal the names of her attackers, demonstrating intense psychological distress and physiological reactivity. As Lavinia writes out the names Demetrius and Chrion, the two men who raped and mutilated her, Taymor portrays Lavinia’s trauma in one of the sequences that Taymor refers to as the “Penny Arcade Nightmares” (Deluca & Lindroth, 2000; McCandless, 2002). The purpose of the Penny Arcade Nightmares, as described by Taymor is to

Portray the inner landscapes of the mind as affected by the external actions. These stylized, haiku-like images appear at various points throughout the film counter pointing the realistic events in a dreamlike and mythic manner. They depict, in abstract collages, fragments of memory, the unfathomable layers of a violent event. . . (Deluca & Lindroth, 2000, p. 28).

In these Penny Arcade Nightmares, a blue-washed flashback sequence, Lavinia’s torment is obvious (Solga, 2000). A frantic and terror-stricken Lavinia with bloody stumps instead of hands tries desperately to keep her dress from blowing up to expose naked limbs. In a subsequent nightmare sequence, we are aware that Lavinia sees herself as a helpless doe, presumably recalling her uncle’s description of their first meeting after her attack. “O, thus I found her, straying in the park/ Seeking to hide herself as doth the deer/That hath received some unrecuring wound” (Shakespeare, 1590, 3.1.89-90). In keeping with the imagery of the injured helpless animal, her attackers Demetrius and Chrion then flash in and out of the nightmare, depicted as hungry tigers ready to ravish her body. The effect creates confusion, and in real time, we then see Lavinia simultaneously completing her task of writing out the names of Demetrius and Chrion and awaking from her nightmare/flashback, exhausted and visibly shaken. This sequence depicts intrusive thoughts, dreams, and feelings of reliving the event, all of which are characteristic of PTSD.

Under Taymor’s direction, Fraser plays a Lavinia who displays an outburst of anger in response to her father’s question “What Roman lord it was durst do the deed”(Shakespeare, 1590, 4.1.63). Lavinia cries out violently and buries herself in her father’s chest. Here, Lavinia’s reaction to her father’s question is wrought with fear and intense suffering. She then exhibits rage as she franticly scratches out the names of Demetrius and Chrion. Later, in Act 5, Scene 3 of Shakespeare’s text, Lavinia is said to enter with Titus and is present at a meal with Tamora. However, in Taymor’s film she does not attend the dinner party, but rather enters the dining hall slightly after the meal has commenced in a detached and disengaged manner.

Both Howell’s and Taymor’s Lavinias consent to their death at the hands of her father. Howell’s Lavinia gives her father the knife, places her hand on his shoulder and stares lovingly into his eyes as he kills her but more importantly kills her “shame.” Lavinia seems relatively unimportant here and throughout the entirety of the scene, restricted focus is placed on her. Taymor’s Lavinia dies by resting her head on her father’s chest and allowing her neck to be snapped. Laura Fraser seems to be in a state of peace exhibiting, as did Anna Calder-Marshall, perhaps exhibiting a sense of a futureless self.

In discussing the psychology of revenge in Titus Andronicus, Deborah Willis observes that the key symptoms for PTSD as outlined by the DSM, such as flashbacks, intrusive memories, or nightmares are not present in Shakespeare’s text. She then alludes to the idea that the play itself is a nightmare “shot through recurring images of dismemberment, decapitation, ‘lopped’ limbs, bodily violation, and cannibalism” (Willis, 2002, p. 32). Therefore, according to Willis, the structure of the play acts as the trauma victim, omitting individuals represented in the play from suffering from symptoms themselves. As Shakespeare gives very few stage directions, our only window into Lavinia after the traumatic event is interpreted by other characters and their own personal agendas. Lavinia as a trauma victim does not exist on the page. Rather, we only see Lavinia in performance through the actor playing her and the director devising her. We therefore can only give a limited examination of Lavinia though Shakespeare’s writing alone. She, as most theatrical characters, only truly lives in performance. It is for this reason that the work of Taymor and Howell become crucial within this discussion. Taymor’s (1999) Lavinia exhibits some of each the three clusters of symptoms which are criteria for PTSD as defined by the DSM IV: reexperiencing symptoms, avoidance symptoms, and hyperarousal symptoms. Howell’s (1985) Lavinia however does not.

Recovery From Trauma

In 1992, 7 years prior to Taymor’s Titus, Herman’s Trauma and Recovery outlined three stages of recovery from traumatic events: the establishment of safety, remembrance and mourning, and reconnection with life. When discussing the third stage of recovery, Herman states that “Having come to terms with the traumatic past, the survivor faces the task of creating a future. She has mourned the old self that the trauma destroyed; now she must develop a new self.” Herman goes on to explain that “these are the tasks of the third stage of recovery. In accomplishing this work, the survivor reclaims her world” (Herman, 1992, p. 32). It is here, in the discussion of recovery that we see the most drastic difference between the two productions of Titus and Andronicus.

Taymor gives us a Lavinia, who points toward the beginnings of the third stage of recovery as perceived by Herman. Taymor builds in the acquisition of the wooden hands into her interpretation. The hands, found by Lucius in a woodcarver’s shop that also crafts religious icons of saints and Madonnas (McCandless, 2002), are given to Lavinia as prosthetics so that she is no longer constantly confronted by the visual representation of her attack. Furthermore, she begins then to develop the physical appearance of a new self. Lavinia is rebuilding and creating a new way of living and commencing the process of “reclaiming her world” (Herman, 1992).

Howell seems relatively uninterested in Lavinia’s emotional aftermath and subsequent recovery, restricting most of the depiction of her posttraumatic stress victim’s symptoms to the physical smearing of blood on the dress, mouth, and arms and making the young woman remain in the dirty clothes of her assault for the entirety of the play. This physical depiction gives us a Lavinia who is in a crazed bloody state, leaving us with almost no way into her emotional being, let alone potential for her recovery. It should be noted however, that this is in keeping with the BBC’s policy of limited cutting and straying from the original text (Aebischer, 2002). It may also reflect the fact that advocates of time focused on the horror of rape as a social issue and that concept of trauma and recovery came to the forefront several years after Howell’s film was conceived and produced.

This is not to suggest that either of these directors were aware of their place within the development or understanding of PTSD. Quite contrastingly in fact, neither of these female directors chose this particular Shakespearian play because of the character of Lavinia or out of an interest in the representation of the male-authored rape. Both directors remain relatively unconcerned about the rape or the objectification of Lavinia throughout any notes or interviews regarding their artistic process.

Julie Taymor indicated she was neither drawn to the play due to the rape nor had she been aware of her position as a woman directing it (Aebischer, 2002). Rather, she states that it was her interest in the young Lucius that brought her to the text. Similarly, Jane Howell, after being given the choice of the last six plays remaining in the BBC’s Shakespeare series, also chose to produce Titus because of young Lucius’ character. Howell’s interest was not in exploring sexual violence, bereavement, or revenge, but rather she sought to examine the play’s representation of a child’s reaction to tragic events.

. . . I got to the scene with the fly and I thought here they are with their hands cut off, and tongues cut off, and there’s a child watching all this at the end of a dinner table. And the moment I met that child, I knew I was going to do that play. Because the child is part of all this and so it heightens what happens. (Aebischer, 2002)

Within each production, there appears to be a different focus. Where Howell’s Titus Andronicus keeps to the Shakespearian text, Taymor works to negotiate within her modern context. She utilizes the play as an insightful look at rape and its topicality for a modern audience. However, it is this “reclaiming of her world” that makes Lavinia’s death difficult. As Taymore’s Lavinia seems to be moving toward some semblance of a life, her submission to death appears unmotivated and problematic. Taymor justifies this choice by saying:

Today there are bride burnings in India. There are Honor Killings in Arab Countries. People kill their daughters because the daughter’s chastity belongs to the family or the tribe. So these things go on now. People say “my God. Titus killed his daughter.” Absolutely, he killed his daughter and they are doing it today in Bosnia and in many Muslim countries. It’s seen as necessary. Lavinia is their bride. She gives herself to him. She’s ready to die.

While indeed honor killings do occur in modern time, the lack of religious or cultural context for the murder of Lavinia continues to leave her death as an eternal struggle in any contemporary analysis.

Conclusion

The fundamental aspects of human experience are remarkably similar throughout history. People are born and die. People war against each other and commit violence against one another. What shifts is the manner in which these experiences are socially constructed and the collective meanings ascribed to them. Throughout history, rape as a particular human reality has served as a lightning rod for the fears and concerns of the relative power of men and women. It brings to light relative social privilege, economic entitlements, legal protection and rights, and the value placed on women as individuals and contributors to society. In Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare created the character of Lavinia and described the horrifying assault against her within a context in which the consequences of rape and adultery were the same, financial redress for a husband or father. Lavinia’s rape was a crime not against her, but against her family. Shakespeare’s Lavinia becomes mute, her only agency after the assault is to reveal the names of her attackers that the father can seek revenge.

In recent times, Herman (2002) stated that the “purpose of the rapist is to terrorize, dominate, and humiliate his victim, to render her utterly helpless.” Rape is seen as a crime against the person that has intensive individual consequences. Burgess and Holmstrom (1974) after interviewing rape survivors in a hospital emergency room found that “in the immediate aftermath of the assault, every woman had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder”. Follow-up studies revealed that victims of rape have higher levels of PTSD than victims of other crimes. However, although in the 1970s and 1980s the Western world became aware of rape as a traumatic event, constructing the aftermath in terms of PTSD had not yet permeated society’s consciousness. During the 1990s, we became cognizant of the presence of psychological trauma and integrated it into the collective societal lexicon and identity. Jane Howell’s 1985 production of Titus Andronicus depicts Lavinia’s suffering through having her remain in a bloodied gown, but maintains a focus on revenge. By contrast, Julie Taymore’s 1999 production gives us a textured viewed of traumatic stress following rape that reflects psychiatric knowledge and prevailing views, despite the fact that she contends that this was not her intention.

By applying a temporal lens to various productions of Titus Andronicus, performance can be seen to explicate historical stages in the understanding of rape victims and their subsequent trauma. Thus, a 400-year-old play continues to reflect modern reality by depicting a contemporary understanding of reality, shaped by social mores, legal structures, and scientific knowledge. By attuning our analysis to specific circumstances within the text as separate entities, performance serves as a medium for social analysis and as a window into a societal viewpoint.