The continuing debate over the potentially collaborative status of Titus Andronicus is symptomatic of Shakespeares exploration of collaboration within the play through the character of Lavinia. He creates a Rome in which multiple narratives about purity, rape and sacrifice circulate. It is not the pure ideal society that Titus imagines, but a hybrid. Lavinias rape results from conflict between the many tales striving to inscribe her, prominently those of Philomela and Lucrece, and her violation enables her to recognize them. Becoming aware of her own composite nature and the hybridity of the state, Lavinia rejects the strategy of reading employed around and used on her. Rather than inserting herself into one tale and attempting to repeat it, reiterating Roman glory or sacrificing herself in order to restore it, Lavinias awareness of the many circulating stories enables her to manipulate them.
Lavinia becomes the plays figure for collaboration and the co-author of her own story, asserting her place as an impure hybrid in Rome. Her collaborative skills uniquely fit Lavinia to help her contemporaries survive in the state they are coming to realize is not, and never was, an unadulterated haven from confusion. In claiming a place for herself in society, Lavinia risks being drawn back into the dominant narratives of purity and sacrifice, a danger that comes to fruition in her murder. Unsuccessful for herself, Lavinia leaves her story in circulation, an assertion of the hybridity that neither her surviving family nor the society as a whole can ignore.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07102006-223639 |
| Date | 19 July 2006 |
| Creators | Packard, Bethany Martie |
| Contributors | Professor Kathryn Schwarz, Professor Lynn Enterline |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07102006-223639/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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