Political Bodies
Titus Andronicus is Shakespeare's bloodiest play, which not only ends with the majority of characters dead, but also displays brutal killings, mutilations, and dismemberments throughout its five acts. While one could argue that all the gruesome details of the play are simply included for entertainment value, the notion of bodies – especially dismembered or otherwise injured ones – is also an important political metaphor. In early modern England as well as in antiquity, cities and kingdoms were considered "bodies" that had kings and rulers as their "head." Thus, the prevalence of broken bodies throughout Titus reminds viewers of the ongoing civil unrest in Rome. When Titus is elected emperor, for example, Marcus encourages him to "help to set a head on headless Rome" (1.1).
Hunting and Violence
As mentioned, hunting is an important motif throughout the play. Notably, Chiron and Demetrius see their "hunt" – their pursuit and eventual rape and mutilation of Lavinia – as a type of hunt, which was not an uncommon metaphor for sexual pursuit in the early modern period. Indeed, decades before Shakespeare wrote Titus Andronicus, Sir Thomas Wyatt penned a number of poems about "hunting" a rare "hind" (deer), whom many believe to have been King Henry VIII's wife, Anne Boleyn. In the play, Demetrius announces, ""we hunt not, we, with horse nor hound, / But hope to pluck a dainty doe to ground," suggesting that Lavinia is their prey (2.1).
Aaron as Contamination
As a moor, Aaron is seen by the other characters as a racial and political outsider. More than that, though, he is seen as a threat to white, aristocratic bloodlines. Thus, the other characters in the play develop a figurative way of discussing Aaron as a type of contamination or disease. In the woods, Bassianus tells Tamora that her dalliances with Aaron have destroyed the hue of her own skin, suggesting that Aaron's blackness is somehow contagious and parasitic.
The Pit
The pit is a major symbol in the play, and characters use a number of similes and metaphors to describe it as something akin to a mouth, a grave, and a womb. One of the most significant of these metaphors is the description of the pit as a "swallowing womb," or a cannibalistic mother (2.3). Such an image reappears later in the play, when Tamora unknowingly consumes her two sons after Titus bakes them into a pie.
Lavinia's Silence
Lavinia's silence throughout the play is due, of course, to the brutalization she receives at the hands of Tamora's sons. Her tongue is cut out and her hands cut off so that she cannot speak nor write the names of her assailants. However, this literal silencing of Lavinia also operates as an embodiment of her metaphorical silencing that is present from the beginning of the play. Lavinia passively follows her father's wishes – as a young Roman woman, she is powerless to do otherwise – and is notably silent in the play until she is forced to beg for mercy from her attackers. That Lavinia is then rendered literally unable to communicate suggests the societal and familial constraints she had already endured before the trauma.
