I never understood why he choose that kind of demise to the men who raped his daughter. Payback and gross I'll admit, but why feed them to Tamora? Was it suppose to be symbolic?
shareFirstly, definitely revenge on his part but yeah partly symbolic, given that he did unto her the same gruesome treatment. Tamora was responsible for letting them do that to Lavinia so on top of Tamora and Saturninus's reign in the empire already having negative effect, Titus brought a personal karma this ending both.
shareBecause Shakespeare.
shareBecause it's based on an old Greek legend ---- a legend that's referenced in the movie and in Shakespeare's play. The legend of the rape of Philomela (remember the scene with the book?)
Philomela is raped by her sister's husband who also cuts out her tongue to prevent her from talking. So Philomela weaves what happens to her in a tapestry and sends the tapestry to her sister. (Possibly neither she nor her sister could read and write.) Her sister kills her son by her husband and feeds it to him. After he eats his son, the sisters let him know what they did.
You can read more about it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philomela
my website -- http://maggieameanderings.com/Archive.htm
And I thought Shakespeare was fvcked up.
share^That's why Shakespeare made tragedies the ultimate.
shareShakespeare was a wildly flamboyant playwright in a time period that loved novelty and Titus was a complete creep masquerading as a hero. He really doesn't get why anyone hates his family after he commits bloody atrocities for 30 years.
He doesn't even really love his family, either. He murders one of his sons over a disagreement and treats it like nothing (and so do all his flattering friends and other loser sons).
He has reproduced as prolifically as a breeding animal in terms of children, yet only has one grandchild because he encouraged the fools to get themselves killed, except for the one (only one?) he personally killed. If the shoe was on the other foot, he would have gluttonously eaten those pies and claimed it was for the good of Rome.
I love the play, even though my estimation of who is the hero and who is the villain are not as intended.
He figured out she put them up to it when she appeared as Revenge with her two 'attendants,' Rape & Murder. It also made their last few moments that much more horrible to know their fate, and the fate of their mother.
shareIf you want revenge, do it in style.
share