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Maddison Leraaen

Shakespeare

Silenced Women and The Diseased State: The Handmaid’s Tale as a Modernization of Titus

Andronicus

William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus chronicles the cycle of revenge that its titular

character, Titus Andronicus, is locked in with the new Roman emperor and the family of Goths

which Rome has conquered. The play depicts a totalitarian government in which women are used

as objects of suffering and generals who fight for their republic are punished. Shakespeare’s

work centers on the Adronici and their plight under their government, notably the

dismemberment and assault of Lavinia, and the mistreatment and abuse of Titus. Margaret

Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale picks up on these themes central to Titus Andronicus and gives

them a more modern backdrop. Atwood’s novel imagines a dystopian reality for the United

States, now coined Gilead, in which patriarchal practices are taken to the extreme. Atwood’s text

depicts a society in which fertile women are used only as womb vessels, women are not allowed

to read or write, and decision making is placed in the hands of few self-proclaimed powerful

men. Both texts depict an authoritarian and oppressive regime which silences its women and

illustrate men in power who represent a diseased state. Lavinia and the Handmaids demonstrate

the ways in which a patriarchal society and totalitarian government oppress and harm women,

and use women as objects of suffering. Titus and The Commander highlight totalitarian

governments which abuse respected members and how dissenting members show corruption in

the system itself. Titus Andronicus and The Handmaid’s Tale make political and social

commentary about the real societies in which the authors inhabit, in terms of upholding

patriarchal and borderline totalitarian systems which inevitably will fail, as well as highlight the
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lack of power and agency given to women in these societies which has an extreme and

detrimental effect on the governments and societies within these texts.

In Titus Andronicus and The Handmaid’s Tale, Lavinia and the Handmaids represent the

trope of the silenced woman. Lavinia, in a notable stage direction, is described as entering the

scene having been sexually assaulted and dismembered after being carried off by Chiron and

Demetrius: “LAVINIA, ravished;] [her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out]” (II.iv.1061-1062).

Lavinia has been raped by the Goth queen’s sons and to add insult to injury, her hands and

tongue have been cut off so she cannot inform anyone of who has violated her. Lavinia has

notably been silenced, but her rape and dismemberment also show how women are viewed and

treated in a patriarchal system. Lavinia cannot name the perpetrators of the crime because she

has been silenced through dismemberment, and therefore cannot attain justice for herself. She is

left to largely live the rest of her life in misery while the men who have wronged her remain in a

position of power. In a similar vein, the Handmaids in Atwood’s novel experience a kind of

silencing through their daily walks. Each Handmaid is allowed to leave the house to run errands

and exercise only when accompanied by another Handmaid, in hopes that the two will spy on

one another and report dissenting ideologies: “This is supposed to be for our protection...The

truth is that she is my spy, as I am hers. If either of us slips through the net because of something

that happens on one of our daily walks, the other will be accountable.” (Atwood 19). The

Handmaids effectively have no agency to express their opinions about the patriarchal regime in

which they exist. They cannot speak out about their Commanders or about how they are being

treated within their home. The spy system silences the Handmaids and forces them into a

submissive position, in which they must bear what society has dealt them. The silenced women

of Titus Adnronicus and The Handmaid’s Tale depicts the detrimental effects that totalitarian
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governments and patriarchal societies have on female bodies and minds; They are abused,

disfigured, and controlled for the sake of the state.

Further, Lavinia and the Handmaids depict how women are viewed as objects of suffering

rather than whole entities. In “Archival Embodiment in The Handmaid’s Tale,” Joseph Hurtgen

notes that “In The Handmaid’s Tale, women are only allowed to be bodies...to give voice to their

perspectives, women need control of their bodies...Only seeing women as bodies allows the

patriarchal attitude that men should dominate women to persist” (12). Before Lavinia’s assault

occurs, Tamora notes that Lavinia will be an object for her sons to play with and to exercise their

lust on: “So should I rob my sweet sons of their fee: / No, let them satisfy their lust on thee”

(II.iii.919-920). Lavinia, then, in the eyes of the patriarchy and state is only seen as almost as a

sex toy. She is something to be used, and further is an object of revenge as she will effectively be

deflowered and bring Titus shame after the rape. After the assault and dismemberment of

Lavinia, Titus states “Thou hast no hands, to wipe away thy tears: / Nor tongue, to tell me who

hath martyr'd thee” (III.i.1236-1237). Titus’ utterance here suggests that because Lavinia has

been assaulted, she is the equivalent to being dead - she is effectively useless when she is no

longer maidenly. In “‘Enforced, Stained, and Deflowered’: Considering the Reactions of Tamora

and Lavinia to the Patriarchal System in Titus Andronicus,” Danielle Routh notes that “the play

confirms Lavinia is valuable only when she is chaste, a move that serves not as a

recommendation of the patriarchal system, a criticism of it” (102). Lavinia can only bring pride

to her empire and family when she is undefiled, and now that she has been raped by Chiron and

Demetrius she is no longer a worthy object to Titus. Similarly, in The Handmaid’s Tale, the

Handmaids are only brought into the homes of the Commanders on the prospect that they are

fertile. The Handmaids are used solely for their wombs, which Offred conveys during one of The
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Ceremony nights: “The Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my

body...nothing is going on here that I haven't signed up for. There wasn't a lot of choice but there

was some, and this is what I chose” (Atwood 94). Offred gives a very disembodied description of

the act of sex, in which she is used only as a vessel for the Commander to control and to bear a

child with. Offred also describes how the sex she has with the Commander is essentially rape;

Offred explains that there was some choice in becoming a Handmaid, but when the alternatives

of being shipped off to clean up nuclear waste is considered, it seems like the only option. The

governments, then, in Titus Andronicus and The Handmaid’s Tale then show how women’s

bodies are objectified and are often used to inflict suffering upon others or upon women

themselves. These societies do not value women, which is perhaps one of their major downfalls

and a factor that contributes to the failure of their governments.

Moreover, Titus Andronicus and The Handmaid’s Tale depict totalitarian governments

and patriarchal societies as failing systems through male characters which symbolize the

diseased state. In Titus Andronicus, the character of Titus comes to symbolize the body politic of

Rome. Titus has recently returned from a long battle with the Goths, in which he has protected

and served Rome as a general. Titus should be respected as he comes to represent the powerful

empire of Rome, but instead he is abused and represents the problematic nature of those in

power. In an effort to save his sons from execution, Titus cuts off his hand as a kind of eye for an

eye compensation for the emperor, in which Titus places emphasis on his duties served to Rome:

“Good Aaron, give his Majesty my hand. / Tell him it was a hand that warded him / From

thousand dangers, bid him bury it: / More hath it merited, that let it have” (III.i.1328-1331). Titus

stresses how his hand has protected and served Rome, and has notably kept the emperor safe

from many dangers which Saturninus fails to protect Titus from by marrying Tamora. In
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“Synecdoche, Topic Violence, and Shakespeare’s Imitatio in Titus Andronicus,” Nancy

Christiansen notes that “The act of giving one's hand symbolizes service, brotherhood, mutual

agreement, the giving of oneself” (364). In giving his hand Titus is symbolically giving the part

of himself that has protected the empire, fought alongside the men of Rome, and the part of

himself that has served his country - only for the gesture to be ignored. The fact the Titus, the

most decorated general in Rome, is so blatantly abused depicts the deeper issues within the state.

If the state does not at the very least serve those who seek to protect and stabilize it, then who

does it serve and why?

Offred’s Commander in The Handmaid’s Tale highlights a similar idea in that he

symbolizes the deep issues within the Republic of Gilead through his dissent of the very laws he

helped to create. The Commander is seen playing board games like Scrabble with Offred and

allows her to perseue his private library, which is strictly forbidden as Handmaids are not

allowed to read or write. The Commander also takes Offred to a secret brothel with the intent of

having sex with her outside of the regulated Ceremony time. In “The Politics of The Handmaid’s

Tale,” Gorman Beauchamp notes that “The Commander, too, violates all manner of Gileadean

proscriptions in conducting his forbidden liaison with his handmaid, obviously relishing all his

‘sins.’” (20). The Commander, at large, represents the body politic of the Republic of Gilead; he

is one of its founding members, and therefore shows the complex issues within the state through

the breaking of its laws. By going against the laws and code which he is supposed to uphold as a

powerful government official, the Commander shows how the government within Gilead is

failing. The laws of Gilead are patriarchal in nature and seek to serve the men of its society, and

yet the men are the ones who are breaking these very rules as they seek more freedom than these

rules can provide them. This highlights the deeper issues within Gilead and the prospect of its
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government and Republic existing as a diseased state; If even the men in power are breaking the

rules in society, then who are the rules serving? If those in power feel controlled, how deep does

the oppression run?

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, then, seems to pick up where William

Shakespeare’s conversation in Titus Andronicus left off. The two texts, despite being written

hundreds of years apart, remarkably show societies which are plagued by similar themes. The

Handmaid’s Tale takes the issues of silencing women and diseased states and puts them in a

modern context, and the ties to Titus Andronicus are uncanny. The Handmaid’s Tale and Titus

Andronicus depict totalitarian governments and patriarchal societies that inevitably crumble as

they seek to oppress women, and are undermined by dissenting members of the state or their

oppression marked by their treatment of loyal subjects. Through the characters of Lavinia and

the Handmaids, we see how assault and dismemberment, both physical and symbolic, are used to

control and silence women and to use women as tools of suffering. Through the characters of

Titus and the Commander, we see how prominent men of these respective governments are both

failed by and fail their societies, showing a kind of diseased and failing state. The texts

exemplify that these societies serve no one else but those in power, which is a theme that has not

dissipated. In the end, as The Handmaid’s Tale and Titus Andronicus show, these governments

meet their untimely end. The emperor is murdered and the Republic of Gilead eventually falls,

showing that this intense craving for control cannot last and those plagued by oppression will

seek their revenge. The texts highlight a commentary on power and why power is given and to

who, and show that this issue is a lingering one that must constantly be challenged and analyzed.

The texts suggest that absolute power is not sustainable, yet absolute power is inevitably craved.

Even in a more modern sense, women’s bodies including trans women, non-binary folk, and
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femme bodied women are abused for male pleasure and for dominance over the “lesser sex.” We

still see instances of governments which seek to serve the already powerful, and for better or for

worse, those in political power who dissent and break the rules of society. We also still see

political systems which disenfranchise others to keep power in the hands of the few. This issue of

corrupt systems is not something that society has overcome, and the issues presented in Titus

Andronicus ring true for a more modern novel like The Handmaid’s Tale, but can still be palpable

today.
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Works Cited

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. New York, Anchor Books, 1986.

Beauchamp, Gorman. “The Politics of The Handmaid’s Tale.” Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of

Contemporary Thought, vol. 51, no. 1, 2009, pp. 11–25. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2018700635&site=ehost-liv

e&scope=site.

Christiansen, Nancy L. “Synecdoche, Topic Violence, and Shakespeare’s Imitatio in Titus

Andronicus.” Style: A Quarterly Journal of Aesthetics, Poetics, Stylistics, and Literary

Criticism, vol. 34, no. 3, 2000, p. 350. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=EIS4067730&site=ehost-liv

e&scope=site.

Hurtgen, Joseph. “Archival Embodiment in The Handmaid’s Tale.” Margaret Atwood Studies,

vol. 9, 2015, pp. 12–21. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2018700602&site=ehost-liv

e&scope=site.

Routh, Danielle. “‘Enforced, Stained, and Deflowered’: Considering the Reactions of Tamora

and Lavinia to the Patriarchal System in Titus Andronicus.” The Sigma Tau Delta Review,

vol. 14, 2017, pp. 99–106. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2018302303&site=ehost-liv

e&scope=site.
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Shakespeare, William. Titus Andronicus. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Ed.

Jeremy Hilton. MIT, http://shakespeare.mit.edu/macbeth/full.html. Accessed 18

November 2020.