Question 4

Words: 1004
Disability Theory
David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder. ‘Chapter 2: Narrative Prosthesis
and the Materiality of Metaphor’. Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and
the Dependencies of Discourse. University of Michigan Press, 2000.
pp.47-64.
Enter Lucius’ son [Young Lucius] and Lavinia running after him, and
the boy flies from her with his books under his arm.[He drops the books]
Enter Titus and Marcus.

BOY
Help, grandsire, help! My aunt Lavinia
Follows me everywhere, I know not why.
Good uncle Marcus, see how swift she comes!
Alas, sweet aunt, I know not what you mean.
MARCUS
Stand by me, Lucius; do not fear thine aunt.
TITUS
She loves thee, boy, too well to do thee harm.
BOY
Ay, when my father was in Rome she did.
MARCUS
What means my niece Lavinia by these signs?
TITUS
Fear her not, Lucius. Somewhat doth she mean.
MARCUS
See, Lucius, see, how much she makes of thee.
Somewhither would she have thee go with her.
Ah, boy, Cornelia never with more care
Read to her sons than she hath read to thee
Sweet poetry and Tully’s Orator.
Canst thou not guess wherefore she plies thee thus?
BOY
My lord, I know not, I, nor can I guess,
Unless some fit or frenzy do possess her;
For I have heard my grandsire say full oft
Extremity of griefs would make men mad,
 And I have read that Hecuba of Troy
Ran mad for sorrow. That made me to fear,
Although, my lord, I know my noble aunt
Loves me as dear as e’er my mother did,
And would not but in fury fright my youth,
Which made me down to throw my books and fly,
Causeless, perhaps. But pardon me, sweet aunt.
And, madam, if my uncle Marcus go,
I will most willingly attend your Ladyship.
MARCUS
Lucius, I will.
[Lavinia turns over the books]
TITUS
How now, Lavinia? Marcus, what means this?
Some book there is that she desires to see.

⌜To Lavinia.⌝ But thou art deeper read and better

Which is it, girl, of these? Open them, boy.

skilled:
Come and take choice of all my library,
And so beguile thy sorrow till the heavens
Reveal the damned contriver of this deed.
Why lifts she up her arms in sequence thus?
MARCUS
I think she means that there were more than one
Confederate in the fact. Ay, more there was-
Or else to heaven she heaves them for revenge.
TITUS
Lucius, what book is that she tosseth so?
BOY
Grandsire, ’tis Ovid’s Metamorphosis.
My mother gave it me.
MARCUS
For love of her that’s gone,
Perhaps, she culled it from among the rest.
TITUS
Soft, so busily she turns the leaves. (Helps her.)
What would she find? Lavinia, shall I read?
This is the tragic tale of Philomel,
And treats of Tereus’ treason and his rape-
And rape, I fear, was root of thy annoy.
MARCUS
 See, brother, see: note how she quotes the leaves.
TITUS
Lavinia, wert thou thus surprised, sweet girl,
Ravished and wronged as Philomela was,
Forced in the ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods?
See, see! Ay, such a place there is where we did hunt-
O, had we never, never hunted there!-
Patterned by that the poet here describes,
By nature made for murders and for rapes.
MARCUS
O, why should nature build so foul a den,
Unless the gods delight in tragedies?
TITUS
Give signs, sweet girl- for here are none but friends-
What Roman lord it was durst do the deed.
Or slunk not Saturnine, as Tarquin erst,
That left the camp to sin in Lucrece’ bed?
MARCUS

[They sit.]
Sit down, sweet niece. Brother, sit down by me.

Apollo, Pallas, Jove, or Mercury

Inspire me, that I may this treason find.
My lord, look here; look here, Lavinia.
[He writes his name with his staff and guides it
with feet and mouth.]
This sandy plot is plain. Guide, if thou canst,
This after me. I have writ my name
Without the help of any hand at all.
Cursed be that heart that forced us to this shift!
Write thou, good niece, and here display at last
What God will have discovered for revenge.
Heaven guide thy pen to print thy sorrows plain,
That we may know the traitors and the truth.
[She takes the staff in her mouth, and guides it
with her stumps and writes]

⌜TITUS⌝
O, do you read, my lord, what she hath writ?

“Stuprum”[rape]- Chiron- Demetrius.

MARCUS
What, what? The lustful sons of Tamora
Performers of this heinous bloody deed?
TITUS Magni Dominator poli,
Tam lentus audis scelera, tam lentus vides?
[Latin: ‘Ruler of the great heavens, are you so slow to hear crimes, so slow
to see?’]
In David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder’s chapter, ‘Narrative Prosthesis and

the Materiality of Metaphor’, they highlight the common

misrepresentation of disability throughout literature- crucially, they note,

it is indeed a misrepresentation rather than an underrepresentation, with

characters with disabilities both physical and mental deployed often

across multiple eras of literature. The three central manners they suggest

most depictions of disabilities are utilised in are as a ‘stock feature of

characterisation’1, a simple plot point for the progression of a narrative, or

‘as an opportunistic metaphorical device’ 2, with the body most commonly

used as a physical counterweight to the mind. The problems with these,

they posit, are that they ignore the social dynamics and cultural contexts

of disability, as well as often presenting it as something to be pitied, a

problem to be solved. These problems can be seen in this passage of Titus

Andronicus, in which Lavinia chases Young Lucius across the stage before

manipulating a stick with her stump to write, and to tell Marcus and Titus

that she had been raped, as well as the identity of her assaulters.

Shakespeare does manage to accurately portray the isolation and horror

brought about by Lavinia’s muteness. Young Lucius begins the scene with

his panicked cries of ‘help, grandsire, help!’(4.1.1), demonstrating open

fear of her new state. He is unable to reckon the Lavinia of new with that

of old, seemingly incapable of finding connection or communication

because of her disability. This newfound disconnect between Lavinia and

1
David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder. ‘Chapter 2: Narrative Prosthesis and the Materiality of
Metaphor’. Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse. University of
Michigan Press, 2000. pp.47
2
Ibid.
Lucius becomes all the more alarming when the exact depth and nature of

their relationship is revealed, as she ‘loves [him] as dearly as e’er [his]

mother did’(4.1.23). The sudden shift in her role from pseudo parenthood

to that of an object of horror, a puzzle to be solved, brings with it an

implication that a disability reduces ones capability to maintain previous

relationships. It also serves to highlight the lack of agency afforded to

Lavinia, not only within this scene, but also the play at large. She becomes

objectified into something to be worked out (‘Why lifts she up her arms in

sequence thus?’(4.1.37)), and she is not even allowed the discovery of her

new method of writing (‘Guide, if thou canst, This after me’(4.1.69-70)).

Her feelings or opinions are hardly considered- track the imperatives

directed towards her- ‘give signs,’ ‘sit down,’ ‘look here,’ ‘guide,’ ‘write

thou,’ ‘display’.

In this manner, she becomes a propellant for the narrative, the event of

her disability not only reducing her role, but also acting as an unfeeling

plot point. Mitchell and Synder summarise such uses of disability in

literature: ‘We therefore forward readings of disability as a narrative

device upon which the literary writer of “open-ended” narratives depends

for his or her disruptive punch’3. Lavinia’s disability used for its shock

value, with the emotional impact detailed above, but it is also present in

the brutality of her appearance when re-entering the stage, emphasised in

Peter Brook’s production, in which much of the violence of the play was

toned down, further heightening the devastation to Lavinia through

contrasting blood red streamers dangling from her wrists. It is also used as

3
Ibid. 49
a plot point, to drive the narrative onwards and provide a moment of

drama on stage. The removal of her tongue utterly fails in its purpose to

prevent her from identifying her assaulters, providing instead heightened

tension and dramatic irony, as the attention is rapidly shifted from Lavinia,

the victim, onto Marcus and Titus and their reactions.

Shakespeare is also guilty of rendering Lavinia’s muteness an

‘opportunistic metaphor’, representing the silencing of women through

brutal treatment. Titus’s comparison to Philomela is as apt as it is over

romanticised. Both consider similar cases of rape and mutilation to

enforce their silence in a brutal show of repression. The comparison,

however, comes across as particularly insensitive, reading at best as a

male attempt at understanding the events, but at worse as a blunt

mythification of Lavinia, turning the events of her life similarly into that of

fiction.

Overall, but particularly in this passage, Shakespeare presents Lavinia’s

disability as a plot point, a metaphor, but also a ‘stock feature of

characterisation’, in that it removes much of Lavinia’s. Continually she is

an object of pity, never empowered in her disability, and what perhaps

ought to be a moment of triumph in the rediscovery of her ability to

communicate and identify her assaulters becomes a moment for the men

to take action. This overall derisory view on disability is perhaps best

summarised in the final words of the

extract:’Magni Dominator poli, Tam lentus audis scelera, tam lentus vides

?
[Latin: ‘Ruler of the great heavens, are you so slow to hear crimes, so slow

to see?’]’. Titus states that for the gods to have lapsed in judgement, they

too must have suffered a loss of their physical ability.

Bibliography:

David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder. ‘Chapter 2: Narrative Prosthesis and the
Materiality of Metaphor’. Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of
Discourse. University of Michigan Press, 2000. pp.47
Shakespeare, William. 2015. Titus Andronicus . Edited by Jonathan Bate.
[London] : Bloomsbury.