Sex and a woman’s role are over arching theme in a lot of Shakespeare’s work, and is one of the flaws with Tamora from Titus Adronicus. When Titus captures Tamora, the queen of the Goths, as a prisoner of war, her son is killed as sacrifice. She swears revenge on him. Vengeance causes people to behave in unforgivable ways, and for Tamora it is her disregard for marriage, her sex and her duties as a mother all in the name of avenging her son. In the era that Shakespeare wrote this play, a woman’s role is to marry a man. Although Tamora does marry Saturninus, the King of Rome, she does it only to manipulate and have the neccecary power over Titus. When Saturninus asks for Tamora’s hand in marriage, she says “ If Saturnine advance the queen of Goths she will be a handmaid be to his desires.(“ act 1, scene 1) Tamora is saying that she is willing to be his female servant ( handmaiden) in return for the title of Queen of Rome. This is an example of how her need for power and revenge overshadowes her pride as a woman.…show more content… Another example of this is with her lover Aaron the Moor. It is shown that she has a sexual and romantic relationship with Aaron, and she is shown cheating on Saturninus with him. In Shakespeare’s writing, marriage is something very important, either love, hate or forced, marriage is a big character arc for a lot of people. And Tamora disregards it almost immediately just for power. I believe this is a way that Shakespeare hints at her being a villain who doesn’t care about who or what she disregards, and this if the first time in the play that we see her do something that a typical villain might do. Although you could make a case for characters who defy their parents to try to marry someone (Romeo and Juliet, Hermia from Midsummer Night’s Dream), They are pursuing love while Tamora is abusing
