Suspicious Females - Female Characteristics in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and Macbeth

"Suspicious Females:"

Female characteristics in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and Macbeth

Although witches had been around for a while in Europe, Witchcraft prosecution was established in England during Elizabeth first's reign, more precisely in 1563. The period of legislation against activities related to witchcraft extended from the year 1542 to the beginning of the eighteenth century in England, and during this era there were an approximate number of one thousand proclaimed witches that were sentenced to death and hung. The first known witch to have experienced this tragic death was Agnes Waterhouse. Unlike the rest of Europe, there was less torture in the death sentence of identified witches. The only time they were burned to death was when they had murdered their husband. Throughout these controversial years in England, there was a lot of questioning about the concept of witchcraft and contrary to what many believe, witchcraft was constantly talked about and debated. As a result, the entire phenomenon created an obsession in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and influenced many works such as William Shakespeare's plays. The identification of a female as a witch is represented in Titus Andronicus through Tamora, because of her distinct personality, her actions and her characterization, that closely resemble to those of a witch in the proper context of time. Moreover, the same idea that females are indeed witches is depicted in the play Macbeth via the role of Lady Macbeth, because of her specific ability to manipulate, her supernatural ways and her representation as a whole throughout the play.

Tamora has quite an interesting role in Titus Andronicus and by analyzing the Queen of Goths closely; it will be possible to conclude that she is indeed a witch. Formerly, in the first scene of the first act, Titus wants to sacrifice Tamora's oldest son in exchange of his own dead son. Tamora is bewildered by this decision and she expresses her emotions saying: "Victorious Titus rue the tears I shed, a mothers tears in passion for her son"(1.1.105-106). In Tamora's response following the harsh decision there is a clear expression of care and pity towards her son. Likewise, in the protestant Christian characterization of witches, it was said that witches had an enormous amount of fear regarding their children's fortune. Both Tamora and the witches have a similar attitude when it comes to the fortune of their offspring. On the same note, witches in a protestant Christian environment were famous for disrupting marriage and social establishments. In the play Tamora has an affair with Aaron while she is the empress. Therefore, by not respecting her alliance to the emperor she disrupts their marriage and analogous to witches, Tamora disturbed a social establishment. Subsequently, Tamora's representation in the play is paralleled with the characterization of the witches in the Christian protestant environment.

Through further analysis, females are associated to witches because Tamora's character is found to have a lot in common with the ancient goddess Diana. This similarity is crucial and determinant because Professor Blair Morris pointed out that Diana, in the Elizabethan era was considered to be weird due to fact that she was a pagan female goddess. The word weird is strongly linked to witchcraft, for instance in the play Macbeth, the three witches were very often called the weird sisters. Furthermore, a definition of weird during the Elizabethan era using the Oxford English Dictionary is a person pretending or supposed to have the power to foresee and control future events, a witch or wizard, a soothsayer. Hence any comparison made between the goddess and Tamora will enforce the fact that females are identified as witches. The first adjacency between the Goddess Diana and Tamora is that they both had an affair and a child with evil men. Aaron is regarded as the most evil and devilish character in the play, he admits himself that he participated in all the crimes that occurred in the play when he tells Lucius: "And what not done that thou hast cause to rue, wherein I had no stroke of mischief in it?"(5.1.111-112). Tamora mated with Aaron and Diana, on her side, had an affair with Lucifer, a man representing the root of evil. An equally important observable aspect is that Tamora's dream of revenge sees it's beginning during the hunting party she is enrolled in. During this party Tamora's personality drastically changes. The whole hunting scene has a very important impact on Tamora and also on the events that will eventually occur in the play. Conveniently, Diana was categorized as the goddess of hunt, hence another association of both Tamora and the Goddess. Finally, a last juxtaposition can be made because they were both physically attractive. For instance Saturninus describes Tamora in the first act as: "A godly lady, trust me, of hue"(1.1.263) where Godly means that she is beautiful. Tamora, without a doubt, has similar, if not identical characteristics to the goddess Diana. Shakespeare has referred to Diana in many other plays such as Romeo and Juliet , The Merchant of Venice and Pericles, Prince of Tyre, just to name a few. According to the author's knowledge of the goddess and the definition of the word weird during the Elizabethan time, Shakespeare's subtle associations of Tamora and Diana are done in awareness and explain the identification of Tamora, a female, as a witch. Therefore, since the queen of Goths is a female and her many aspects relate to witchcraft, in the considered time context or a weird person, it is logical to think that Shakespeare was representing a female as a witch. On another