Lavinia: The Character Who Cannot Speak
First appears: Act 1, Scene 1
Lavinia is raped by Chiron and Demetrius in Act 2. They cut off her hands and cut out her tongue to prevent her revealing them. For most of the play's middle section she cannot speak and cannot write, yet she is present in almost every scene.
She eventually communicates by directing a staff with her arms to spell out names in the earth. The method of revealing the truth is one of the play's stranger inventions.
Her father kills her in Act 5, to free her from shame, he says, in a moment that says as much about Roman honour codes as it does about Titus's grief. Shakespeare gives her no voice in this decision.
Key Scenes
Famous Quotes
“O, keep me from their worse than killing lust, And tumble me into some loathsome pit.”
Lavinia — Act 2, Scene 3
“When did the tiger's young ones teach the dam? O, do not learn her wrath; she taught it thee.”
Lavinia — Act 2, Scene 3
Themes
Other Characters in Titus Andronicus
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