A Tragedy of Principle

            In the article we read by Coppelia Kahn, Kahn asserts that “Lavinia…helped precipitate rape by boasting of her chastity…” (Kahn 64). From a psychological standpoint, I wondered why Lavinia decides to employ a biting tone unique to her otherwise reserved role in the play.
“’Tis thought you have a goodly gift in horning, / And to be doubted (suspected) that your Moor and you / Are singled forth to try experiments,” Lavinia says to Tamora upon seeing her with Aaron in the forest (2.3.67-9). After Chiron and Demetrius murder Bassianus, Lavinia becomes fiercer still. “Ay, come, Semiramis (Assyrian Queen with attributes of the Goddess of Lust Ishtar) – nay, barbarous Tamora, / For no name fits thy nature but thy own,” she scolds (2.3.118-9). Given that Lavinia does not give caustic criticisms or personal attacks at any other point in the play, why would she do so now, especially as she faces the wrath of Tamora and her sons?
            I’ve attached a link to a recent article examining the psychology of "slut shaming". According to Marisa Taylor, "slut shaming" has less to do with sexual behavior as was previously thought and more to do with social class. Sociologists followed fifty-three women from their freshman year of college until after graduation as part of a five year study, examining their social behaviors. Professor of sociology and organizational studies Elizabeth Armstrong noted that in general women who perceive themselves to be higher in the social hierarchy engage in "slut shaming", or “…the practice of maligning women for presumed sexual activity,” to make room for their own sexual promiscuity. The study concluded that the overall purpose of slut-shaming is to send a message to lower-class women that they aren’t welcome in high-status groups.
            Putting Lavinia’s actions in this contemporary perspective, I see two possibilities as to why she feels comfortable criticizing Tamora. Either Lavinia views Tamora as lower in Rome’s social order because of her outsider status (her “otherness”) and wants to make clear that she is not welcome or views herself as above or exempt from the kind of social order where Tamora is higher. I think that the latter is a much more interesting interpretation because it speaks to the patriarchal origins of Lavinia's belief system.
            From the play’s beginning, Lavinia is “Rome’s rich ornament” (1.1.52). Her agency is as a valuable object to Rome and most of the characters, namely men, for her ability to serve (you guessed it) men. Lavinia is an ornament, a jewel, a form of currency backed by the gold standard of her chastity. Following my “thesis,” Lavinia attempts to supersede Tamora in the social hierarchy by virtue of this status. Lavinia scorns Tamora’s sexuality to demonstrate that she believes she is higher in a society where Tamora is considered royalty as a matter of principle. Lavinia does not heed her situational reality (for Chiron and Demetrius are about to ravage her) or agency (for she has no agency of her own to lose as an object viewed in terms of her service to men). And since Lavinia is obviously not slandering Tamora's sexuality to make room for her own sexual promiscuity, I believe that Lavinia’s comments show her supreme adherence to patriarchal principles where a woman's sexuality may be put under a microscope at the expense of, well, women, leading only to women losing more and more of their agency through objectification overall. For Lavinia looks and more like a mute object than ever after her disfigurement, and Tamora goes on to willingly discard her agency as a woman (in becoming Revenge) while ironically looking like an object (without hands) in the movie we watched. What does everyone think?
           

 

Slut-shaming has little to do with sex, study finds

 

Here's the link to that study, if you guys are interested.