Chapter 17 - Anger

Summary

In Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and Shakespeare and Middleton’s Timon of Athens the title characters express intense anger and desire for revenge, but nonetheless retain their masculinity and do not degenerate into weakness or effeminacy. This essay identifies ways that these plays use gender to influence how audiences distinguish between extreme and excessive anger. In Titus Tamora’s failure as an effective avenger keeps revenge a masculine pursuit. Moreover, the play maps an emotional register onto the Goth-Roman-Moor racial and moral spectrum. Whereas Aaron’s and Tamora’s anger appears excessive, Titus’ appears moderately and appropriately Roman – despite the violence it entails. In Timon, female characters are virtually absent, and the play clears a place for considering men’s anger and revenge that brackets off effeminacy. The grounds for Timon’s misanthropic, vengeful tirades, rather than gender, determine whether his emotions are excessive. The questions raised in both plays about the line between extreme and excessive anger, and the revenge that ensues, thus have political implications. What reasons and circumstances make anger and revenge a legitimate response to being wronged? Who decides, and what role does gender play in that determination?