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Essay: Explore the Depraved Character of Aaron the Moor in Shakespeare’s 'Titus Andronicus’: Uncovering the Complexity of Prejudice and Power

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  • Published: 23 March 2023*
  • Last Modified: 22 July 2024
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  • Words: 1,263 (approx)
  • Number of pages: 6 (approx)
  • Tags: Shakespeare essays

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In the Renaissance period, the Moor was considered a very particular race of people possessing visibly African features and dark skin, associated with depravity, and a lack of emotional intelligence due to their stereotyped uncontrollable sexual lust and overdrives. They were considered ‘other’ and essentially ‘other’ is all that the self was not. These notions of the ‘other’ and the construction of them were based off, and often in contradiction to, empirical evidence. Shakespeare’s characterisation of Aaron the Moor in Titus Andronicus, seems to be an amalgamation of all the stereotypes permeating the minds of the Renaissance individual of barbarism and inherit lack of goodness associated with blackness. However, with further observation of Aaron’s linguistic abilities, particularly his impressive soliloquy in Act V, Scene I of the play, complex layers of his character become unveiled. Through a close analysis of this passage, it can be considered that Shakespeare may be making an interesting comment on the role of power in Titus Andronicus, observing what happens when an originally disregarded individual possesses the innate potential to subvert the very system they’re a product of, and what that says about the people tasked with the conditioning.

When observing the bestial, lascivious and treacherous behaviour of Aaron the Moor through a post-colonial lens, it’s understood the cultural influence of Aaron’s depiction as a savage is in contrast to the savagery presented within characters such as Tamora and the Goths, who are white and visibly of European descent. As an audience, it is then acknowledged that this innate savagery displayed by Aaron is the product of Renaissance prejudices regarding the ‘racial other’, the archetypal nature of his character being “of a relatively restricted and simple group of formulas that can be studied in a primitive culture”. Within the play, various expletives are made against his skin colour and he is viewed as a “ravenous tiger” and an “inhuman dog” by Lucius who also considers him the chief instigator of all the disaster and calamity unfolding. Interestingly, Aaron doesn’t attempt to debunk these stereotypical assumptions put forth by Lucius and characters alike, rather, in response to such claims, he proudly puts forward a catalogue of crimes.

“As kill a man, or else device his death;
Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it;
Accuse some innocent and forswear myself;
Set deadly enmity between two friends,
Make poor men’s cattle break their necks; 
Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night…”

According to Emily Bartels, Aaron’s portrayal in Titus Andronicus suggests an irony in its blurring of distinctions, it “presents the stereotype as the one reliable measure of difference, the one stable and unambiguous sign of Otherness within a ‘wilderness’ of meaning”. Aaron displays an element of poetic prowess in his ability to manipulate rhetoric as a tool of weaponry, trading insult for insult. His eloquence of language makes the audience sympathetic and cautious, realising the complexity of this character, particularly coming from someone who historically would be considered subhuman. Aaron’s pleasure and artistry in drawing up complex plots of malignity discerns his literary agency of action better than any other character in this play. All Roman characters, including Titus, are subject to predetermined texts and ambitions, unwilling subjects to fates will and plan. Aaron is the only character with the capacity and personal power to position himself on the outside with the independence and authority that an author possesses to create and prescribe his own form of fiction onto other characters’ lives.

Aaron’s soliloquy is a significant moment for both his character and the audiences’ reading of his character. The long running, uninterrupted sentences of speech revealing his acts of blasphemy, displays his ability to conjure up a range of descriptive images without needing to stop for thought.
There is an interesting juxtaposition in his eloquent use of language to the actual words he is saying; these are base, primal, and savage actions that no man who can speak and mimic the language of society so persuasively should be able to commit. The imagery evokes from the reader an unexpected and challenging shock at the direct confrontation of the capacity of evil one human can perform. The accumulative listing of all the atrocious crimes he has committed, and the structural design of the soliloquy creates a potential for repentance, setting the scene up for a miraculous and sincere apology from Aaron, which would be expected from characters being held to trial and at this point of climax in the story.

‘Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.’
Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things 
As willingly as one would kill a fly, 
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed…”

Aaron speaks in blank verse which is commonly only spoken by characters of high status and importance, conveying his intelligence and amplifying the opportunity to display remorse. Loomba detects evidence in Aaron’s defence of a capacity for goodness and virtue in the way Aaron protects his son, even offering up his own life to be sacrificed on the condition that his son remains unharmed. However, despite this small glimpse of redemption in his character, while this may not be understood by the modern audience, Shakespeare was writing to a very specific audience in a very particular time in history, thus he could not stray far from the prejudicial assumptions and beliefs of the time. It would be considered foreign and incomprehensible for a character who had previously completed and instigated such atrocious activities, especially being of a Moorish background, to be given the opportunity to make amends. Hence, all notions and prospect of penitence is immediately demolished in Aaron’s strong declaration that the only thing he regrets in his life is “But that I cannot do ten thousand more.” The excess of his violence is only matched by the sincerity of his appetite to complete more villainy. This scene can only evoke horror in an audience, effectively erasing any sympathy a reader might have previously developed for Aaron. However, one can begin to wonder if Titus Andronicus, being Shakespeare’s first play, had been a product of a different time, whether the character development of Aaron the Moor would be taken along a different path. Shakespeare gently pushes the notion of Aaron being intellectually and emotionally on par, if not superior, to the other characters in the play, who tend to act purely on impulse, compared to Aaron’s calculated and premediated actions.

On one hand Shakespeare, in Titus Andronicus, is adhering to the prejudice attitudes of the time through the character of Aaron the Moor – the idea of the ‘other’, and the fear people possessed. However, he also makes an interesting comment through Aaron’s ability to conduct himself among the ranks of Roman nobility and speak eloquently on their level as though he is no other. For a man who, due to his skin colour, would traditionally be considered emotionally unintelligent, Aaron holds himself with a certain quality of dignity in every act he has ever committed, no matter how ‘savage’ or ‘barbaric’ they may be. Thus, an important question permeates the play and must be considered on whether Shakespeare, through his characterisation of Aaron, is creating a stock violent villain out of the Moor which would be acceptable to the Renaissance audience that this play was birthed in; or if he is making an interesting comment on the complexity of the ‘other’ and their intellectual capabilities that is able to overthrow the very society that placed themselves above them.

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