The tragic downfall of Lucrece in Shakespeare's "Rape of Lucrece" can largely be attributed to male competition. His unfortunate story begins with a contest to determine which man possesses the most chaste wife, "among whom Collato extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife Lucretia." After Lucretia is proclaimed the most dutiful, Sextus Tarquinius, a Tarquinian prince and friend of Collatine, becomes "inflamed by Lucretia's beauty...he treacherously sneaks into her room, rapes her violently, and leaves early in the morning." In the rhetoric of early modern masculinity, women's chastity is a source of great anxiety, because although it is the basis of male honor, female chastity is ultimately outside of male control. Men resolve their anxiety by making chastity a public virtue and the basis of a woman's social reputation; women are given a stake in their own chastity. Because of the public meaning of chastity, he is both a figure of approval and attack and, as such, becomes a treasured resource in the world of male rivalry. Collatine's honor depends on Lucrece's ability to hide her body from other men. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay "Lucrece" is a text in both a literal and metaphorical sense: like the body of the poem, the body of the character Lucrece is also intended for publication. Shakespeare's poetry, written from a male perspective, suggests a male audience in lines such as "their gentle sex are often disposed to weep" (1237). Likewise, Lucrezia's chastity, the basis of Collatine's masculine identity, is written on her body and is used in "Lucrezia" as an exchange between men. In addition to being a woman, Lucretia is also a commodity in the male economy, where male competition manifests itself in the form of desire and metaphors of invasion and conquest are symbols of male power. Lucrezia's body is her currency in this exchange of goods. In the "Rape of Lucretia", the chaste wife bestows honor and prestige on her husband. Men are judged by other men on their ability to maintain control over their wives and keep them chaste. This is a contradictory standard, because it partly stems from men's ability to sexually please their wives so that they refrain from finding sexual gratification elsewhere. In part it also derives from their ability to impose a code of behavior on their wives, in which chastity is a moral value that women must also somehow embody: it is a norm written and carried forward by the female body. Men are expected to maintain control over their wives' bodies and have the power to turn female sexuality on or off like a switch. To exercise power over the female body, men must maintain strict transparency in their relationships with their wives. To prove which wife is the most virtuous, Tarquin's men surprise their wives with "late night" visits, as if the only method of validating a woman's honesty is to catch her while her guard is down - which already suggests intense distrust. . If men viewed women as inherently chaste, female chastity wouldn't even be a matter of discussion, much less something that needed to be tested or proven. Women, when left alone and out of male control, could easily be found "in different sports". Early modern gender relations were profoundly complex, and the complexities stemmed in part frommisogynistic notion that women would only adhere to chastity if their husbands forced it on them. about them. It was unthinkable that women had the free will to decide whether or not to follow social customs. Collatine is considered exceptionally fortunate "In possession of his fair mate; / Calculating his fortune at such a proud rate / Kings might be married with greater fame, / But the king is not equal to so matchless a lady" (18-21 ). Shakespeare's pun on the word "peer" indicates the pervasiveness of this notion: Lucrece is without "peer", because her husband does not need to constantly "peer" into his wife's private space to evaluate her honesty. His incomparable valor and Collatine's fortune both derive from Lucruce's inherent virtue. The fear of female mystery, of what women do when left alone in their female space, causes a lot of anxiety in men, and men constantly invade female space to "control" female behavior. The invasion metaphor is omnipresent in "Rape of Lucrece", as the story is set during the Tarquin invasion of Ardea. The meta-narrative of “Lucrece” is already a story of conquest; Lucrece, a nobleman's wife, lives beneath and within the grand narrative of a male power struggle. For the men of "Lucrece", invasion is the natural method of asserting power. When Tarquinius invades Collatine's house and Lucretia's feminine space, he is depicted as a soldier, and Lucretia is represented as her battlefield, whose beauty is "a silent war of lilies and roses / Which Tarquinius saw in the field of her beautiful face" (71 -71). As a battlefield, the violence of conquest is exerted on and through her, but although the war is fought on her, she is not its cause. Rape is not a sexual act, but an exercise of power – and since women in Roman and early modern times had little power of their own, Tarquin's rape of Lucretia is essentially an exercise of power over Collatine. Tarquin threatens Lucretia with the dishonor of Collatine to acquire her submission, stating that if she fails to acquiesce, "thy surviving husband will remain / The scornful mark of every open eye; / Thy kinsmen bow their heads to this contempt." Mark Breitenberg explains: In short, Tarquin gains honor by raping the wife of someone as powerful as Collatine and destroys his own honor at the same time. This contradiction is certainly made explicit in the poem through Tarquin's tortured psychomania between the preservation and corruption of his own honor... it seems... that his overwhelming and inescapable desire is indeed replacing the inherent contradictions of a system in which men they receive honor from their peers in reciprocal relationships… but they also receive honor in the conquest of those same peers. The idea of ​​public versus private disgrace is essential in “Lucrece,” and how the different characters deal with this conflict is representative of their virtue and integrity. While Tarquin is content with his belief that the rape will remain secret, Lucrece cannot live with the idea that she is somehow diminished as a person and sees her eventual suicide as her only hope for redemption. "My blood will wash away the slander of my evil; / the evil deed of my life, the beautiful end of my life will free it" (1207-1208). Although Lucrece only causes pain to herself and others by publicizing her rape, her courageous honesty is depicted as righteous, while Tarquin's stealth is an act of cowardly disgrace. The importance of transparency in gender relations is highlighted once again in Lucrece's revelation. Public recognition isFundamental because women can honor their husbands only if their chastity is advertised, but to enhance the virtue of a wife it and makes it an object of desire in the eyes of other men. This gives men power and at the same time makes them vulnerable to usurpation of power. This paradox presents an underlying technical problem in the system. Shakespeare writes: "Or why Collatine is the publisher / of that rich jewel that should keep the thieves unknown to the ears, why is it his" (33-35)? Although he writes within a patriarchal system, Shakespeare seems to offer a criticism of that patriarchate, because perhaps if collapses had not felt the need to affirm Lucrezia's chastity, if only he had recognized it as intrinsic, he would not have caused the desire to Tarquinio and the tragic rape could have been avoided. Shakespeare describes how, if revealed, Lucrezia would be like the morning dew under the sun, a "deadline" deleted before even it had started well. / Honor and beauty in the arms of the owner / are weakly defended by a world of dangers "(26-28). Although apparently outlined, the notions of" public "and" private "space share confused boundaries within an ideology that thus closely connects chastity to honor. When looking for it, the supernatural also resumes the help of Lucrezia in the form of a wind, locks and closed doors, and Tarquinio is continuously discouraged, the constant deferment of pleasure, however, excites only more than Tarquinio, which proclaims: "These They leave time, / like small footst that sometimes. They threaten spring, / to add more joy to spring / and give the birds captured more reason to sing "(330-33). Lucrezia fascinates Tarquinio because he is denied. He is in his personal room, a space where only his husband can enter , and Tarquin's excitement comes not so much from his desire for Lucrece, but from his desire to penetrate a space where he is expressly forbidden. Shakespeare does not dwell on the act of rape itself, but instead focuses on the hunt: Lucretia is the hunted, Tarquinius is the hunter, and the thrill - both for Tarquinius and the reader - is in the hunt Michael Hall writes: The long description of Tarquinius' movement into Lucrece's bedroom is full of martial imagery and suggestion. of stealth, power and mastery. These images ensure that Tarquinius' assault will be seen within the traditional narrative form of conquest and that there will be the subsequent thrill of the chase. After Tarquinius rapes Lucretia, it is as if she has lost all its charm; He satiated his desire, has committed the last act of power and has nothing more to demonstrate. Hall explains: The basic form through which hunting, battle, and rape were depicted is at once simple and familiar: a man or group of men selects, attacks, and resists... who resists and is ultimately defeated ...Individual men could play out narratives of conquest, but the reason the stories needed to be told was to establish group identity and affirm the values ​​associated with masculinity. So when the stories concern individuals, the point is to strengthen the identity of the male group. Tarquin's singular act of rape is an assertion not only of his power over Collatine, but also of his superiority over other men, who are denied the thrill of the hunt. Because Tarquinio led the marital chastity of Lucrezia. In this sense, rape is a profoundly social act.In the male economy, the mercantile value of Lucrezia derives from the forbidden nature of his chastity. Once conquered by Tarquinio, once the lines have opened, its value collapses, not only for collapses, but for all men. Lucrezia is basically involved in the patriarchate of her time. Its moral system focuses on two contrasting patriarchal ideologies: the theological and Christian theological notions of morality. Roman ideology states that if a woman is raped, it is somehow reduced as a person, consequently it has been contaminated. There is no duality between mind and body, because a woman is her body and, although her mind can be innocent of rape, her body bears pollution. A woman can, however, regain her virtue literally purging herself from her dishonor; It can kill himself. Christian theological ideology says that it is immoral that Lucrezia suicides, because suicide is a shame against God. Despite his contaminated body, Lucrece's mind is free from sin, and therefore it is free from every fault. Shakespeare gives Lucrece the opportunity to choose how to see himself after rape, but it is a choice based on male terms. Lucrece's action is limited by two contrasting patriarchal speeches: he must adopt one of the two incompatible notions, and his inner conflict is evident in lines such as, "If, Collatine, your honor lies in me, / from me a strong assault He is private: / My honey is lost, and I, a bee similar to a drone, / I no longer have the perfection of my summer "(834-837) and" although my gross blood is stained by this abuse, / Immaculate and stainless is my mind "(1655-1666). Lucrezia realizes that she is trapped in a paradox, but cannot come out of it: "My body or soul, which was the most expensive, / when the pure mother made divine" (1163-1166)? Breitenberg writes: "Although Shakespeare clearly intends to show the emptiness and self -destructiveness of the Tarquinio rability, there are few suggestions on a way out of the wolves market where male desire is pushed to the extremes violent by the fetishization of chastity". Lucrece's misery, in part, derives from his lack of free will, but also derives from the agony of the choice, from the fact that his only possibility is to adopt an ideology that does not understand. Lucrece spends the last half of poetry literally trying to understand what to do with herself. Although he decides almost immediately after Tarquin has gone that he has to kill himself, his internal monologue is basically conflicting until the end. In fact, it comes to the point of asking for collapses and his men: "May my pure mind dispense from the repugnant act, / my honor rejected to advance? Could some term acquit me from this possibility" (1704-1706). He does not commit suicide until "all together began to say / his body is stained, his pristine mind lightens" (1709-1710). Despite the awareness of being a victim and not a executioner, Lucrezia at the end commit suicide because he cannot live with his body. Lucrece's mind can be pure, but he is convinced that the rape tests have permanently marked his person, and consequently the honor of Collatine. The failed chastity of Lucrece and the compromised honor of collapses are written on her body, and this awareness causes Lucrece so much anguish that she chooses to die. Lucrece's body is, throughout the work, a symbol that does not belong to it, a symbol that does not control. In the gender policy of the early modern age, the body of women was a political symbol and the concerns of women were derived on their bodies as emblems. Lucrezia refers to the figure of Ecuba in the Arazzo depicting the fall of Troy, because "in her the painter had anatomized / the ruin of time, the ruin of beauty andthe kingdom of gloomy care; / Her cheeks with cuts and wrinkles were masked, / Of what of her no appearance remained" (1450-1453). Hecuba, like Lucretia, physically registers her sorrows. But as Jonathan Crewe makes clear, "She cannot fully identify with the old queen Hecuba as the tragic victim, and does not want to be identified with the suspected Helen... The figure on which she fixates in a surprising but revealing way is that of Sinon, the traitor who brought about the fall of Troy." Lucrece he feels as if he has somehow betrayed Collatine, even though he knows that her soul is beyond reproach. It is as if the transparency that men impose in relationships with their wives somehow externalizes the female psyche on their bodies, perpetuating the myth according to. which a wife cannot hide anything from her husband; her body is not hers, but his. Lucretia's body is seen as a text, and she laments: Don't make me object to the revealing day; my forehead The story of the decadence of sweet chastity, The impious violation of the sacred marital vow; Yes, the illiterate who does not know how to cipher what is written in learned books Will cite my repugnant transgression in my appearance. (806-812) The female body is never simply a body; always represents a resource for male exchange. At the beginning of "Rape of Lucrece," her body serves as Collatine's badge of honor, but after she is raped she wears the badge of scandal and shame. At the end of the poem, Lucretia's body becomes a symbol of the unification of Rome, when Collatine and his men appeal to the Roman people to banish the Tarquins. To the modern reader, Collatine and his men appear frighteningly unsympathetic in their decision to use Lucretia's suicide as an excuse to unite Rome. However, this decision is not surprising, as the political significance of the body is a pervasive theme throughout the work. Another indication of Lucretia's position as a politicized male object is her importance as a bearer of Collatine's lineage. She is his conduit: her duty is to reproduce, and the male child Lucrece is expected to give birth to will serve as an extension of Collatine's power. Lucretia's place in family and society is that of wife to her husband and mother to his child. The importance of women as bearers of the paternal line is a source of great unease in early modern literature. Women, not men, are the ones who determine lineage, because although women have children, men cannot prove legitimacy: it is a matter of faith. The importance of chastity is greatly increased because the chaste wife cannot have children other than her husband's, and chastity is the only virtue that guarantees a legitimate patriarchal lineage. Tarquinius is fully aware that by raping Lucretia he could make her pregnant: "I have discussed even in my soul/What wrong, what shame, what pain I will arouse" (498-499). Rather than being a deterrent, this is a source of sadistic pleasure: “Yet I force myself to embrace my infamy” (504). To stop the possibility of having a child with Tarquin and pollute Collatine's family line, Lucrece's suicide is a virtual necessity. "This bastard will never grow up; / He will not boast of one who has polluted the cattle / That you are a father fond of his fruit" (1062-1064). Margo Hendricks uses the analogy of race, stating: The ironic paradox, of course, is that this sign is invisible except as it pertains to the imaginative threads of that site of racial identity: heraldry. In Lucretia's mind, once the rape is committed, its inscription remains indelibly imprinted on her body and, by extension, on Collatine's lineage. The point at which this sign becomes visible,.