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Hyperbole
Definition of Irony
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this seems like a loose definition... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how... read full definition
Act 5, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Are They thy Ministers?:
In Act 5, Scene 2, Tamora disguises herself before approaching Titus in a scene full of situational and dramatic irony. The audience is aware of her disguise plot, as she announces her intentions on stage prior to knocking on Titus’s door. Although Titus suspects Tamora’s identity, he only questions her outright once and seems to take her subsequent explanation (that she is "Revenge") at face value—at least on the surface. When Titus plays along with Tamora’s ruse by suggesting that her two sons must be personifications of Rape and Murder, Tamora’s response introduces situational irony to the scene:
Tamora: These are my ministers and come with me.
Titus: Are they thy ministers? What are they called?
Tamora: Rape and Murder; therefore callèd so
’Cause they take vengeance of such kind of men.
Titus: Good Lord, how like the Empress’ sons they are,
And you the Empress! But we worldly men
Have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes.
O sweet Revenge, now do I come to thee,
And if one arm’s embracement will content thee,
I will embrace thee in it by and by.
In the quote above, Tamora’s introduction of her sons Chiron and Demetrius as Rape and Murder (named thus because they are the kind to avenge victims of those crimes) is an extreme example of situational irony, as they are in fact the perpetrators of such violence against Titus’s own daughter. There is further irony in Titus’s recognition of Tamora and her sons, as well as in his decision to play up his madness to confuse and frustrate her plans. Thus, as the scene unfolds, the audience watches as Tamora and Titus each attempt to sound each other out and trick their opponent, in a multilayered instance of dramatic irony.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Feast with Me:
After Titus captures and gags Chiron and Demetrius near the end of Act 5, Scene 2, he begins to formulate his plan to kill his daughter’s rapists and feed them to their mother. This moment is full of verbal irony:
You know your mother means to feast with me,
And calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad.
Hark, villains, I will grind your bones to dust,
And with your blood and it I’ll make a paste,
And of the paste a coffin I will rear,
And make two pasties of your shameful heads,
And bid that strumpet, your unhallowed dam,
Like to the earth swallow her own increase.
This is the feast that I have bid her to,
And this the banquet she shall surfeit on;
Overcome with madness in his pursuit of revenge, Titus outlines his plans to Chiron and Demetrius, repeatedly referring to his plan to hold a “feast” with Tamora. The irony, of course, is that the "feast" she will be attending is not one in which the attendees will meet to make merry and break bread, but rather to glut themselves on vengeance (which can never fulfill anyone enough to satisfaction). Instead of gathering the Roman elite for a celebratory and enjoyable, sumptuous meal, Titus informs Tamora’s sons that his guests will dine on their ground bones and blood—this gruesome meal is the “banquet” their mother will eat.
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Act 5, Scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—Will't Please You Eat?:
In Act 5, Scene 3 Titus feeds Tamora her own sons, baked into a pastry, as revenge for their rape of his daughter, whom he himself murdered moments before in order to mitigate her dishonor. This is a gruesome act of dramatic irony, as in the previous scene Titus states exactly what his plans are regarding the baking of her two sons:
Titus: Will ’t please you eat?—Will ’t please your Highness feed?
Tamora: Why hast thou slain thine only daughter thus?
Titus: Not I; ’twas Chiron and Demetrius.
They ravished her and cut away her tongue,
And they, ’twas they, that did her all this wrong.
Saturninus: Go fetch them hither to us presently.
Titus: Why, there they are, both bakèd in this pie,
Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,
Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.
’Tis true, ’tis true! Witness my knife’s sharp point.
When Tamora and the other guests first arrive at the feast, Titus encourages everyone to eat, claiming that the food may be “poor” but it will "fill [their] stomachs]." In the passage above, he again encourages everyone to eat and pays particular attention to urging Tamora to ingest the “food on the table.” The fact that Titus only reveals the gruesome truth of the pastries’ human filling once he is sure that Tamora has eaten her sons adds to the horrible, macabre, somewhat uncomfortably humorous irony of the scene.
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