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PTSD In Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus

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The United States Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that anywhere from eleven to thirty percent of combat veterans, depending on era of service, develop post-traumatic stress disorder, commonly abbreviated as PTSD (“How Common is PTSD”). This likelihood increases if the trauma experienced was long-lasting or severe, if the person in question was directly exposed to the trauma, or if the person in question feared for their life or the life of a loved one (ibid). In Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, the eponymous Titus is said to have served Rome in war for forty years, ten years in his most recent tour, and to have lost twenty-one sons in the process. The events and writing of this play both take place centuries before the advent of modern …show more content…

Most if not all crimes committed over the course of the play can be traced back to the very first scene, when a victorious Titus returns to Rome after a ten-year war, waged against the Goths, with Tamora, the queen of the Goths, three of her sons, and other Goths in tow. Lucius, Titus’s eldest son, then calls for the execution of Alarbus, Tamora’s eldest son and “the noblest [Goth] that survives,” to appease the spirits of the Romans who died in battle (I.I.105). Tamora begs for Titus to spare Alarbus; in doing so, she tries to appeal to his own status as a parent. Despite her emotional plea, Titus refuses, claiming that “[her] son is marked, and die he must / T’appease their groaning shadows that are gone” (I.I.129). Willis aptly describes the ritual sacrifice of Alarbus as “[...] designed to help survivors of combat cope with the loss of fallen comrades-in this case, comrades who are also family members-and [...] prerequisite for proper burial” (Willis 35). This is part of why Titus goes ahead with the sacrifice despite Tamora’s plea, but there are other factors at

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This means that even the most-seasoned war veteran has trouble handling the anguish caused by war. If the most experienced soldiers struggle to handle the mental intensity of war, just imagine the unbearable magnitude of trauma a boy experiences in only a few days worth of fighting. These boys are already mentally traumatized in minutes of

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