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The Rape Of Lucrece Analysis

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The Rape of Lucrece by Miriam Jacobson, links the word “cipher” with rape. Ciphers are used in conjunction with Tarquin's and Lucrece's bodies. Tarquin's authoritative attempt to silence Lucrece fails in “the knowledge of the rape surfaces repeatedly throughout the text in circular and cryptic ciphers, configuring Lucrece's body as a succession of Os and as a secret text constantly reveal” (Jacobson 336). The verb "to cipher" occurs after Lucrece has been raped; whereas, "to cipher" used in association with Tarquin means to indicate an absence in Tarquin's baton sinistre. The shame of rape has been "charactered" onto Lucrece and she fears “she will become a text that even the illiterate can decipher” (Jacobson 347). After the rape, Lucrece’s …show more content…

Lucrece in her curtained bed, and her silent screams in her head, Lucrece and Tarquin are compared to animals: ““The wolfe hath ceazed his prey, the poor lamb cries, / Till with her own white fleece her voice controld, / Intombs her outcrie in her lips sweet fold”” (Quay 7). "Fold" describes three circular enclosures in metaphorical form: a sheepfold for the innocent lamb, which is comparative to a lamb with “vellum” like skin and enhances the metaphor as Tarquin’s penis is scraping a message into her brutally via her forced-open labia, the “sweet lips fold”, the enclosing (entombs) of Lucrece's cries inside her mouth, a metaphorical picture describing Tarquin muffling Lucrece’s screams by raising her nightgown over her head: "For with the nightlie linen that she wears / He pens piteous clamours in her head" (Jacobson 353-354). The pun on "pens" is indicative of Tarquin fencing (penning) Lucrece in like a lamb enclosed in a "fold" (Jacobson 354) while writing on her body. The Shakespeare version modifies this however; by imagining the penes/ penis as a pen that leaves an invisible mark on the body of a woman. Throughout the narrative, the “Os!” of Lucrece’s moans as she is violently inscribed upon are not reproduced. Instead, the tortured sounds are replaced by the text “O!” in the narrator’s words, accompanying the rape description with the circular “O” shape made by the

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