Violence in Renaissance plays is clearly evident when characters are injured, tortured, and killed. What isn’t quite clear however is the distinction between the affect of a wound in its literal and figurative form on the well being of a character. A wound here, meaning either something that is done to “(a person, the body, etc.) by means of a weapon; to injure intentionally in such a way as to cut or tear the flesh” but not something that is able to cause immediate physical death (See OED, “wound”, v., 1.a) or “to injure, inflict pain or hurt upon, in a manner comparable to the infliction of a wound” (See OED, “wound”, v., 2.a). The idea of a nonphysical wound being “comparable” to a physical wound is something to note, in that it reads as similar to having a real wound. The word only appears four times in Hamlet, twice as stage directions and in two other …show more content…
Titus is suggesting that in wounding her heart and puncturing through the case that houses all of her internal struggle and hurt, with the sound she can still muster, Lavinia might be able to express what she is feeling. An interesting definition of the word “wound” here is something “used to express the effect of harsh or disagreeable sounds upon the ear” (See OED, “wound”, v., 2. c) which, in addition to describing one’s pain, might be a description of what “sighing” or “groans” from a person whose tongue was cut out might sound like. It is interesting then to note that Titus is urging for Lavinia’s sighs or groans to be used to wound her heart rather than the ears of another. In other words, she would be using her wounded state to open up the internal hurting she has apart from the visible blood that runs down her arms and out of her mouth. Thereby utilizing the products of her injured state to communicate her internal, invisible