INTERPRETING A MURDER

We have seen that acts of violation unsettle the identities of both the victims and the perpetrators. Chiron and Demetrius are reduced to Rape and Murder. The loss of Cressida's identity is bound up with, and in part created by, the instability of Troilus. Othello, re-making Desdemona, undoes himself; and Lear, trying to turn Cordelia into nothing, becomes nothing himself. Sometimes the lost identity is in play with a new one that can be named: Hamlet's madness, taking over Hamlet; the cunning whore of Venice, taking over Desdemona; Diomed's Cressida. But the new identity is often nameless: a figure like your father, he that was Othello, the thing that looks like Lear. It all goes back to “This was thy daughter” and beyond that to “My name was Don Andrea.” We have also seen that the identities of the acts themselves become unsettled. Romeo's killing Tybalt and his breaking into the Capulet tomb color, and are colored by, the consummation of his marriage with Juliet. Lavinia's rape and her marriage shadow each other; so do Desdemona's murder and her wedding night. In Macbeth there seems to be no question about Duncan's identity, or Macbeth's, and when Macbeth kills Duncan there seems to be no ambiguity about the act. There are many ways to describe it, all images of violation. However, beneath these descriptions – and this is the first note struck when the murder is discovered – is the idea that the act is unnameable.