Solving their own sorrows in Lavinia's

You killed her husband, and for that vile fault
Two of her brothers were condemned to death,
My hand cut off, and made a merry jest;
Both her her sweet hands, her tongue, and that more dear
Than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity,
Inhuman traitors, you constrained and forced.
(V.ii.172-177)

I would not have noticed the order in which Titus recounts his family miseries unless we had discussed this phenomenon in an earlier class. When lamenting Lavinia's sorrows, Titus acts just like his brother. The woe of everyone else is put before hers. It's as if in the presence is Lavinia, who of anyone deserves the most pity, the men in the play feel compelled to recount their own sorrows. I think this connects to Titus slaying his own daughter. As Titus and Marcus use Lavinia as an object onto which they can project their own miseries, Titus thinks of her solely as an object and a symbol when he kills her. His sorrow stems from her shame. If he kills her, he kills his sorrow. Again, he puts his misery above hers, treating her as little more than an object, and certainly not a human.