Content Category
Literary Criticism
Abstract/Description
The devaluation of consent on a sexual and political level is responsible for the perpetuation of rape in societies from ancient Rome to Weinstein’s Hollywood. In Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece, Lucretia’s interactions with her two servants expose the paradox of consent. These scenes first justify the devaluation of consent by constructing women as the helpless products of their context, but then show how the patriarchy is nevertheless dependent upon that consent. Faced with the same paradox on a grander political scale, radicals in Shakespeare’s time pushed for a “republican” system that actually devalued consent through disproportionate representation. As this trend of devaluation has continued in modern republics like the United States, non-consent has even become openly valorized. Therefore, rape is not the exclusive product of either monarchies or republics. Rather, it proliferates perennially in any society where the powerful seek to subvert the paradox by devaluing the consent of their lessers.
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as part of a class
Faculty Involvement
Jason Kerr
The Devaluation of Consent in The Rape of Lucrece
The devaluation of consent on a sexual and political level is responsible for the perpetuation of rape in societies from ancient Rome to Weinstein’s Hollywood. In Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece, Lucretia’s interactions with her two servants expose the paradox of consent. These scenes first justify the devaluation of consent by constructing women as the helpless products of their context, but then show how the patriarchy is nevertheless dependent upon that consent. Faced with the same paradox on a grander political scale, radicals in Shakespeare’s time pushed for a “republican” system that actually devalued consent through disproportionate representation. As this trend of devaluation has continued in modern republics like the United States, non-consent has even become openly valorized. Therefore, rape is not the exclusive product of either monarchies or republics. Rather, it proliferates perennially in any society where the powerful seek to subvert the paradox by devaluing the consent of their lessers.