The mood of the play is desolate and sorrowful. At its core, Titus Andronicus is a play about repeating cycles of violence and seeks to answer the question of what happens when vengeance is taken to its ultimate conclusion. The audience receives no relief from the unrelenting tragedy and horror as each character exacts their due upon another.
Tamora’s emotional desire for revenge, while wrong, is sympathetic in the face of Titus’s murder of her son Alarbus—her pain is palpable, her motives understandable. Likewise, Titus’s grief and rage at the tragedies visited upon his own children are extremely touching and viscerally upsetting. As he weeps, the audience weeps along; as he swears vengeance, terror sweeps the stage in anticipation of his wrath.
The play swings on a pendulum between terrible grief and terrible rage—and through it all, there is a mournful quality to the drama, for there can only be one end when so much wrong is done. The final bloodbath is shocking but unsurprising, as the audience has watched as Titus, Tamora and every other character has slowly lost and corrupted themselves in pursuit of a twisted justice—ultimately resulting in a very dark catharsis that leaves no character satisfied.
