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Get every literary device explanation for Titus AndronicusPlus so much more...
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Irony
Explanation and Analysis—Will't Please You Eat?:
In Act 5, Scene 3 Titus feeds Tamora her own sons, baked into a pastry, as revenge for their rape of his daughter, whom he himself murdered moments before in order to mitigate her dishonor. This is a gruesome act of dramatic irony, as in the previous scene Titus states exactly what his plans are regarding the baking of her two sons:
Titus: Will ’t please you eat?—Will ’t please your Highness feed?
Tamora: Why hast thou slain thine only daughter thus?
Titus: Not I; ’twas Chiron and Demetrius.
They ravished her and cut away her tongue,
And they, ’twas they, that did her all this wrong.
Saturninus: Go fetch them hither to us presently.
Titus: Why, there they are, both bakèd in this pie,
Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,
Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.
’Tis true, ’tis true! Witness my knife’s sharp point.
When Tamora and the other guests first arrive at the feast, Titus encourages everyone to eat, claiming that the food may be “poor” but it will "fill [their] stomachs]." In the passage above, he again encourages everyone to eat and pays particular attention to urging Tamora to ingest the “food on the table.” The fact that Titus only reveals the gruesome truth of the pastries’ human filling once he is sure that Tamora has eaten her sons adds to the horrible, macabre, somewhat uncomfortably humorous irony of the scene.
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