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In today's melodramatic society, death has commonly been used throughout literature and media as a device with which to invoke pity for a character.However, in the Shakespearean play, Coriolanus, the death of the main protagonist Coriolanus serves as a triumph rather than any sort of sympathy-arousing humiliation.In the final scene of the play, Tullus Aufidius plots Coriolanus' death with the intention of systematically stripping him of his honor, his courage, and his manhood before he is killed, thus turning his death into a complete humiliation.Yet before he dies, Coriolanus manages to repudiate Aufidius' attempt to debase him by refuting the attacks on his manhood and courage.In this way, Coriolanus retains his identity when he dies and actually makes his death a personal triumph, as the characters of the play regret his death afterwards by recognizing and lamenting the unique solo-hero personage that he has represented.A key component of Aufidius' assassination plot was the need to humiliate Coriolanus before killing him.The fact that Aufidius and Coriolanus were archrivals could be seen from the very start of the play with Coriolanus' initial declaration
Were half to half the world by th'ears, and he [Aufidius]
Upon my party, I'd revolt to make
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Only my wars with him.He is a lion
That I am proud to hunt.(I, I, -4)
Ever since the beginning of the play, Coriolanus and Aufidius had been trying to kill each other. However, towards the end of the plot in the final scene of Act Vwhen Aufidius lays his final plans to kill Coriolanus as he returns from the war with Romeit was no longer sufficient for him to simply dispose of his rival quickly.Coriolanus had garnered a vast amount of respect and awe from the Volsces during his tenure as commander of the Volscian army, and was held in higher esteem than Aufidius himself.As Aufidius' lieutenant confessed
Your soldiers use him as the grace 'fore meat,
Their talk at table and their thanks at end;
And you are darken'd in this action, sir,
Even by your own.(IV, VII, -6)
Coriolanus' awe-inspiring military prowess in conjunction with his support from the Volsce plebeians humbled Aufidius and rendered him only second best.If Aufidius simply assassinated his opponent while Coriolanus was still at the height of his powerwithout first debasing him in the eyes of the peoplethen Aufidius would always be considered of lower stature than Coriolanus.As a result, Aufidius understood he needed to dispose of Coriolanus in a way so that he would be humbled in death, and subsequently, "I'll renew me in his fall"(V, VI, 48-4).This method appeared to take the form of three distinct attacks upon Coriolanus' honor, courage, and manhood.In his series of speeches against Coriolanus, Aufidius' careful choice of the word "traitor" in addressing Coriolanus is a bold attack upon his honordirectly questioning Coriolanus' motives for abandoning the attack on Rome and indirectly reminding the people of Coriolanus' earlier betrayal of his own country (V, VI, 87).Aufidius' use of phrases such as "betray'd your business" and "breaking his oath and resolution, like / a twist of rotten silk" serve as further condemnations on Coriolanus' lack of honor (V, VI, -6).Aufidius also slights Coriolanus' courage by claiming the destruction of Rome would have been the true warrior's plan of action and labeling Coriolanus' failure to take Rome as an embracement of cowardice
…Never admitting
Counsel o'th'war but at his nurse's tears
He [Coriolanus] whin'd and roar'd away your victory,
That pages blush'd at him, and men of heart
Look'd wond'ring each at others.(V, VI, 6-100)
Aufidius claims that Coriolanus' peace treaty was an act that the "counsel o'th'war"the advice of the true warriors and "men of heart"did not support, and that even the ignoble pages blushed to see such an act of cowardice.The final coupe-de-grace in this litany of insults is Aufidius' command, "Name not the god, thou boy of tears," in reference to Coriolanus' entreaty to Mars.This taunt serves a triple purpose of slighting Coriolanus' military virtue in denying his right to speak the God of War's name, insulting Coriolanus' manhood through the word "boy," and also reminding the people of Coriolanus' juvenile dependence upon his mother. (V, VI, 100)Although these attacks may seem too bold to be coldly calculated in advance, Aufidius revealed himself early in the play to be a cunning man unafraid to use devious methods to achieve his goals
…Nor sleep, nor sanctuary,
Being naked, sick; nor fane, nor Capitol,
The prayers of priests, nor times of sacrifice
Embarquements all of furyshall lift up
Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst
My hate to Martius…(I, X, 1-4)
Aufidius would stop at nothing to destroy Coriolanus and regain his position of respect in the Volsce society.As such, in addition to goading Coriolanus into a state of anger in which he could be killed without blame, Aufidius' taunts were carefully chosen to humiliate Coriolanus as much as possible and debase him in the eyes of the people.
Aufidius' attempted humiliation did not work, however, because Coriolanus managed to fend off Aufidius' attacks on his manhood and courage before being killed.In assaulting Coriolanus' character, Aufidius forgot to follow the key advice of one of his fellow conspirators, who, knowing that Coriolanus would not stand idly while having his character impugned, advised
Ere he express himself or move the people
With what he would say, let him feel your sword,
Which we will second.When he lies along,
After your way his tale pronounc'd shall bury
His reasons with his body.(V, VI, 54-58)
Aufidius was to strike immediately after declaring Coriolanus' offenses and without giving Coriolanus a chance to defend himself.This would ensure that Coriolanus died humiliated, leaving Aufidius' attacks on his character unanswered.However, Aufidius failed to kill Coriolanus immediately and thus gave him a chance to speak.Although he was only allowed two short soliloquys before the assassins killed him, Coriolanus made the most of them and retaliated first at Aufidius, in a classic ad hominem argument
…give this cur [Aufidius] the lie; and his own notion,
Who wears my stripes impress'd upon him, that
Must bear my beating to his grave, shall join
To thrust the lie unto him.(V, VI, 107-110)
With this statement, Coriolanus claimed that the character attacks were lies that even Aufidius himself realized were untrue, and most importantly, reminded the audience of his physical and military superiority over Aufidius as well.Thus, we see that Aufidius is ironically trying to humble someone who is already beyond his own abilities, making his insults appear more like a petulant outburst of jealousy rather than any honest claim to be taken seriously.In his second and final soliloquy, Coriolanus reasserts his military supremacy by recalling his solo victory over the Volscian army at Corioles
If you have writ your annal true, 'tis there,
That like an eagle in a dove-cote, I
Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioles.
Alone I did it.Boy!(V, VI, 114-116)
At the end of this speech, there can be no remaining doubts over Coriolanus' courage and manhoodthe reminder of his single-handed sack of Corioles places him far above the surrounding Volsces and even his accuser.He is untouchable by the petty insults of inferior men such as Aufidius, and speaks once again in the glory of his former days, "as if you [Coriolanus] were a god to punish, not / A man of their infirmity"(III, I, 80-8).Coriolanus' triple repetition of the word, "boy," further contrasts his now indisputable manhood with the immaturity of Aufidius' childish insult, and by the end of the speech, turns the word back onto Aufidius in a mockery of its original accuser.Although Coriolanus does not receive a chance to explain the reasons for his peace treaty with Rome, and thus recover his honor before he dies, he still manages to rebuff Aufidius' attacks on his courage and manhood.This was evidently enough for Coriolanus to die respected and un-humiliated, as even Aufidius admits in the aftermath of his death "he shall have a noble memory"(V, VI, 15).
However, Coriolanus staged his death in a way that not only refuted Aufidius' attempts to humiliate him, but also turned his death into a personal triumph as well.The most important aspect of Coriolanus' successfully refutation of Aufidius' attacks on his character was the way in which it allowed him to retain his true identity in death.When he died, Coriolanus was not seen by the people as being a "traitor" or a "boy" (V, VI, 87-100), but rather as his true selfthe man resembling "a thing made by some other deity than nature"(IV, VI, 0-1), the man whose "nature is too noble for the world…[who] would not flatter Neptune for his trident or Jove for's power to thunder" (III, I, 5-55), and the man hailed by both Volsce and Roman as quite clearly the "best man i'th'field"(II, II, 7-8).This true deathdying as his true selfis what enables Coriolanus' personal triumph.After Coriolanus is killed, the characters of the play regret his death, as one of the Volsce Lords declared, "thou [Aufidius] hast done a deed whereat valour will weep"(V, VI, 1-1) and Aufidius himself said "I am struck with sorrow"(V, VI, 147).In regretting and mourning his death, the characters demonstrate that they recognize Coriolanus' true self for what it isthe last example of the grand warrior-heroes of ancient times who fought alone and died alone, whose very nature was incompatible with the base desires and common values of the people"a very dog to the commonalty"(I, I, 8-).Coriolanus was the "rarest man i'th' world" in a much deeper sense than just extraordinary military prowesshis very nature was one that was rapidly becoming extinct in the time and the world in which he lived (IV, V, 164).Proof of this can be found in the several references to Coriolanus as the last of his kind, a man who "cannot in the world be singly counter-poised"(II, II, 86-87), and whose "nature is too noble for the world"(III, I, 5).In regretting his death, we recognize Coriolanus true self--free of Aufidius lies--and grieve for the fact that this rare man and the values he represented will pass out of the world forever.This is the reason why Coriolanus' death is a personal triumph.He not only successfully resisted Aufidius' final attempt to distort his true self before killing him, but lived out his life in an authentic existenceagainst all odds, true to himselfand in death, had his existence recognized, validated, and valued for it's true worth.
In the moment of his death, we do not pity Coriolanus.As readers, we skip this act of melodrama, because the tragic nature of Coriolanus is made evident to us by the death of the hero role model that Coriolanus embodied.We grieve not for the loss of the man--a shallow act of melodramatic pity--but for the loss of the archetypal values and ideals of the Hero that Coriolanus embodied in his life and death.In this act of lamentation, by both character and reader, we recognize Coriolanus for his authentic existence and death, and by doing so, turn his death into a personal triumph rather than the humiliation that Aufidius intended.As Coriolanus once spoke "Better it is to die, better to starve, / Than crave the hire which first we do deserve"(II, III, 10-11).At last, Coriolanus has received the hire that he deservesin the form of recognition and tears shed for the loss of such a unique hero and the ideals that he represented.
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