Performing almost the same but not quite Mimicry and racial hybridity in William Shakespeares Titus Andronicus

This article analyses Titus Andronicus in terms of the ideas of mimicry, hybridity and the Third Space proposed by Homi Bhabha. It suggests that the play may enact an early modern crisis of the racial and cultural representations. It revolves around Aaron the Moor, Tamora and Lavinia, and through these characters we see how Shakespeare addresses colonial ambivalence and the performance of identity. The hyper-articulate resistance of Aaron, the artificially emulative behaviour of Tamora and the discontinuous bodily state of Lavinia are all viewed as theatrical manifestations of subversion of the postcolonial. Relying on Bhabha, Hall, Gilroy and other important theorists, the article presents the argument that Titus Andronicus has created a proto-postcolonial space in which race and alterity are not a matter of representation, but of performance. In so doing, it adds to the larger discussion on early modern racial construction and the performative politics of otherness.