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Family as the Foundation of the Republic
Coriolanus is filled with references to maternity and paternity, which are often deployed in ways that relate the strength of the family to the strength of the Roman republic. Perhaps the most obvious relationship that frames the family as the foundation of the republic is that between Coriolanus and his mother, Volumnia. Early in the play, Volumnia explains how she raised her son to be a warrior, and she attempts to convince her otherwise shrinking daughter-in-law that it’s ideal for boys to idealize battle and seek fame in war. When Virgilia wonders if her mother-in-law worries about her son’s death, Volumnia declares that even if she had twelve equally beloved sons, “I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action” (1.3.25–27). With these words, she clarifies that her zeal for a warlike son is closely tied to her desire for a strong republic. As the play develops, we learn that Volumnia is an overbearing mother who rules her son with her iron will. She leverages this control in the service of the republic—first by manipulating him into pursuing political office, and later by convincing him to break off his vengeful military campaign against Rome.
The other figure in the play who frequently invokes the language of family is the patrician Menenius. In the play’s opening scene, he attempts to calm the upset citizens of Rome by insisting that the patricians are “for you like fathers” (1.1.79). That is, they are the head of the “family” of the Roman republic, and in order for this family to survive, it’s necessary that the childlike plebeians stop cursing them. Menenius extends this paternal outlook to Coriolanus, whom he sees as a son. He cultivates this paternal relationship by counseling Coriolanus and helping him navigate the political complexities he faces when he returns from war. Later, when Coriolanus turns against Rome and prepares to mount an attack on his birth city, Menenius approaches him as a father. He then attempts to leverage the language of paternity to draw Coriolanus back into a relation of filial piety that would heal the Roman republic: “The glorious gods sit in hourly synod about thy particular prosperity and love thee no worse than thy old father Menenius does! O my son, my son!” (5.2.73–76). But this parental bond is already broken, and Coriolanus dismisses Menenius without further thought.
The Ambiguous Power of Speech
One of the central themes in Coriolanus relates to the ambiguous power of speech, particularly in the realm of politics. This theme emerges early in the play through the discourse around “voice.” In the language of Shakespeare’s time, the word voice had two meanings. The primary meaning was the same as it is today and related to the sound a person produces with their throat and mouth. The secondary meaning related to a formal indication of choice—a meaning we today express with the word vote. The notion of “voice” in the play relates to this second meaning, which has to do with the recent transformation of Rome from a kingdom into a republic. The drama of political voice plays out when the patricians nominate Coriolanus for the consulship, and he must go before the plebeians to ask for their votes. Despite his evident disdain for them, the citizens give him their votes. But as Brutus the tribune warns them, the very man to whom they have just given their “voices” is a tyrant who threatens to “make them of no more voice / Than dogs” (2.3.239–40). That is, Brutus believes that Coriolanus is a tyrant who, if elected, will silence the plebeians’ political voices.
This belief underscores the double-sided nature of political speech, which can backfire in any number of unpredictable ways. The figure whose speech is most closely scrutinized in the play is undoubtedly Coriolanus. When he’s nominated for the consulship, his fellow patricians counsel him to address the plebeians with the grace and refinement that befits a politician. But Coriolanus doesn’t identify as a politician. Whereas he can address his fellow soldiers with fierce eloquence during a battle, he finds the language of peacetime objectionable and disingenuous. His complex feelings about this mode of address lead him to speak in a way that makes his disdain for the common people clear. The transparency of his language offers an opportunity for the more politically cunning tribunes to manipulate the citizens, convincing them, as already discussed above, that Coriolanus is a tyrant. Menenius, meanwhile, pleas with the citizens to recognize that if Coriolanus can’t “speak ‘em fair” (3.1.336), it’s because he “is ill schooled / In bolted language” (409–410). But ultimately, it matters little: Coriolanus is not fully in control of his speech, and that lack of control backfires, leading to his banishment from Rome.
The Inauthenticity of Political Theater
Shakespeare incorporates theatrical metaphors in many of his dramatic works, and such metaphors play a particularly important role in Coriolanus, where the arena of politics is often figured as a performance space. The play’s theatrical discourse converges around the title character, who gets coerced into politics based on his heroic display of might in the battle against the Volscians. Coriolanus has been raised by his mother to be a warrior, and he feels most authentically himself when surrounded by soldiers. He’s much less comfortable in the halls of the senate, where words count more than actions and success is achieved through social grace rather than physical strength. Because his identity is so firmly rooted in military life, the refinements of politics strike Coriolanus as inauthentic, and he hates the idea of playing a role that doesn’t align with his sense of self. Thus, when his fellow patricians ask him to don a toga and appear before the common people in the guise of humility, Coriolanus resists. And when he eventually gives in to the pressure, he completely fumbles the role. Clearly, Coriolanus is only capable, as he puts it, of “play[ing] / The man I am” (3.2.17–18).
Whereas Coriolanus lacks the finesse to succeed in the theater of politics, others are expert performers who thrive on the public stage. For instance, the two recently elected tribunes, Brutus and Sicinius, are gifted politicians who excel in matters of seeming. When the citizens they represent express their ambivalent feelings about giving their vote to a man who openly disdains them, the tribunes counsel them to take back their votes. Crucially, though, they instruct the citizens to blame their initial votes on the tribunes and say they told them to vote for Coriolanus. This way, the tribunes will appear to the patricians as if they stand in support of Coriolanus and are thus politically aligned with the ruling class, even though they are in fact orchestrating the man’s downfall. Then, when they succeed in getting Coriolanus banished, the tribunes recognize that they must alter their performance to stay on the patricians’ good side. As Brutus puts it: “Let us seem humbler after it is done / Than when it was a-doing” (4.2.5–6). In the later acts of the play, Tullus Aufidius proves himself to be similarly gifted as an actor, pretending to support Coriolanus even as he sours on the man and plots his public assassination.
