In Titus Andronicus, Lavinia is the character raped and mutilated by Tamora’s sons, Chiron and Demetrius.
The attack occurs after Bassianus, Lavinia’s husband-to-be, is murdered during a hunt. Chiron and Demetrius drag Lavinia into the forest, rape her, and cut out her tongue and sever her hands so she cannot identify them. The violence is part of Tamora’s revenge against Titus Andronicus, who had ordered the sacrifice of her eldest son, Alarbus.
Lavinia later identifies her attackers by using a staff to point to Ovid’s Metamorphoses and by writing their names in the sand. Shakespeare adapts elements of Ovid’s story of Philomela, another rape victim whose tongue is cut out. A common mix-up is confusing Lavinia with Tamora, the revenge-seeking queen, or with Titus’s sons, who are falsely accused of murder.
The tragedy ends with Titus killing Lavinia himself after asking whether a father should kill a raped daughter, deepening the play’s cycle of violence and revenge.