Courtney Torres, 2008

Shylock and Barabas: Comment on Racial Intolerance during the Elizabethan Age

In Christopher Marlowe’s play The Jew of Malta (1589), and William

Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice (1596), both writers rely on stereotypical

representations of the Jew as a threat to Elizabethan society. This problematic portrayal

of Jewishness is abhorrent to many 21st century readers of both plays because these

representations have led some to conclude that the plays are anti-Semitic. These

conclusions have been primarily drawn from the depictions of the characters Barabas,

who is focus of Marlowe’s play; and Shylock, the main character of Shakespeare’s. While

theses representations have been read as anti-Semitic, it is necessary to place these

delineations in a historic context if one is to better grasp the implications of both plays

and characters. Societal climate impacts the mores of a community; likewise, cultural

expressions reflect the tide of the social environment. As Munson and Starks write in “So

Neatly Plotted and So Well Performed”:

New historicism not only asserts that cultural forms, including literature,

are produced by the economic, political, and social forces of their

historical periods, but also holds that these cultural forms, in turn, mold

and shape the very material forces that have produced them. (380)

It seems impossible to separate the work of Marlowe and Shakespeare from their

historical period. The requirement to read these works as part of a larger culture that

exhibited a general atmosphere of xenophobia will help to better understand the forces at

work in both directions in the creation of both Barabas and Shylock.

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In this essay I will argue that although Marlowe’s and Shakespeare’s

representations of Jewishness depend heavily on historically situated stereotypes of

Jewishness, both representations speak to complex issues and social forces at work in

Elizabethan England. The intersection of English racial intolerance, the threat of 16th

century Catholic theocracy, and an expanding Spanish empire combined to produce a

volatile setting for the staging of both Marlowe’s and Shakespeare’s plays. While the

depiction of Barabas and Shylock at first glance appear to be limited and stereotypical, on

closer analysis we are presented with complicated sociopolitical circumstances and

complex human beings faced with the onslaught of anti-alien sentiments by a society and

culture that saw itself under attack. In both plays the contradictions of religion and the

hypocrisy of Elizabethan England are brought to light through the ironic characters of

Barabas and Shylock.

It is important that the problematic question of anti- Semitism and race are

addressed in terms of how scholars have traditionally looked at both plays. Historically,

critics have been reluctant to classify Elizabethan England as a racist or anti-Semitic

society. In his work, Shakespeare and the Jews (1996), James Shapiro provides an

example of this problem in the case of G. K. Hunter, a Renaissance scholar, Shapiro

writes:

… Hunter concludes that the "whole Elizabethan frame of reference

discourages racial thinking," and, as far as Marlowe's play is concerned,

the "structure of concepts in the play is theological and not racial." What

Hunter fails to consider is that in late 16th century England theology is not

juxtaposed with racial thinking; in fact, it helps produce and define it. (84)
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Shapiro sees Hunter’s reluctance as part of a larger problem within the academic

community; which is the tendency of scholars’ to protect Elizabethan society,

Shakespeare in particular, from being considered racist and anti-Semitic:

Hunter's own efforts to protect Shakespeare, and the Elizabethans from the

taint of racism may unconsciously reflect a reaction on the part of a

member of the academic establishment to protect Shakespeare scholarship

from the "unfortunate effect" of those who have "had the modern Jewish

question in mind" easier to "push" their "modern reactions to modern anti-

Semitism" into a "past" where they do not apply. . .Reading Hunter [thirty]

years after his articles were first published, watching him struggle with

categories of race and otherness (denying that Jews were a racial construct

in one sentence while in the next ascribing Jews and Blacks as "remote

races") is not a comfortable experience. In this respect, Hunter is saddled

with the same burden as his Elizabethan predecessors when confronted

with the categorical problems caused by the otherness of Jews. (85)

For those in the academic community who are personally invested in the rich literary

work produced during the Elizabethan era, the problem of anti-Semiticism is a

troublesome one in a post-Holocaust world. Certainly, the long history of Jewish

persecution can be traced throughout Europe and Elizabethan England and has many

tragic episodes in that history. While Hunter and other scholars may wish to turn away

from this history to avoid the taint of anti-Semitic actions by 16th century England, the

fact is, history does not support this view.

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Briefly tracing the history of Jewish persecution in England are the following

significant events:

1. The third Crusade (the fight against Frederick Barbarossa, King of

Germany and the "holy Roman empire") was launched in 1189 and when

it ended in 1194 the Ordinances of the Jews was written. In the ordinance

the English Jewry is organized in order to recover from financial strain

cause by war. Jews were taxed at a higher rate than other citizens with the

Jewish financial contributions to the world treasury equaling 8% of its

total income. (Hoveden 156-159)

2. In 1275 Queen Eleanor, deported Jews living in Cambridge to nearby

Norwich and that same year Edward I issued the Jewish Affairs Bill,

which forbade Jews living in England to lend money with interest. They

were; however, allowed to earn a living as tradesmen or farmers but could

not obtain membership in tradesmen's guilds nor could they become

tenured farmers. An unexpected result of the imposition of these harsh

laws upon the Jewish population was an inevitable descent into poverty

and subsequent inability to pay taxes. (Hessayon 9)

Overt discrimination of the Jews continued for centuries: they were denied the

right to own land or inherit money; and they suffered financial repression as all of

their possessions were considered the property of the crown. Moreover, they

were publicly persecuted – forced to wear the “Mark of the Jew” which was a

badge attached to clothing, and they were victims of violence, unwarranted arrest,
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hanging and eventually expulsion in 1290 (Hessayon 8-9). There was mass fear

of Jewish occupation in most European territories:

3. Between 1388 and 1520 more than ninety German-speaking towns and cities

expelled Jews. Moreover, Johann Gutenberg’s invention of movable printing type

enabled the enemies of Judaism to mass-produce well-known anti-Jewish libels

and circulate them to larger audiences than ever before. Among the most fanatical

of these pamphleteers were Ulrich Zasius, a professor of civil law, and the

apostate Johannes Pfefferkorn. Zasius defended the forced baptism of Jewish

children and advised Christian princes to expel Jews from their territories

(Hessayon 11).

The mass expulsion of Jews spread throughout Europe, many of them fleeing to Northern

Africa and surrounding regions. People of Jewish birth or origin were sometimes

discovered in England; however, conversion from Judaism to Christianity ensured shelter

and occasionally brought financial reward for those who remained. These “new

Christians” were watched closely as the citizenry sought to ensure that the converts did

not revert or secretly practice Jewish rituals.

It was not long after these events that the two most recognized caricatures of Jews

from Elizabethan England appeared on stage. First performed in February 1592,

Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta portrays the wretched usurer, Barabas; this

work is said to have influenced Shakespeare’s 1596 play, The Merchant of Venice, which

features Shylock; also a ruthless moneylender. Besides the professions assigned to these

characters, the writers perpetuate anti-Semitic attitude by rendering Jewish characters as

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vengeful, deceitful, covetous and murderous Christian-haters; this, a reflection of the

sentiment of most non-Jewish Europeans of the time.

This historical evidence must be ignored to conclude, as Hunter does, that the

question of anti-Semitism is not relevant to the study of Elizabethan culture. While

Hunter and like-minded scholars attempt to extricate Elizabethan literature from its anti-

Semitic history, Shapiro points to the problematic approach taken by cultural materialist

and new historicist schools of criticism:

…generally, they have tended to simply ignore these issues. Their

reluctance to deal with Jewish question undoubtedly has much to do with

problems that the cultural left has had in reconciling itself to Zionism and

Israeli policy.... the fact that in their view Jew no longer constitute a racial

or threatened social group. The Jews, to whom so much early modern

racial analysis was devoted, are no longer part of the "discourse of race."

(85)

This shift away from consideration of Jewishness in the context of race does not

eliminate the usefulness of analyzing the politics of race in Elizabethan England. Citing

from Jennifer Patai's book, The Myth of the Jewish Race, Shapiro states that her work

argues for continued attention to the question of race:

[Patai] makes explicit, in a world that witnessed a genocide based on

racial distinctions between Aryans and Jews, even Jewish scholars are

more interested in disabusing others of the idea of a Jewish race than

exploring what racial thinking about Jews has to tell us about early

modern cultures. Moreover, in so far as contemporary racial debates no

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longer concern the Jews, there is less political or intellectual passion (or,

more to the point, urgency), that might motivate this kind of historical

research. (87)

While the issue of race may have moved in a different direction, away from Jewishness

as a concern within the category of race, there remains the issue of racism and anti-

Semitism within Elizabethan society. What we can learn from Shakespeare’s England in

this regard not only has implications for Jewish studies, but tells us much about the

development of European culture and projects devoted to the creation of race. One cannot

ignore the historical facts of Jewish oppression, nor can we ignore the abundant evidence

of anti-Semitism and stereotyping that existed in both Christopher Marlowe's play The

Jew of Malta and Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice.

These challenging representations of Jewishness continue to be vexing problems

as they expose readers to the anti-Semitism within Elizabethan England through the

literature produced during the era. Rather than ignore those problems, one must grapple

with what those illustrations do, and what the affect has been on the meaning and

understanding of Jewishness historically. And while these texts may prove to be

extremely troublesome, and a cause of anxiety for many scholars as in the case of Hunter,

we are nonetheless faced with a serious set of concerns around race and anti-Semitism in

both plays. I intend to discuss these issues; as well as consider what other issues are at

work in the plays by Marlowe and Shakespeare. In both plays there is much to be

analyzed; while both plays use stereotypes and negative representations of Jews, they

also provide a critical representation of problems that existed in Elizabethan England.

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Additionally, they say a great deal about the arbitrary exercise of power among the elites

of the era.

At the time when Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta was staged in 1592, English

culture was one in which the fear of outsiders was commonplace. In The Jew of Malta

and the Diabolic Power of Theatrics in the 1580’s from Studies in English Literature,

1500-1900, Arata Ide points out:

This is the period when the nation was facing the crisis of Spanish

invasion and enhancing domestic surveillance of Catholics. Moreover,

with the arrival of two Jesuit missionaries, Edmund Campion and Robert

Parsons, the Protestant government had been haunted by fears of plots by

seminary priests traveling incognito. (46)

The general fear of aliens and apprehension about non-Protestants was a source of

anxiety for English men and women. Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta reflects this

atmosphere of social paranoia while subtly questioning the ethics of English culture.

The irony of having Barabas serve to reflect the failures of Malta’s Christians is

one of the more critical aspects of Marlowe’s play. Through the voice and actions of

Barabas the spectator is exposed to the multi-layered contradictions of both Christianity

as practiced in Malta, and the social elites that govern Malta. In the first act of The Jew of

Malta we see how the unchecked power of the state is directed at Jews, we also learn

something about the underlying hypocrisy of Malta’s elite. The governing power of

Malta was The Order of Knights of Saint John, an association dedicated to the “…ideals

of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and one might well add hospitality.” (23) These

governing ideals; however, are not to what we as readers and spectators are exposed;
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rather it is the overarching concern for the preservation of wealth and the xenophobic

attitude of Malta’s leadership.

The contradictions of English society are highlighted by Barabas in an exchanged

with the Ferneze, the Governor of Malta:

I JEW. Alas, my lord, the most of us are poor.

FERNEZE. Then let the rich increase you portions.

BARABAS. Are strangers with your tribute to be tax’d?

2 KNIGHT. Have strangers leave with us to get their wealth?

Then let them with us contribute.

FERNEZE. No, Jew, like infidels;

For through our sufferance of your hatful lives

Who stand accused in the sight of heaven

These taxes and afflictions are befall’n,

And therefore thus we are determined.

Read there the articles of our decrees.

Officer.' secondly, he that denies to pay, shall straight become.

A Christian.'

BARABAS. How, a Christian? hum, what's here to do?

OFFICER 'Lastly, he that denies this, shall absolutely lose all

he has. (Act I)

Ideals that were to govern Malta appear to be of little importance as the Governor,

Ferneze, administers Malta’s law. Far from the value of voluntary impoverishment or

extending hospitality to the Jews they are “like infidels” and subjected to punishing
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taxation. Marlowe’s Christians are no better than the Jews they are attacking. According

to Arthur Humphreys, author of The Jew of Malta and The Merchant of Venice: Two

Readings of Life, the Christians in Marlowe’s text engage in double dealing and duplicity,

similar to their Jewish counterparts. Marlowe uses his play to demonstrate this

hypocrisy. (3)

This cynicism may have resulted in part from Marlowe’s personal experiences as

an operative of the English government. Marlowe was not only a playwright and poet; he

also served as a worker for the state. In his article, Time for Marlowe, Graham Hammill

writes:

[Marlowe’s] employment as an operative for the Elizabethan state—

continually exposed to the whimsical decisions of those in power—both

nourished his radical intellectual tendencies and made him a perceived

security threat to that state during one of these government crackdowns.

(291)

As stated earlier, cultural expressions: literature, visual arts, performing arts and other

outlets of societal elucidation, “…are produced by the economic, political, and social

forces of their historical periods.” Marlowe’s representation of the xenophobic and

arbitrary exercise of power reflects his firsthand experience with the Elizabethan state.

On closer analysis of The Jew of Malta we find a complex work that is not simply anti-

Semitic but most likely a personally reflective critique on the exercise of political power.

The power of the state was directed against Jews across Europe because of their

role in the market economy. Jewish participation in the financial system of 16th century

England was the result of a number of significant historical events that occurred across
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Europe, resulting in Jews and the Jewish religion being wrongly blamed for widespread

economic hardship. This was primarily attributed to the practice of usury, a profession

that was considered a violation of Christian principles. In practicing usury with

Christians, Jews demonstrated that they regarded the English not as brethren but as

"strangers." This, of course, a rather ironic twist in that Christians across Europe had

made Jews the target of persecution and perceived Jews as a threat to the concept of

English identity.

The hypocrisy of Christian culture is a central theme of the play. In Policy in

Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta Howard S. Babb writes that “The Jew of Malta explores a

single set of issues: religious hypocrisy and governmental expedience as informed by a

pervasive lust for wealth.” (86) For Babb the question of Jewish identity does not come

into question in his analysis of Marlowe’s play. Babb’s critical reading of the corrosive

effects of power and greed is important and informative. His reading of the play provides

useful insight into understanding the contours of power at work in Elizabethan England.

Analyzing Ferneze’s unfair and unbalanced dealings with Barabas, Babb writes:

Although The Jew of Malta illustrates the basic paradox of Machiavellian

behavior, the moral of the paradox is relatively simple: ambiguous actions

can be efficiently controlled only if one is morally unambiguous enough to

know what one is about… (92)

This focus on the Machiavellian philosophy of governance and the arbitrary exercise of

power ignores the role that race plays in the characterization of Barabas. Named after the

New Testament thief and murder whom the Jews saved from crucifixion instead of Jesus

(Matthew 27:16–26, Mark 15:7–15), the nature of Barabas, a representation of all Jews,
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is typified as a direct contradiction to Job (the biblical character to who Barabas was

likened by fellow Jews), Christ and Christians.

The words of Barabas himself are used to define him as a racial other. Shapiro

cites examples of English writers that suggested that Jews had a hereditary stench, a so

called “foetor judicus.” Among those who propitiated this belief was Marlowe, Shapiro

writes:

Christopher Marlowe …. played upon the same belief when his character

Barabas offers to stand downwind from his Christian interlocutors,

explaining that “‘tis a custom held with us,/That when we speak with

Gentiles like to you,/We turn into the air to purge ourselves.’”(36)

The attribution of specifically Jewish traits that go beyond religion is an example of

Marlowe’s contribution to the stigmatization of the Jews. Marlowe continues to enable

stereotyping of Jews through the character, Barabas by portraying him as a vengeful

murderer who is motivated by greed and retribution. In the play, after protesting the

unfair tax levied against him by the government, Barabas loses his property and wealth.

Barabas vows to get revenge upon the powers that causes his downturn. It is through his

unremitting need for retribution and his underhanded plan to recover his wealth that

Marlowe reveals the Elizabethan view of Jews:

BARABAS. In spite of these swine-eating Christians,

(Unchosen nation, never circumcis'd,

Poor villains, such as were ne'er thought upon

Till Titus and Vespasian conquer'd us,)

Am I become as wealthy as I was.

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They hop'd my daughter would ha' been a nun;

But she's at home, and I have bought a house

As great and fair as is the governor's:

And there, in spite of Malta, will I dwell,

Having Ferneze's hand; whose heart I'll have,

Ay, and his son's too, or it shall go hard.

I am not of the tribe of Levi, I,

That can so soon forget an injury.

We Jews can fawn like spaniels when we please;

And when we grin we bite; yet are our looks

As innocent and harmless as a lamb's.

I learn'd in Florence how to kiss my hand,

Heave up my shoulders when they call me dog,

And duck as low as any bare-foot friar;

Hoping to see them starve upon a stall,

Or else be gather'd for in our synagogue,

That, when the offering-basin comes to me,

Even for charity I may spit into't (Act II)

Barabas’s venomous language aimed towards Christians sustains the stereotypes that

were pervasive in the culture in which the text was written. He shows distain for the non-

Jew, flaunting his superiority to which he is entitled through his lineage; he reveals his

devious ways and shows no remorse for his deceptions, and he insulates that he would

revel in causing injury to his oppressor. In all of this, a reader might forget that Barabas
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was a victim of racism and focus on his evil manner. His reprehensible character

climaxes at his death where he continues to speak with malice. In a fiery caldron,

Barabas shouts:

And, villains, know you cannot help me now.

Then, Barabas, breathe forth thy latest fate,

And in the fury of thy torments strive

To end thy life with resolution.

Know, governor, 'twas I that slew thy son,

I fram'd the challenge that did make them meet:

Know, Calymath, I aim'd thy overthrow:

And, had I but escap'd this stratagem,

I would have brought confusion on you all,

Damn'd Christian dogs, and Turkish infidels! (Act V)

Conversely, it is not only the actions and manners of Barabas that illustrate the perceived

nature of the Jews; the non-Jewish characters also shine light into Jewish stereotypes.

Ferneze, the governor of Malta, shows deliberate disrespect by addressing Barabas as

“Jew,” a label; instead of referring to him by name. When questioned about the fairness

of the levy, he tells Barabas, “No, Jew, like infidels/For through our sufferance of your

hateful lives/Who stand accursed in the sight of heaven/These taxes and afflictions are

befall'n/And therefore thus we are determined ….” (Act I) Shapiro situates Marlowe’s

text within the discourse that it is a work rooted in racialization and based on anti-Semitic

beliefs. While Babb’s critical reading of Marlowe makes important interventions on the
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question of power and its arbitrary use, his reading also ignores the racist construction of

the Jew in favor of seeing only a religious conflict.

A great deal of medieval English literature uses the socially (and now historically)

accepted racial and religious relationship between the Jew and Christian to produce the

predictable Jewish character. There are numerous similarities in the characters of

Shylock and Barabas, and it is in these parallels that many of the troubling aspects of

Marlowe’s text are reproduced in Shakespeare’s work. The association of Jews with the

practice of usury and all the attendant stereotypes and scapegoating that the image

entailed must be acknowledged as we consider the characterization of Shylock. Much of

this historical motif (the governmental oppression of the Jews, the societal distaste

toward the Jews, and the villianization of the Jews by Christians) is carried over from

Marlowe’s work into The Merchant. This theme is not without consequence to the

Jewish people about whom this image has been propagated.

Jennifer Rich comments on the author’s depiction of Jews in her article The

Merchant Formerly Known as Jew: Redefining the Rhetoric of Merchantry in

Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. She argues that Shakespeare resurrects negative

representations of Jews that contributed to the widespread sentiment that Jews were a

threat to the English. This was a belief that had been constant throughout the Middle

Ages and Elizabethan era:

Shakespeare's representation of Shylock is a telling symptom of the

unique perception of Jews that dominated the English consciousness at

this time. Apart from the consistency with which the Jew is figured in the

English consciousness (as economic parasite), what is distinctive about the

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English preoccupation with the Jews is its continuity, given that there was

no visible Jewish presence in England during this time. While the Jewish

question for other countries was a "living" issue in the sense of there being

active Jewish communities in many areas of Eastern Europe at this time--

English-Jewish stereotyping stemmed primarily from the English

experience of the Middle Ages. (3)

What Shakespeare does with The Merchant of Venice is maintain a view of Jewishness

that froze Jews in time and greatly contributed to their continued social isolation. Rich

suggest that the English were unique in their anxiety about Jews and their societal

response to the “Jewish question.” Rich continues:

Thus, the English imagery around the Jewish question was obscure and

bogey-like: the characterization of Jews as economic parasites in their

anti-English/Christian activities resulted from a kind of historical

immaturity, a vision that depended upon the oft-recited tales about Jews

that appeared in the nation's collective folk-lore. (3)

The extraordinary caricatures assigned to this group of people, dehumanized

them; causing them to become a bizarre feature of the society. As John Russell

Brown notes in his introduction to the Merchant of Venice, "In England at this

time, the Jews were not a people to fear, but were rather a fabulous and monstrous

bogey belonging to remote times and places." (11) At a time when Jewish people

were functioning in many different societies and working in various professions

in many other countries, Elizabethan writers continued to narrowly associate Jews

with usury as a livelihood; and greed and maliciousness as behavioural traits. The
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influence of Shakespeare’s play on the culture of English society was not simply

that it brought to the stage an ongoing conflict, but it reinforced those anti-Semitic

feelings that may have been receding.

Jews were widely targeted by the English with outlandish accusations and

violence. Shakespeare was surely aware of the cultural context into which his play would

enter. In Elizabethan England, one could consider the play to be very similar to television

today, in that it was a popular medium that was widely consumed by the public.

Recognizing the impact of the stage in the creation of culture, and specifically the

construction of racialized subjects, Shakespeare situates Shylock in a tradition of harmful

representations that created and continued to give credence to, negative meanings of

Jewishness. Shylock’s admonition to the people of Venice to be seen and treated as

human, is far overshadowed by the traits assigned to him by the author. The most explicit

revelation of Shylock’s character (and ostensibly, Jewish character) is shown when he

demands that Antonio give his debt of a pound of flesh:

I’ll have my bond! Speak not against my bond!

I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.

Thou call’dst me dog before thou hadst a cause,

But since I am a dog, beware of my fangs. (III.iii.5-7)

While Antonio beseeches Shylock to hear his plea, Shylock shows no mercy; instead, he

asserts that he is seeking revenge for the mistreatment he suffered by the hands of the

Christians.
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Comments such as these about The Merchant of Venice reflect on what makes

Shakespeare’s theatrical representation of Jewish people influential and they are what

have led to charges of anti-Semitism against the play. The play, however, does open

questions that are productive and useful as tools for critical inquiry of Western

civilization and the values that underpin it. As Mark Lamos writes in The Staging of

Difference in The Merchant of Venice:

The Merchant of Venice strikes me as a play that examines ideas most of

us would prefer not to face. Because Shakespeare delineates the characters

and actions with a sense of divinely omniscient irony, the audience is

placed in an ambiguous, shifting and uncomfortable position. We are on

terra infirma, forced to think about what we watch and judge our reactions

with self-critical awareness. (283)

The unstable terrain that Shakespeare has us venture into is exemplified in the case of

Antonio. Although he enjoys a stellar reputation as an upright citizen of Venice, and a

self-sacrificing Christian, his loathing for Shylock is open and unrepentant. Antonio’s

bigotry makes us call into question the depth of his conviction to his professed Christian

values and, more broadly, Venice’s civil society on the whole. After all, if Antonio is

representative of Venice’s Christian civic best what are we to make of his hatred for the

socially and politically weak Shylock?

Antonio’s hypocrisy is apparent when he ridicules Shylock for engaging in usury

and yet without hesitation requests a loan to aid his irresponsible friend, Bassanio, to

whom he extends himself uncritically. In act I, scene iii, Shylock, in his characteristically

honest fashion, calls attention to Antonio’s duplicity:

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Signior Antonio, man a time and oft

In the Rialto you have rated me

About my moneys and my usances.

Still have I borne it with a patient shrug

For suff’rance is the badge of all our

Tribe. You call me misbeliever, cutthroat dog,

And spet upon my Jewish gabardine,

And all for use of that which is mine own.

Well then, it now appears you need my help.

Go to, then. You come to me, and you say

“Shylock, we would have moneys”—you say

So, you, that did void your rheum upon my

Beard, and foot me as you spurn a stranger cur

Over your threshold! Money is your suit. (I. iii.103-116)

As Lamos notes we are left on “terra infirma,” rather than having a clear hero. Antonio’s

own words and deeds make us doubt him. And rather than Shylock being reliably

detestable he is reliably truthful in his assessment of his tormentors. Shakespeare does

not allow for clear cut, simple conclusions and instead requires a critical look at those

who oppress the scapegoat. This critical look allows us to see both the perceived

abhorrent character of the Jew as well as the plain duplicity of the Christian; thus

changing the anti-Semitic aspect and influence of the play to an overall assessment of

cultural stereotypes and their validity.

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Within the context of Shakespeare's time, the representation of Shylock is unique.

It is not simply the representation of a greedy or treacherous Jew, but rather it is a

representation of a man aggrieved by those around him, and who is rightly and justifiably

angry and exasperated by his oppression. Shakespeare alludes to a wide range of racist

myths in his characterization of Shylock (venomous, insatiable, and anti-Christian);

however, Shylock is not a simplistic character as he gives us a glimpse into the cultural

context that surrounds him and the reasons for his own subjectivity. We learn about the

various attitudes displayed by those in Elizabethan England who were not Jewish, we

learn about the way that Jews were not simply vindictive in their anger toward the

English, but rather that they were frustrated by the actions of their English oppressors.

Shakespeare's representation is not favorable of those Englishmen and their prejudices; in

fact, he represents them as behaving in very self righteous ways, as in the case of

Antonio. Although Shakespeare’s characters in Merchant are ostensibly Italian, they

represent English attitudes familiar to the playwright.

One can only speculate on the intentions of Shakespeare, there is no way we will

know if indeed he harbors anti-Semitic thoughts or beliefs; after all, to do so we would

have to consider his entire body work. Beyond this play there is no indication, or at least

there appears to be no widespread consensus, that Shakespeare was consistently anti-

Semitic in his representation of Jews. In fact, a close analysis of this particular play does

not indicate a consistent attitude of anti-Semitism. Rather, it is the troubling, and often

problematic aspects of this representation that creates many problems for readers in the

21st century. Modern world citizens have been educated about the history of the Jews and

acts of hate geared toward them; including the extensive measure of anti-Semitism that
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has manifested itself in the form of attempted genocide and ongoing persecution by

Christians, Muslims and other faiths. With the horrors of the 20th century holocaust that

is still fresh in the minds of most, readers of Merchant connect their position of pity for

the Jews, and the feelings of distress and guilt over the atrocities aimed at this group of

people, with that which is prevalent in this Shakespearean production – despite his

intentions. Still, it is not unfair to question Shakespeare in a similar way that we might a

filmmaker, playwright, or a television producer of today.

While we may be tempted to say that Shakespeare's words reflect an overall anti-

Semitic attitude we must consider once again the complexity of this representation of not

only Shylock but also Shylock's daughter, Jessica. Her strong desire to convert to

Christianity and abandon Judaism seems to expose the Jewish ways as objectionable or

unattractive. Yet it was not her rejection of Shylock that causes the audience to have

distaste for her character, but the fact that she stole her father's ring. Her actions can be

seen as “characteristic” of a Jew. As a consequence, Jessica's actions promote the anti-

Semitic perspective that permeates throughout the play.

In addition to the multifaceted illustration of the Jewish Characters in Merchant,

Shakespeare also gave a complex representation of those non-Jewish characters in the

play. The play is much more than a simplistic anti-Semitic representation; it is

commentary of the conditions, relationships and hypocrisies of the society at large. We

see the complex interplay at work in a community that is facing economic crises, that has

a collective sense of entitlement, yet refuses to examine its own collective shortcomings.

The fact that Antonio and Bassanio both have financial dealings with Shylock; despite the

verity that Venetian and Christian law forbade the practice and participation in
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moneylending shows the disinclination to accept their individual faults. Even with

Antonio’s default on his loan from Shylock, readers question the humanism of the Jewish

man as their focus sways between the failures of the Venetian to pay the debt and

Shylock’s relentlessness in collecting the pound of flesh owed to him. Shakespeare

allows us to get a glimpse into the underpinning reasons behind the scapegoating and

failures of Christian values. The characters compromise religious beliefs and legal

practice in order to secure money, love and position. This comprise is shown through

Portia’s manipulation of the law in order to orchestrate her assumed union with Bassanio;

Jessica’s defamation of her father for the right to be called “Christian”; Bassanio’s

acquiring a loan to impress his love, Portia; as well as Antonio’s backing Bassanio’s loan

to prove his loyalty to his friend. Shakespeare’s thorough presentation of each character

allows the reader to develop both distain and sympathy for them all; including Shylock.

An analysis of both, The Jew of Malta and The Merchant of Venice requires that

we take into account the economic, political, and social forces at work in Elizabethan

England. Both playwrights do not simply construct a reality but they are also affected by

the economic, political, and social reality that surrounds them. To give the work a

historical context we need to first examine the social and political situation facing Jews in

Elizabethan England. Recognizing the effect of historical events does not eliminate the

oppressive and injurious effect these representations have had on the Jewish people.

Given the history of anti-Semitism one can easily see how problematic the

representations of Shylock and Barabas are in a world where hatred of the Jews has been

a long-standing fact of history. However, the context in which both Marlowe’s and
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Shakespeare’s plays are first staged is critically important to recognizing the complexity

of the issues affecting the reception the attending controversy both plays.

While we may impulsively desire to locate both of these plays in a rigid

ideological category, a critical reading of each prevents an easy conclusion. The

underlying commentary on Elizabethan hypocrisy does not eliminate each play’s anti-

Semitic representations, and in fact, it is one of the reasons that we are forced to engage

the works in a more critical way because we must acknowledge what each play tells

about the culture from which they come. Scholarly responses to either play that would

dismiss the racializing aspect of the plays tell us much about the anxiety produced around

the question of race. And those who fail to critically engage the Jewish question as

represented in Elizabethan cultural productions because they are troubled by Israeli

policy illustrate how contemporary politics can limit scholarly analysis.

The controversy around both pieces demonstrates the degree to which we are still

troubled by the problems that both Marlowe and Shakespeare illuminate. While we can

point to significant changes regarding the issue of anti-Semitism and racism (as to how

these feelings reveal themselves in modern western society), the desire to be done with

this difficult issue and move on to other issues and concerns does not bode well. If we

are to overcome the problematic issue of racism, homophobia and sexism, to name just a

few problems that continue to affect social justice, then we must address it in its various

cultural forms. Yet, as we look at the range of responses to both Marlowe and

Shakespeare those charged with this work of analysis in our culture have found this to be

an extremely challenging task. Far from being in a post-race era, American culture is

only now beginning to give serious critical attention to the construction of racial
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categories in our own, relatively speaking, recent history, when compared to early

modern English history. If scholars are vexed over the problematic representations from

16th century English culture, we can see that there is much work ahead on our side of

history. Beyond all that we can learn from both plays it is imperative that we learn to

remain critical and attentive to the details and nuanced ways that representational

practices can oppress the less powerful in the cultural context. While I find that both

plays contain reprehensible representations of Jewish people it is clear that there is more

at work in the plays. At best, these works serve as a timeless reflection of mankind that

should be used as an effigy of behaviors, beliefs and values to be avoided; and to which

embarrassment and shame should be attached.

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Works Cited

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Doctor Faustus." Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 45. Spring 1 (2003): 22.

Brown, John Russell. “Forward,” The Jew of Malta. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1964. 11.

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Hammill, Graham "Time for Marlowe." ELH 75.2 (2008): 291-314.

Hoveden, Roger de. iii. 266, ed. Joseph Jacobs, The Jews of Angevin England: Documents and

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<http://www.shu.ac.uk/research/hrc/> November 28 2008 <<http://purl.oclc.org/emls/13-

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Additional Resources

Gager, John G. “The origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes Towards Judaism in Pagan and

Christian Antiquity.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1983

Leggatt, Alexander. “The Merchant of Venice: A Modern Perspective.” The merchant of

Venice. Ed. Mowat, Barbara. New York, 1992

Luxon, Thomas H. “A Second Daniel: The Jew and the ‘True Jew’ in The Merchant of Venice.”

Early Modern Literary Studies 4.3 (1999)

Ben-Sasson, H H.. The History of the Jewish People. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,

1976.

Bloom, Harold. Ed. Shylock. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1991

Cartwright, Kent. Theatre and Humanism: English Drama in the Sixteenth Century.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999

Charlton, H.B. Shakespeare’s Jew. Manchester: The Manchester University Press, 1934;

(Folcroft, Pa: Folcroft Press, 1973)

Cohen, Walker. Ed. Norton Shakespeare: Based on Oxford Edition. London: W.W. Norton and

Company, 1997

Cooper, John R. “Shylock’s Humanity.” Shakespeare Quarterly 21 (1970): 117-24

Harrison, G.B. England in Shakespeare’s Day. London: Methuen, 1928

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