Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare wrote plays in England at a time when Jews were banned from the country, making unlikely that the Jewish characters in their plays would represent more than anti-Semitic stereotypes. Marlowe's The Jew of Malta and Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice are easy to read as anti-Semitic plays because of their vengeful Jewish characters. However, playwrights may have taken advantage of their audiences' anti-Semitism to promote their own messages. While Marlowe's antagonist Barabas is greedy and murderous, the Christians in the play are no different, suggesting that Marlowe is using Barabas as a mirror to reflect the Christians' greed and violence that they hide beneath the exercise of religion. This comment may, however, go unnoticed by the audience due to Barabas' stereotypical nature. Shakespeare, in his last play Merchant of Venice, draws parallels with Marlowe's play, but makes his Jewish antagonist Shylock more sympathetic. Shakespeare shows how Shylock's vengeful nature is cultivated by the discrimination he faces in a Christian society, making Shylock not only a mirror reflecting Christian hypocrisy, but also a mirror reflecting an image imposed on him. This offers a better explanation of his and Barabas' motivations. Shakespeare also portrays Christians in a better light, showing them to be hypocritical at times, but ultimately practicing what they preach, unlike Marlowe's play. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Marlowe did not design Barabas to be sympathetic. Barabas is first introduced by Machiavelli in the prologue as "a Jew, / Who smiles to see how full his bags are, / What money was not obtained without my means" (Prologue 30-2). From the beginning, he is portrayed in the stereotypical terms of a greedy Jew who earns money dishonestly. However, Marlowe leaves it ambiguous how the audience should perceive Barabas; Machiavelli says: “Give him what he deserves, / And let him not amuse himself at the worst / Because he favors me” (Prologue 33-5). This could either mean that he wants the audience to pity Barabas and not judge him too harshly, or that Barabas deserves his judgment beyond simply following Machiavelli's teachings. The rest of the play, however, gives the impression that Marlowe is suggesting the latter, as it becomes difficult to pity Barabas even when he is wronged by the Christians. After poisoning an entire convent, killing most of its inhabitants, including his daughter, for example, he seems to deserve the painful death he will eventually experience, even though he was wronged by the Christians. Barabas, however, is not the only greedy or murderous one. character. While the Christians in the play criticize the way Barabas acts, his actions mirror their own. Barabas draws attention to Christian hypocrisy. “I see no fruit in all their faith,” he says, “but wickedness, lying, and excessive pride, / which, I think, do not correspond to their profession” (1.1.114-6). Barabas claims that Christians do not practice what they preach and he accuses them of possessing traits that they accuse him of having. It is true that Barabas is guilty of lust, but the Christians in the play are guilty of the same sin, including the Christian clergy of Malta. Brother Jacomo, believing he is about to convert Barabas, says, “O happy hour / Where I will convert an infidel / And bring his gold into our treasury!” »(4.1.166). For Jacomo, it seems that winning Barabas' gold is as important as saving Barabas' soul. This is hypocritical, as Barabas says about Christians, because he should not covet gold in this way. This also explains why he and Brother Barnardine, another Christian after Barabas's soul and possibly gold, get into a verbal and then physical fight to convert Barabas earlier in the scene; their lust drove them to violence. Barabas is therefore not the only violent or vengeful character either. It also reflects Christians in these aspects. After Barnardine and Jacomo fight, Barabas and Ithamore murder Barnardine and put him in front of the gate. Jacomo sees the corpse, thinks it's still alive and tries to stop it from reaching Barabas, and says "let me pass... No, right?" No, I will force my way through” (4.1.173-4). The following scene instructions instruct Jacomo to hit the corpse with a stick. While Barnardine is already dead, Jacomo is ready to kill Barnardine himself to convert Barabas. He does not deny what he did, saying "I did not do it", suggesting that he struck with enough force that he would not be surprised that Barnardine was dead (4.1.182). Barabas also brings out the vengeful nature of Matias and Lodowick, two Christians in love with his daughter Abigail. Barabas manipulates them both and they end up in a fight in which they both die. The audience can blame Barabas for their deaths and for Jacomo's desire to kill Barnardine, because they arguably would not have committed these actions if they had not been manipulated by Barabas. However, the fact that Barabas was able to manipulate them into killing them suggests that Barabas was simply helping to awaken a motivation that already existed within them. If they had been sincere in their Christianity, they could have resisted this temptation. Furthermore, Jacomo's lust for Barabas' gold was not due to manipulation; this seems to be a large part of his initial motivation for converting Barabas. When Barabas first meets the two brothers, he tells them “the burden of my sins/Weighs heavy on my soul.” So please tell me: / Is it not too late now to become a Christian? » (4.1.51-3). Far from wanting to convert, Barabas puts on a show for the Christians in order to protect himself from trouble and ensure that things go his way. Marlowe wants his audience to see that Christians, too, practice their religion and are not as sincere as they claim to be. Jewish character may be bad, but the actions of Christian characters are reflected in Barabas. However, due to audience bias, this comment might be lost on them, particularly because Barabas' cruelty outweighs that of the Christians in the play. At the end of the play, a trap set by Barabas backfires and he ends up boiling in a cauldron intended for the Turkish general Calymath. To his cries for help, Ferneze responds: “Should I, out of pity for your complaints or for you, / Cursed Barabas, vile Jew, give way? / No, so I will see that your treason is rewarded” (5.5.71-3). Ferneze refuses to grant Barabas the mercy he asks for, and because of everything Barabas has done, the public would likely believe he deserves his fate, making them more likely to ignore how Christians who brought to justice were not as moral as they claimed. be.Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, written shortly after Marlowe's play, also has a vengeful Jewish antagonist, but unlike Barabas, Shylock commits no crime or engages in any deception; however, he demands that the Christian merchant Antonio lose a pound of his flesh if he does not repaynot a loan, a sinister request that addresses the negative perception of Jews by Shakespeare's audience. Shakespeare, however, gives more justification as to why Shylock is the way he is; Shylock is a mirror that reflects the roles society projects onto him while reflecting, like Barabas, the wrongs of the Christian society around him. Shakespeare, in fact, portrays everyone in a better light than Marlowe, including Christians and Muslims. Where Ithamore in Jew of Malta boasts of having "burned Christian villages" (Marlowe 2.3.202), the presumed Muslim Moroccan prince who appears in Merchant of Venice is as much a gentleman as any of Portia's European suitors . “Hate me not for my complexion,” he said, “the shadowy livery of the burnished sun” (Shakespeare 2.2). He eloquently tries to convince her to love him and see beyond his skin color, and does nothing to offend her, but Portia maintains her prejudices. After he fails the challenge required to marry her, she says, "Let all his complexion thus choose me", emphasizing the arbitrary nature of prejudice; her dislike for him is based solely on his skin color (2.7). The prince, as a Moroccan, lives in a society in which he belongs to the majority and is therefore not constantly othered as he is by Portia. He can be himself and not have to reflect the stereotypical images constantly projected onto him. In contrast, Shylock lives in Venice, a predominantly Christian society that oppresses him and treats him like a stereotype. Shakespeare suggests that it is this treatment that makes Shylock cruel and vengeful, and not anything inherent in his Judaism. This is illustrated through her relationship with Antonio. Antonio initially seems friendly and generous through his interactions with his friend Bassanio, but this disappears when he interacts with Shylock. As Barabas says of Malta's Jewish Christians, Antonio believes that "faith should not be given to heretics" (Marlowe 2.3.312). Not only does this show Antonio's hypocrisy, but it gives a more specific and personal explanation of Shylock's nature. Shylock tells Antonio "In the Rialto you evaluated me / About my money and my habits… / You called me a miscreant, a cut-throat dog, / And you spat on my Jewish gabardine", detailing the different ways Antonio mistreated him. public for nothing other than being Jewish (Shakespeare 1.3). Nevertheless, Shylock is the first character to show anything resembling mercy; despite Antonio's abuse, Shylock does not refuse to do business with him and does not in fact demand payment of interest. Bassanio says "It was kindness", recognizing that Shylock is generous to offer this when it is in his power to refuse (1.3). Shylock, however, demands a pound of flesh from Antonio in case he is unable to repay his loan. , apparently for the sake of revenge. Antonio, however, accepts this arrangement, fully aware of the consequences; no trickery is involved. When asked why he wants a pound of Antonio's flesh, Shylock gives a surprisingly sympathetic speech toward a Jewish character in an anti-Semitic society. He asks if Jews are not “fed with the same food…healed by the same means, warmed and cooled during the same winter and the same summer, as a Christian is?” (3.1). Unlike everyone in the play who calls him inhuman, Shylock suggests that aside from religious differences, nothing important separates a Jew from a Christian, that they are equally human. This being so, he asks: “If a Jew wrongs a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrongs a Jew, what should 2017