Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

In “The Jew of Malta” (1589-90), Christopher Marlowe (1564-93) creates the Jew Barabas who resorts to every conceivable means in pursuit of freedom of desire. He aspires for freedom of desire including power and wealth by a series of murders. He tricks Lodowick and Mathias into fighting for winning his daughter, Abigail. When Abigail becomes a nun, Barabas poisons her along with the whole of the nunnery, and strangles two friars Barnadine and Jacomo. His slave Ithamore betrays him due to his love Bellamira and his friend’s instigation, so Barabas poisons all three of them. Barabas is the Other in the eyes of the Turks and of the Christians, but, paradoxically, he benefits from their conflict in light of traps. Just at the right moment, the former governor Ferneze emerges and causes Barabas to fall into his own trap. Applying the theory of the Other by Emmanuel Levinas (1905-96) to “The Jew of Malta,” I will examine the conflict between the Jews and the Turks alongside the struggle between Spain and the Ottoman Empire. I attempt to probe into the relationship between the Self and the Other, between the master and the slave.