The Jew of Malta

by

Christopher Marlowe

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Themes and Colors
God and Machiavellianism Theme Icon
Religious Hypocrisy Theme Icon
Anti-Semitism Theme Icon
Money and Greed Theme Icon
Betrayal and Revenge  Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Jew of Malta, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Anti-Semitism Theme Icon

Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta deals heavily with anti-Semitism. The play takes place in Malta, but Machevill, the play’s narrator, addresses an English audience in the prologue—and the rest of the play likewise reflects the bigotry against Jewish people that permeated 16th-century English society. English society has a long history of anti-Semitism: in 1290, King Edward I issued the Edict of Expulsion, which officially expelled all Jews from England. The Edict of Expulsion remained in effect throughout the Middle Ages and was not overturned until 1657, several years after Marlowe wrote The Jew of Malta around 1589. In Marlowe’s play, Jewish people in Malta are regarded with a general disgust, and they are referred to as “strangers”—meaning their status as Jews prohibits them from being actual Maltese citizens. The Jewish community is repeatedly insulted, marginalized, and exploited without restraint or apology, and there is no indication that this abuse is an isolated event or will come to an end any time soon. With the depiction of society in The Jew of Malta, Marlowe underscores the anti-Semitism present in England during the 16th century; however, Marlowe’s overtly prejudiced representation of Jews also perpetuates the same hateful opinions and misconceptions. 

The Jewish community is constantly mistreated and insulted throughout The Jew of Malta, which underscores the rampant anti-Semitism that Jews faced during the 16th century. When Ferneze, the governor of Malta, doesn’t have the money to pay the tribute owed to the Ottoman Empire, he issues a decree that “the tribute money of the Turks shall all be levied amongst the Jews.” Ferneze orders each Jew to pay half their total wealth, or else they forfeit their entire estate and must become Christians. Not only does Ferneze’s decree unfairly target the Jews, he also attempts to convert them, thereby decreasing the number of Jews in Malta. Ferneze’s decree reveals his general disgust for Jewish people and exposes a concerted attempt to eliminate Jews from society. Don Mathias, a local Christian, falls in love with Abigail, the daughter of Barabas, the richest Jew in Malta. However, Mathias is hesitant to act on his feelings. “I cannot stay,” Mathias tells Abigail, “for my if my mother come, / She’ll die with grief.” The implication here is that Katherine, Mathias’s mother, will not approve of Abigail because she is Jewish. As Marlowe’s target audience was 16th-century English society (which openly rejected the Jewish community in keeping with the Edict of Expulsion), they likely would have sympathized with Mathias’s mother. Thus, Katherine’s presumed “grief” again underscores the widespread bias against the Jewish community in 16th-century England. Lastly, after the Turks take over Malta and make Barabas governor, Ferneze openly laments his plight. “Oh fatal day to fall into the hands / Of such a traitor and unhallowed Jew!” Ferneze cries. “What greater misery could heaven inflict?” The conquering of Malta and Ferneze’s subsequent imprisonment is made worse by way of Barabas’s Jewish identity, once more illustrating the anti-Semitic sentiments of England during the 1500s. As Jews were largely condemned in England during the time the play was written, a Jew in a position of political power would have been viewed by the people of England as both absurd and detrimental to society.

Additionally, Marlowe’s protagonist, Barabas, embodies only the most offensive Jewish stereotypes, a representation that further bolsters the hateful prejudice that pervades the play, and, so it goes, real-life English society. Jewish people were not accepted in England during the 1500s, and they were often represented in offensive ways. As an Englishman targeting an English audience, Marlowe’s description of Barabas reflects this same bigotry. When Machevill opens the play, he says he will “present the tragedy of a Jew, / Who smiles to see how full his bags are crammed, / Which money was not got without my means.” Marlowe implies that Machevill is the ghost of Niccolò Machiavelli—a deceased Italian diplomat famous for his corrupt political practices generally known as Machiavellianism—and Machevill further implies that Barabas obtained his wealth through unscrupulous means, an implication that aligns with society’s anti-Semitic assumption that wealthy Jewish people are dishonest and conniving. Throughout the play, Marlowe repeatedly mentions Barabas’s enormous nose, which is a reference to the offensive stereotype that all Jews have a large, hooked nose. Many people of Mediterranean descent have the facial features Marlowe attributes to Barabas, not just Jews. Still, the representation of large and unattractive noses persists in the caricature of the Jewish community, which further reflects the widespread anti-Semitism of the 16th century. What’s more, Barabas is completely depraved and corrupt, and he murders an entire convent of nuns—including his own daughter, Abigail—without batting an eye. Barabas is a despicable man completely lacking a moral compass, and he is the epitome of the stereotypical “wicked Jew” that Marlowe’s Christian characters both despise and fear, a harmful representation that perpetuates the same hateful stereotypes.  

While many literary scholars have argued that The Jew of Malta depicts anti-Semitism to expose and overcome such hatefulness, Marlowe’s overtly stereotypical representation of Barabas complicates this interpretation. Barabas is ultimately killed at the end of the play (one of his schemes backfires and he falls into a boiling cauldron meant for Selim-Calymath, the son of the invading Turkish Emperor), but it is difficult to view Barabas’s untimely death as tragic. It is impossible to sympathize with Barabas and his contemptible ways, regardless of the unfair way in which he and the other Jews are treated. While it may be argued that Marlowe intended to condemn anti-Semitism through The Jew of Malta, his play undeniably bolsters the very same bigotry and harmful stereotypes he may have sought to expose.

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Anti-Semitism Quotes in The Jew of Malta

Below you will find the important quotes in The Jew of Malta related to the theme of Anti-Semitism.
Prologue Quotes

But whither am I bound, I come not, I,
To read a lecture here in Britaine,
But to present the tragedy of a Jew,
Who smiles to see how full his bags are crammed,
Which money was not got without my means.
I crave but this, grace him as he deserves,
And let him not be entertained the worse
Because he favours me.

Related Characters: Machevill (speaker), Barabas
Page Number: 10
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 1 Quotes

Rather had I a Jew be hated thus,
Than pitied in a Christian poverty:
For I can see no fruits in all their faith,
But malice, falsehood, and excessive pride,
Which methinks fits not their profession.
Happily some hapless man hath conscience,
And for his conscience lives in beggary.
They say we are a scattered nation:
I cannot tell, but we have scrambled up
More wealth by far than those that brag of faith.

Related Characters: Barabas (speaker)
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 2 Quotes

Barabas: Are strangers with your tribute to be taxed?

Knight: Have strangers leave with us to get their wealth?
Then let them with us contribute.

Barabas: How equally?

Ferneze: No, Jew, like infidels,
For through our sufferance of your hateful lives,
Who stand accursèd in the sight of heaven,
These taxes and afflictions are befallen,
And therefore thus we are determinèd;
Read there the articles of our decrees.

Related Characters: Barabas (speaker), Ferneze (speaker), Knight (speaker)
Page Number: 22-23
Explanation and Analysis:

What? Bring you scripture to confirm your wrongs?
Preach me not out of my possessions.
Some Jews are wicked, as all Christians are:
But say the tribe that I descended of
Were all in general cast away for sin,
Shall I be tried by their transgression?
The man that dealeth righteously shall live:
And which of you can charge me otherwise?

Related Characters: Barabas (speaker), Ferneze, Knight
Page Number: 25
Explanation and Analysis:

Ay, policy? That’s their profession,
And not simplicity, as they suggest.
The plagues of Egypt, and the curse of heaven,
Earth’s barrenness, and all men’s hatred
Inflict upon them, thou great Primus Motor.
And here upon my knees, striking the earth,
I ban their souls to everlasting pains
And extreme tortures of the fiery deep,
That thus have dealt with me in my distress.

Related Characters: Barabas (speaker), Ferneze
Page Number: 27
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2, Scene 3 Quotes

In spite of these swine-eating Christians,
Unchosen nation, never circumcised;
Such as, poor villains, were ne’er thought upon
Till Titus and Vespasian conquered us,
Am I become as wealthy as I was:
They hoped 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.

Related Characters: Barabas (speaker), Ferneze, Abigail, Don Lodowick
Related Symbols: Gold
Page Number: 44
Explanation and Analysis:

Barabas: Good sir,
Your father has deserved it at my hands,
Who of mere charity and Christian ruth,
To bring me to religious purity,
And as it were in catechizing sort,
To make me mindful of my mortal sins,
Against my will, and whether I would or no,
Seized all I had, and thrust me out-a-doors,
And made my house a place for nuns most chaste.

Lodowick: No doubt your soul shall reap the fruit of it.

Barabas: Ay, but my lord, the harvest is far off:
And yet I know the prayers of those nuns
And holy friars, having money for their pains,
And wondrous; (and indeed do no man good)
And seeing they are not idle, but still doing,
‘Tis likely they in time may reap some fruit,
I mean in fullness of perfection.

Related Characters: Barabas (speaker), Don Lodowick (speaker), Ferneze
Page Number: 47-48
Explanation and Analysis:

Barabas: Hast thou no trade? Then listen to my words,
And I will teach that shall stick by thee:
First be thou void of these affections,
Compassion, love, vain hope, and heartless fear,
Be moved at nothing, see thou pity none,
But to thyself smile when the Christians moan.

Ithamore: Oh brave, master, I worship your nose for this.

Related Characters: Barabas (speaker), Ithamore (speaker)
Related Symbols: Barabas’s Nose
Page Number: 52
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 3 Quotes

Ithamore: Oh mistress! I have the bravest, gravest, secret, subtle, bottle-nosed knave to my master, that ever gentleman had.

Abigail: Say, knave, why rail’st upon my father thus?

Ithamore: Oh, my master has the bravest policy.

Related Characters: Ithamore (speaker), Abigail (speaker), Barabas, Don Lodowick, Don Mathias
Related Symbols: Barabas’s Nose
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 5, Scene 2 Quotes

Oh fatal day to fall into the hands
Of such a traitor and unhallowed Jew!
What greater misery could heaven inflict?

Related Characters: Ferneze (speaker), Barabas
Page Number: 117
Explanation and Analysis:

And thus far roundly goes the business:
Thus loving neither, will I live with both,
Making a profit of my policy;
And he from whom my most advantage comes,
Shall be my friend.
This is the life we Jews are used to lead;
And reason too, for Christians do the like:
Well, now about effecting this device:
First to surprise great Selim’s soldiers,
And then to make provision for the feast,
Then at one instant all things may be done,
My policy detests prevention:
To what even my secret purpose drives,
I know; and they shall witness with their lives.

Related Characters: Barabas (speaker), Ferneze, Selim-Calymath
Page Number: 121
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 5, Scene 5 Quotes

Ferneze: Should I in pity of thy plaints or thee,
Accursèd Barabas, base Jew, relent?
No, thus I’ll see thy treachery repaid,
But wish thou hadst behaved thee otherwise.

Barabas: You will not help me then?

Ferneze: No, villain, no.

Barabas: 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 framed the challenge that did make them meet:
Know, Calymath, I aimed thy overthrow,
And had I but escaped this stratagem,
I would have brought confusion on you all,
Damned Christians, dogs, and Turkish infidels;
But now begins the extremity of heat
To pinch me with intolerable pangs:
Die life, fly soul, tongue curse thy fill and die!

Related Characters: Barabas (speaker), Ferneze (speaker), Don Lodowick, Don Mathias, Selim-Calymath
Page Number: 129-130
Explanation and Analysis: