POST-COLONIAL DISCOURSES IN SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS

Even though colonialism helped in forming an “educated” reaction against the Western, Colonization promoted scientific racism- which said that Western people are better and African people are closer to Monkeys. It shows that the mind can be easily colonized. In the Indian context, Mughals were more like “indigenised” rather than being the “colonizer”.

At first, British didn’t have any religious agenda, because they were traders and they knew that interfering in local people’s faith will be counterproductive. They only focused on money. But the Christian missionaries protested in the parliament, so they had to give permission. The British made the initiative to educate the people of colonized lands like India, because they needed interpreters and mediators. It’s more like “Indian in blood, and British in character”. The biggest contribution of British to India was their introduction of Shakespeare to Indians. Thanks to them, later Indians used Shakespeare to speak back to the empire. In another way, Indians used English language to collapse British. Also, the concept of modernity is the by-product of English

The four postcolonial plays are; Othello, Merchant of Venice, Antony and Cleopatra and The Tempest After post-colonialism came into being, all these plays got different understandings. In Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra is a woman who is African. She is portrayed as a lustful woman by the men of Rome because she is a foreign woman. Portraying the women of the colonized land as erotic, shows the colonizer “gaze”. In the play Merchant of Venice, the character of Shylock is a victim of colonizers. He is an African but he identifies himself as Venice, because he has felt the othering there. He was harassed by the Christians (which represent the colonizer).  In “The Tempest”, the character Caliban says that “You taught me language. I use it to curse” to Miranda who taught English to Caliban. This was because she considered his language as uncivilized. It shows the white man burden mentality. In Othello, the prejudices against “moors” can be seen. White people’s prejudice against blacks are also seen here.

 

 

 

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