POST-COLONIAL DISCOURSES IN SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS

POST-COLONIAL DISCOURSES IN SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS

The postcolonial theory looks at how colonialism influenced the development of literature and literary studies in the context of the region's history and politics. Shakespeare was introduced into the colonies as part of European literature in order to carry out a policy of European cultural dominance. Postcolonial readings of Shakespeare’s texts try to understand how the colonized people try to use Shakespeare to speak back to colonizers, relating it with their reality. Shakespeare’s plays were widely used to challenge the colonialist assumptions of the British than to act as mouthpieces of the colonizer. The postcolonial people used his works in discussing against colonization and also as a mouthpiece for colonized people. Indians became experts of English and Shakespeare, and they were communicating back to the empire, or, to put it another way, they were speaking back to the power. As a result of this process, colonialism faded away, and post-colonial discourses emerged. In colonial politics, Shakespeare's reaction to racial and religious stereotypes is an inseparable component. They were produced during the early days of colonialism and the argument that White men are the superior race was strong in that period. Many of Shakespeare’s plays have non-white characters. In Othello, Othello is a black moor; in Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra is Queen of Egypt; in The Tempest, Caliban belongs to an undefined savage race; in The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is a Jew; in Titus Andronicus, Adam is a moor. There are other minor characters also, for example, Othello’s mother, Shylock’s daughter Jessica, Caliban’s mother Sycorax, and the young Indian boy (son of the Indian King) in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The post-colonial discourses see how the reception of these plays in the non-western societies and the former colonies like Africa, South Asia, Caribbean Islands, and Latin America gave a new perspective to Shakespeare’s plays.

In The Tempest, Caliban was the real owner of the island which was later colonized by Prospero upon his arrival. Prospero turned Caliban into a useful slave. Westerners wanted to use Indians as slaves which are very evident in Minutes of Macaulay. Caliban is depicted as an ‘other.’ Caliban is described as an ugly, monstrous, filthy creature. Prospero and Miranda use derogatory words when they address him and they verbally abuse him whenever they get a chance. Prospero and Miranda teach Caliban their language for easy administration and control, however, Caliban tells in The Tempest that it had benefited him only to curse them, to use their language against them itself. Exactly the same as what India did. Indians managed to shake the empire using the same language the British taught them for ease of administration. In 1813, they started educating India. For the past two hundred years, they were ruling India without any problems. However, when they established universities after 1857, within ninety years of that the British Empire collapsed for the world; largely because of the works of Indians. Prospero and Miranda were initially nice to Caliban and they acquired knowledge about the island through him. They also tried to teach Caliban about their ways and tried to bring him into their order like the Whiteman’s Burden concept of Rudyard Kipling. Caliban is accused of attempting to rape Miranda. Perhaps he wanted to take revenge on Prospero, by colonizing a weak female body or it was like the accusation triggered out of ‘othering’ as in A Passage to India by E M Foster. 

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream and In Twelfth Night, Henry VI, The Comedy of Errors, Troilus and Cressida, and The Merry Wives of Windsor oriental references to India and Indian substances as exotic and precious. Othello is described as a Black Moor. Anybody who does not have a European identity was known as Black. Moors were used to refer to Muslims, especially people coming from Turkey, Arabia or Africa. Moors, especially Turks were treated as enemies of Christianity primarily because of the crusades. Though the crusades were depicted as religious or holy wars, it was a fight for control over Jerusalem, not because it was a place holy for both religions, but because the trade route passed through Jerusalem. After the discovery of the sea route by Vasco da Gama, all these wars were resolved. In Othello and Antony and Cleopatra, Othello and Cleopatra respectively were accused of using magic or some inhuman power to charm Desdemona and Antony respectively. In The Merchant of Venice, the anti-Semitic attitude of European Christians toward Jews is visible in the characterization of its Villain, Shylock. Using the four paradigms of nation, race, gender, and religion, postcolonial discourses try to understand and interpret Shakespearean plays in different ways.

                                               By Renna Fathima 

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