THE*_*JEW*_*OF*_*MALTA* - Christopher Marlowe Farcical_and_Comical_Elements_in_Jew_of_Malta

*THE*_*JEW*_*OF*_*MALTA* - Christopher Marlowe
Farcical_and_Comical_Elements_in_Jew_of_Malta


The Jew of Malta is often amusing and it would be possible to regard it simply as a brilliant theatrical entertainment intended to make one laugh rather than think. The problem here is to maintain the right balance of the “ludicrous” and the “terrible”. T.S.Eliot was aware of this problem. Even though he preferred to classify the play as a farce rather than as a tragedy, he was careful to emphasise that its humour was “terribly serious”. According to Bawcutt, the Jew of Malta is a harsh and disturbing comedy, near to ridicule, not the cheerful laughter which relaxes and heals. It should not distract one from the play´s seriousness, but intensify it, by making us aware of the ludicrous instability of our attitudes and the absurdity of our pretensions to moral superiority. The play may seem at times a parody of normal human behaviour; even so, it is the kind of parody that is uncomfortably close to reality. (Bawcutt 1978:36).

Several asides in the main plot of The Jew of Malta  assume comic function and devices of double entendre (double meaning) are applied. Several asides are unspoken thoughts of a character or confidentially and silently uttered messages addressed to another character, but most of the asides are examples of dramatic irony, in the way that they reveal the innermost thoughts of the characters in contrast to what they actually say. They may reveal double-dealing and the hypocrisy in this way but sometimes also the true honesty and virtue of a speaker. (cf. Abigail, III.iii). They also may function as a dramatic device to raise suspense, anticipating a forthcoming event, such as for example murder or intrigue.

An example of this can be found in II.iii when Barabas is talking to Lodowik: “The diamond that I talk of, ne´er was foiled”. The diamond will be foiled though when he touches it. Another example can be found in Act I.ii, when Barabas and Abigail are preparing for the retrieval of gold and money from their former home, now confiscated by the governor and turned into a nunnery.

Farcical scenes, such as in Act IV.i when Barabas provokes an open conflict between the Dominican friar Jacomo and the Benedictine monk Bernadine, which are both exposed as mercenary and corrupt. The promise of inheriting Barnabas´ riches is enough to trigger hostility and violence and an open satire on the corruption of the clergy as well as the greed and envy and worldly mindedness takes place. A macabre farce takes place after the strangling of Bernardine, when the dead body is propped up by Barnabas and Ithamore as if it was leaning on a stick asleep. They then take up their position as a concealed stage audience wating for Jacomo to come and to be accused of murder. Bernadine is discovered by Jacomo who attacks him with a stick and Bernadine seemingly drops dead. Barabas and Ithamore witness the apparent act of murder and after they report the incident to the authorities Jacomo is accused of murder and hanged.

There several references in the text to sexual abuses and the apparent promiscuity and corruption of the clergy, as for instance in Act III.iii, when Ithamore addresses Abigail with the following words: “…have not the nuns fine sport with the friars now and then?”

Another example can be found when Bernadine, in a self-exposing soliloquy, utters a response to Abigail´s last words: (“…and witness that I die a Christian”): “Ay, and a virgin too, that grieves me most…”)