Jews
Consider how criticism might engage with race and religion (through two texts)
(889 Words)
Race and religion can form vital parts of any play or novel; history has proved that tension, be it through different religions/ races of people, has stirred up many conflicts. In this essay, I will refer to two texts namely ‘The Jew of Malta’ by Christopher Marlowe and ‘The Heart of Darkness’ by Joseph Conrad. I would like to show how criticism can engage from a story and that we can see the undertones of the text that shows racial and religious streams of thought and action. These narratives both show the act of colonialism/countries powers, which are true accounts of the Christian colonizers and the Turkish Siege of Malta as well as King Leopold and the Belgium Congo.
Initially, The Jew of Malta resonates with themes of religious tension, which was a parallel to the time, in the sixteenth century. There were not many Jews in England during this time. Jews in England secretly practiced. Many Jews who were born into the Jewish faith either converted or pretended to be Christians. Criticism can be pointed not only towards the non-secular people in England but also where this play tries to deal with the anti-semitic feeling that was rife throughout the whole of Europe. The Jewish people did not believe in Christianity, so they were a threat to social order. English Protestants felt that Jews were outsiders as well as Muslims and Catholics. Marlowe forces the reader to re-examine the factors that were the start of internationalism. It makes the reader comment about the internal affairs at that time. The subject of commerce and internationalism had a role in the unfolding drama that could be equal to the effects of antisemitism.
Furthermore, in 1594 the Queens physician Roderigo Lopez, a Portuguese Jew was tried and executed for treason on charges that included conspiring to poison the queen. The Lopez case inspired a wave of anti-Jewish feeling and was probably responsible for the appearance of several dramas dealing with Jewish characters including the revival of the Jew of Malta. At that time, Marlowe’s story would have assessed the Jewish implication as much as we do now. Barbaras is a Jewish merchant he is angered by the passage of law requiring all Jews to either convert to Christianity or give up one-half of their wealth. Barbaras’ daughter is also in love with a Christian. He commits crimes for revenge because he hates Christian race.
Marlowe wrote it about a Jew, of another religion, and let the reader see Barbaras as someone that is capable of any heinous crime, a factor brought on by other people’s motives. He is a wealthy Jewish man that cannot be trusted. Marlowe shows us a character of a Jew (Barbaras) and gives us that experience and thus forms the reader’s opinion. The main character Barbaras displays the kind of strategic cunning that is at odds with the Christian notions of altruism, but he shares much with Machiavellian self-advancement. There was anti-Machiavellian feeling that was widespread in Elizabethan England. In all do we admire or criticize Barbaras for his fight against the invaders?
In Conrad’s novel, we find a certain racial tension, which is documented throughout the novel, with reference to black and white with the insinuation to bad and good. The white race has the strong hold on the black. We find arguments with the whites who exploit the blacks though the whites are seen as dark souled. You feel pity for the blacks who are taken over. Europe at the time of the late 1900’s was generally thought a place of light or enlightenment and Africa was generally thought as a place of darkness. Conrad finds disparagement with the history of colonialism as it was applied in the Belgium Congo. We find criticism in the ways of the whites. He writes about the sociological investigation of those who conquer and those who are conquered and the complicated way between the two races.
King Leopold founded the ‘International Association for the Suppression of Slavery and the Opening up of Central Africa’ where he attempted to impose civilization and order. This colonial greed just fostered widespread abuse; so much for racial alliance! Conrad’s disparagement not only festered when he visited the Congo but also saw that exploitation suppurate everywhere. Again, we have reason to analyses; we find a race of people with their own motives trying to take over another country. Essentially, we come to evaluate the white race for their love of spreading salvation, religion, culture and commerce and not letting the blacks have their own. Do we admire or criticise the whites invaders for this?
To conclude, we find motivation for criticism because of some heinous acts from people of dissimilar races and religions. The height of racial tension must be thought to come from the colonialists who then thought that they were of superior wealth and knowledge that they would bring great ideas and make everything for the better although we find that they are not of the right knowledge to see the problems that they are causing. Here we have to challenge their motives. Racial and religious tension is made from acts that will not be forgotten with the passage of time, and we see here what mistakes each race of people could have made and the reactions that are born from them.
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Hitler – The development of evil
(717 Words)
In the multitude of years that humans have walked this planet, the German leader Adolf Hitler has to be one of the most evil people to ever come into existence. Not solely attributed but largely as a consequence of Hitler through his regime of Nazism an estimated eleven million people were killed which included six million Jews. These are staggering figures but why so many Jews? Moreover, why was Hitler so against the Jewish continuation as a people in his country and ultimately as a race? In this essay, I would like to posit some ideas on the causes of Hitler disgust of the Jewish race while showing the effects that came about as he became the German leader.
Therefore, when Hitler grew older his resentment had to materialise and as such, he became a great believer in the Volkisch Movement that believed that the Aryan race (the master race of Northern European descent) was the noble race. Hitler was also to believe any contact with a Jew was not allowed resulting in the belief that his grandmother’s and ultimately his father’s blood was tainted in some way. So, even if his father had been fathered by an Aryan German he still had stains of evil Jewish blood in him making him the evil man he was. Furthermore, once Hitler became the leader he was to make sure Germany never produced a father figure like he had and a person like he had become. All his childhood rage came to the fore. For example, one of Hitler’s first moves in power saw him create a law that prohibited Aryan German maids from working for Jews. He also banned the marriage of Jews and Aryans Germans so as to cleanse the German race of any last thread of Jewish blood. There are even reports Hitler even lengthened WWII to make sure his plan was complete. Train loads of Jewish people were rounded up and sent to concentration camps over Germany to be sent to gas chambers and ultimate death through Hitler’s revulsion of Jews. His main aim was to complete the Holocaust and to cleanse Germany. As the German leader, he thought that any person tainted with Jewish blood would be evil forever.
So it is noticed, Hitler’s youth and his adult life bear a great relation. He had an awful childhood through his father’s beatings and grew to hate the ways his life had become therefore as he grew older he would let that anger out through war and the extermination of Jews. The hate inside him easily led him, as an adult, to Nationalistic movements promoting Germany as a clean Aryan state. Hitler was so angered inside he was prepared to let German soldiers die before the total destruction of the Jewish race was complete. His childhood anger that developed into older age was to the core of his body.
An understanding of the larger issues of Hitler’s existence through the whole of his life centering on his early life comes to show us how issues develop in people and how childhood experiences can reap extreme results as they lay dormant in the mind and develop in later life to catastrophic consequences. Hitler’s case is one that hopefully will never be seen again, but on a human level, this can be avoided where naive parents need to realise their anger and role model actions have lasting effects.
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How much did Hitler’s upbringing develop his stirrings of hatred and anger?
(819 words)
In the multitude of years that humans have walked this planet, the German leader Adolf Hitler has to be one of the most evil people to ever come into existence. Not solely attributed, but largely as a consequence of Hitler, through his regime of Nazism, an estimated 11 million people were killed which included 6 million Jews. These are staggering figures but why so many Jews? Moreover, why did Hitler bring so much anger against the Jewish continuation as a people in his country and ultimately as a race? Considering Hitler’s hatred of Jews, it is clear this vehemence was not born the day he became The Furher. Hitler’s young life experiences can be taken into consideration. He was a product of his early environment. His burgeoning disgust of the Jewish race and his anger materialized from three experiences; his father, his grandmother, and growing up.
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