Betrayal and Revenge Theme Analysis

Betrayal is rampant in Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta. Malta’s Jewish community is betrayed by Ferneze, Malta’s governor, when he unfairly seizes their wealth to pay the tribute money owed to the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, the play’s protagonist and Malta’s richest Jew, Barabas, betrays his fellow Jews when he fights for his own happiness and wealth while ignoring theirs. Barabas even betrays his own daughter, Abigail, and engineers a plot to murder her love, Don Mathias, as well as Ferneze’s son, Don Lodowick. Barabas is likewise betrayed, first by Ferneze and then by his trusted Turkish slave, Ithamore, who sells Barabas out for gold and the affection of Bellamira, a prostitute whom Ithamore lusts after. The play is also rife with revenge, as each character who is wronged seeks vengeance against those they hold responsible. Both Ferneze and Katherine, Mathias’s mother, are determined to avenge the deaths of their sons—but their attempts pale in comparison to Barabas’s desire for vengeance, which quickly spirals out of control. In The Jew of Malta, Marlowe underscores the ubiquitous nature of betrayal and revenge in broader society, and he ultimately argues that trying to avenge betrayal is a slippery slope that is best avoided. 

Most of Marlowe’s characters in The Jew of Malta are guilty of treachery and disloyalty, which highlights how common betrayal is in broader society. When Martin Del Bosco, the Vice-Admiral of Spain, comes to Malta selling Turkish slaves, Ferneze initially denies Bosco’s business “by reason of a tributary league.” Malta’s agreement with the Ottoman Turks prohibits the selling of Turkish slaves, a covenant that Ferneze quickly breaks when Bosco promises to help him retain the gold obtained to pay the Turks’ tribute and further protect Malta from war and Turkish retaliation. The promise of money and protection is enough for Ferneze to betray the Turks, which highlights how commonplace betrayal is in broader society. Barabas promises Mathias that he will ultimately be allowed to marry Abigail. “Thou know’st, and heaven can witness it is true,” Barabas tells Mathias, “that I intend my daughter shall be thine.” Mathias agrees. “Ay, Barabas, or else thou wrong’st me much.” Of course, Barabas cares very little if he wrongs Mathias or Abigail, and he easily betrays them when he later engineers the duel between Mathias and Lodowick, which kills them both and breaks Abigail’s heart. Again, the ease with which Barabas deceives his daughter suggests that betrayal is a common human practice. Before the duel between Lodowick and Mathias, the two men are close friends, but Lodowick betrays their relationship and pursues Abigail behind Mathias’s back. Barabas seizes the opportunity created by Lodowick’s betrayal, and Barabas’s machinations directly result in their deadly duel, but their strife begins with Lodowick’s disloyalty, which once more underscores the widespread betrayal present in broader society.

Revenge is likewise rampant in The Jew of Malta, a connection that implies vengeance is just as common as the betrayal that provokes it. After Ferneze confiscates Barabas’s wealth, Barabas swears revenge. “Having Ferneze’s hand,” Barabas says, “whose heart I’ll have; / Ay, and his son’s too, or it shall go hard.” Barabas wants Ferneze to guarantee the return of his wealth, either in writing or through a handshake. Barabas further wants Ferneze’s son, Lodowick, to propose marriage to Abigail to aid Barabas’s plan to kill Lodowick and avenge the theft of his gold. In other words, Barabas’s reference to Ferneze and Lodowick’s “hand” and “heart” mirrors Barabas’s desire for revenge. When Katharine and Ferneze find Mathias and Lodowick dead, they suspect someone put their sons up to the deadly duel, and they vow to exact their own revenge. “Hold,” Katharine says to Ferneze, “let’s enquire the causers of the deaths, / That we may venge their blood upon their heads.” For Katharine and Ferneze, there is no justice for their sons’ deaths without revenge. After Ithamore, Bellamira, and Pilia-Borza betray Barabas, he exacts revenge on them, too, by giving them a poisonous bouquet. “So, now I am revenged upon ‘em all,” Barabas says. “The scent thereof was death, I poisoned it.” With the flowers, Barabas kills Ithamore, Bellamira, and Pilia-Borza, which again reflects the widespread betrayal and revenge present in broader society.

Once Barabas decides to seek revenge for the unfair theft of his wealth, he will stop at nothing to avenge his lost fortune, and his desire for vengeance quickly gets out of control. Barabas’s desire to exact revenge on Ferneze informs his sinister plan to kill Ferneze’s son, which just so happens to involve the additional death of Mathias, the love of Abigail’s life. Barabas sacrifices his daughter’s happiness in the name of his revenge. And when Abigail later joins the nunnery (a move she says is in response to her sins but is likely her private revenge for Barabas’s involvement in Mathias’s death), Barabas exacts revenge against Abigail, too, killing her and all the nuns in the convent with a gift of poisoned rice. Once he begins down the road of vengeance, Barabas is helpless to stop, which illustrates the disastrous course of action that Marlowe implies is implicit in revenge.