Barabus Character Analysis

Barabus in the jew of malta is an extremely revengeful and ambitious character. The jew of malta appears as a victim in the beginning of the play. At the very beginning, barabus is shown as a unbelievably wealthy man and extremely shrewd and interested just in his own contentment. Barabus’s vicious evilness is more and more present in his behaviour. As the curtains rises, barabus the jew is discovered in his counting house counting the heaps of gold before him and speaking to himself the while. In a careless manner, barabus pushes away the money and considers precious pearls mere pebblestones. He quotes-

“fie; what a trouble ‘tis to count this trash.”

Barabus’s wealth is his life. The first picture of the jew shows himself to be a very powerful man with a power derived from gold. Barabus is not just a miser hoarding money. He values wealth because it gives him power. Worthiness for barabus is valued in terms of riches. He is rich and knows he is hated by Christians for his wealth and he hates them back. He takes pride in saying that there are more wealthy jews in the world than Christians. Christians may be more in number; whereas the jews are scattered all over. The jews are rich but they cannot be rulers because of their sparse numbers. Barabas is one of those affluent jews. However, all his riches dose not give him power.

His desire for revenge increases. Unmindful of the misery he is causing his daughter, he sets her lover Mathias against Lodowick, the governor’s son. Abigail is loved by both Mathias and Lodowick and barabas takes this opportunity to start a fight between them. On knowing barabas’s plan, his daughter desserts herself from her father and rejoins the nunnery. Not realizing it is he himself who has been alse and unkind, he accuses Abigail of unkindness, for her adoption of Christianity has disgraced him. He then plots the most heinous of his crimes- planning the death of his own