Journal of Literary Studies

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A postcolonial reading of colonial strategies in

Shakespeare's plays

Cleopas Thosago

To cite this article: Cleopas Thosago (1998) A postcolonial reading of colonial

strategies in Shakespeare's plays, Journal of Literary Studies, 14:1-2, 194-212, DOI:
10.1080/02564719808530195

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Published online: 06 Jul 2007.

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A Postcolonial Reading of Colonial
Strategies in Shakespeare's Plays

Cleopas Thosago

Summary

This paper aims at highlighting the postcolonial features inherent in some of Shake-
speare's plays by adopting what Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin call "symptomatic
reading" in their seminal work on postcolonial discourse, The Empire Writes Back
(1989). Instead of concentrating on the metaphoric meaning of the texts, an inter-
pretation of Shakespearean plays will be suggested which reveals not only the colonial
ideologies and other discursive formations that the plays contain, but also the post-
colonial strategies which, though at times implicit, feature prominently in these texts.

Opsomming

Hierdie artikel wil die postkoloniale eienskappe belig wat inherent is aan sommige
dramas van Shakespeare. Dit word bewerkstellig deur die toepassing van wat Ashcroft,
Griffiths and Tiffin "symptomatic reading" noem in hulle belangwekkende boek oor
postkoloniale diskoers, The Empire Writes Back (1989). In plaas daarvan om op die
metaforiese betekenis van die tekste te konsentreer, sal 'n interpretasie van Shake-
speare se dramas voorgestel word wat nie net die koloniale ideologies en ander
diskursiewe strategieë ontbloot nie, maar ook die postkoloniale strategieë wat - alhoewel
soms net geïmpliseer - prominent in hierdie tekste voorkom.

1 Introduction

For a long time many critics read Shakespeare's plays, particularly The
Tempest, as fables of imperialism, thus firmly locating Shakespeare in the
mould of colonial discourse (see, for example, Kuhl 1962; Mason 1962;
James 1967; Mannoni 1964; Greenblatt 1976). Critical focus was often on
the ways in which the Shakespearean text enacts and perpetuates colonialism
by alienating the Other (Caliban), by being involved in anti-Semitism and
racism (Shylock and Othello) and in its overt defence of imperialism (Julius
Caesar). In simple terms, such criticism sees Shakespeare as a staunch
defender of colonialism, because he deploys colonial categories such as
hegemony, language, centre and periphery, as well as savage and civilised
dichotomies, to name but a few. Those propounding this view obviously see

JLS/TLW 14(112), June/Junie 1998 ISSN 0256-4718 194

 A POSTCOLONIAL HEADING OF COLONIAL STRATEGIES IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

the continued presence of Shakespeare in the university and school curricula

as a possible threat to readers. Joseph Sherman, for example, concludes that
"Shakespeare in our schools, so far from enriching pupils with pearls
beyond price, not only wastes their time, but does them positive harm"
(1984: 3). The most discernible harm pointed out by critics is Shakespeare's
"incomprehensible" and archaic language (Wright 1990/91) which is alien
to the contemporary world.
This article aims at highlighting the postcolonial features inherent in
some of Shakespeare's plays by adopting what Ashcroft et al. call "sympto-
matic reading". In their seminal work on postcolonial theory, The Empire
Writes Back, Ashcroft et al. describe symptomatic readings as those "alter-
native" readings which

are not concerned primarily with evaluating one text against another in some
privileging hierarchy or canon, nor with "discovering" their essential metaphoric
meaning, but rather with identifying and articulating the symptomatic and dis-
tinctive features of postcoloniality.
(Ashcroft etal. 1989:115)

Following the above assertion, an interpretation of Shakespearean plays will

be suggested which reveals not only the colonial ideologies and other dis-
cursive formations that the plays contain, but also the postcolonial strategies
which, though at times implicit, feature prominently in these texts.

2 (Anti-)Racism in Shakespeare

One of the most outstanding characteristics of Shakespeare's plays, which

has been a subject of many articles and essays, is racism. Although regarded
as one of the major playwrights with an unequalled and profound ability to
understand and analyse human experience, Shakespeare, most of his detrac-
tors claim, perniciously distorts the images of "Other" non-European races
to the point that critics - such as Terence Hawkes, in his Shakespeare's
Talking Animals - suggest that he is a colonialist:

He imposes the "shape" of his own culture, embodied in his speech, on the new
world, and makes that world recognizable, habitable, "natural", able to speak his
language.
(Hawkes 1974: 211)

The Merchant of Venice has been used as a paradigm for emphasising

Shakespeare's racist attitudes, particularly anti-Semitism, in his plays. One

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 JLS/TLW

such critic is Robert Wistrich who firmly believes that Shakespeare's

stereotypical depiction of Shylock "served to crystallise and reinforce an
anti-semitic stereotype for centuries to come" (1991: 102). It is an over-
generalisation and oversimplification to state that Shakespeare is anti-
Semitic, because in reality he attempts to undermine the basis of this very
stereotype with which he is charged. In an appropriately titled essay, "The
Modification of the Stereotype in The Merchant of Venice", J.B. Thompson
(1983) refutes "the stereotype of Jewish money-mindedness" attached to
Shylock as opposed to the Christian values embodied in characters such as
Antonio. Thompson argues pointedly that Christians in this play inadver-
tently enact the stereotype reserved for Jews because they are perpetually
driven by an insatiable and almost obsessive love for money, and this makes
them merciless and inhumane.
Shakespeare problematises the issue of anti-Semitism by pitting it mer-
cilessly against the generally accepted principles of Christianity which, in
fact, are subverted. In the play Shylock, a Jew and therefore a foreigner,
experiences both racial and religious alienation at the hands of Antonio and
the rest of the Christian community. Shylock's hatred of Antonio, based on
religious difference, is summarised in an aside:

How like a fawning publican he looks

I hate him for he is a Christian
(I.iii: 36-37)1

and is sustained by racial difference:

If I can catch him once upon the hip,

I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
He hates our sacred nation, ....
(I.iii: 47^9)

In another particularly interesting incident, Shylock, like the Venetians, is

clearly prepared to protect his background not only on the basis of religion,
but, and even more significantly, on racial terms:

If a Jew wrong a
Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a
Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance
be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy
you teach me I will execute, and it shall
go hard but I will better the instruction.
(H.i: 73-78)

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 A P0STC0L0N1AL HEADING OF COLONIAL STRATEGIES IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

This speech, James O'Hara argues, "has Shylock defending his race's hu-
manity to the Christian Salerio" (1979: 12) because it exposes, and even
threatens, bias and prejudice in court rulings emanating from religious and
racial differences. In a typical postcolonial vein, Shylock questions and
subverts Christian practice by highlighting the vices inherent in it. To regain
his downtrodden dignity Shylock is prepared to use Christianity as a
counterdiscourse against his Christian "enemies". Thompson points out that
"he was indeed determined to 'execute' the 'villainy' taught him 'by
Christian example' and even to 'better the instruction"1 (1983: 5).
Shylock's determination could be said to be counterdiscursive for it is a
bold decision "to expose and erode [the biases] of the dominant discourse"
(Tiffin 1987: 18) - Christianity in this case - with no apparent aim to take
its place.
Christians, normally seen as true epitomes of moral virtues, are
portrayed as the worst perpetrators of colonialist vice; they have, according
to Shylock,

many a purchas'd slave,

Which like your asses, and your dogs and mules,
You use in abject and slavish parts,
Because you bought them.
(IV.i: 90-93)

Some critics (e.g. Charlton 1938) have accused Shylock of having "a
Satanic lust: for human flesh" - cannibalism, in other words. This view
falsely consigns him to the realm of savagery, untouched by civilisation.
To break out of this stereotype, Shylock is encouraged to be totally assimi-
lated into Christianity by denouncing all that is typically Jewish about him,
which he refuses. Instead, he is at pains to assert his identity as a human
being, which he shares with the Christians, and as a Jew by "acting" the
monster. That Shylock is a real monster, a cannibal, is unthinkable because
"he belongs to the race of those who since the beginning of time have never
known cannibalism" (Fanon 1995: 325).
In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare evocatively dramatises the sub-
version of the artificiality and shallowness of stereotypes, particularly those
based on religious and racial differences. Antonio is a significant character
insofar as he serves as a representative of pro-imperialism, the "good"
Other who has unquestionably assimilated Venetian culture and the Christian
religion; his purpose is to expose the unconscious acceptance of the Other
by the coloniser while Shylock reveals the denied aspect. These two anta-
gonistic characters, who share the same racial and religious background,
help to demonstrate vividly not only the uncertainty of the coloniser about

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his own identity, but also the contradictory perspectives the coloniser has
about the Other. According to Paul Gilroy, this serves as "an important
reminder that 'race' is a relational concept which does not have fixed
referents" (Fanon 1995: 409).
Critical interpretations focusing on the virulence of racism in Shake-
speare's plays (e.g. Baldensperger 1938; Whitney 1922) often take Othello
as their paradigmatic text; the eponymous protagonist is a black man, a
Moor specially endowed with the positive virtues of bravery and loyalty
befitting a colonial subject. Notwithstanding these desired and desirable
attributes, the Christian Commander of Cyprus, Othello, suffers because of
his different racial background and identity and yet enjoys the equivocal
privilege of being a noble ruler. For example, Brabantio, Desdemona's
father, is appalled when he realises that his daughter was able,

in spite of Nature,
Of years, of country, credit, every thing
To fall in love, with what she fear'd to look on.
(I.ui: 96-98)

Othello is informed by what Abdul R. JanMohamed calls "Manichean alle-

gory" because it depicts, through binary oppositions based on racial dif-
ference, the coloniser's negation of his primitive nature by projecting the
undesired darker side onto the colonised. This is immediately evident in the
marriage between Othello and Desdemona.
For some critics, the relationship between Othello and Desdemona, a
lady of aristocratic background, is clearly inconceivable on purely racial
grounds. In the interest of building a racially "undefiled" empire and
evidently in defence of miscegenation, most critics, notably Coleridge, find
it unthinkable that Othello could have been black. He proclaims that "it
would be something monstrous to conceive this beautiful Venetian girl
falling in love with a veritable Negro" (Hawkes 1969:188), thus reinforcing
the stereotypical view of the Other as unsuited to court a woman of
European descent.
Graham Bradshaw's opinion that Brabantio and Desdemona were at-
tracted by Othello's "exotic uniqueness" (1993: 183) reinforces the colon-
ial's stereotyped view of the Other as "exotic" before projecting on him the
coloniser's own "values to real or imaginary differences ... in order to
justify the former's own privilege or aggression" (Memmi 1968: 186).
Iago's unrelenting emphasis on Othello's black colour is surely a way of
making his cultural difference stand out positively against the white race.
In similar vein, the duke's statement ("If virtue no delighted beauty

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 A POSTCOLONIAL READING OF COLONIAL STRATEGIES IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

lackAVour son-in-law is far more fair than black" (I.iii: 289-90), is subtly
anti-racist in its Manichean juxtapositioning of "fair" with "black". The
overemphasis on racial identity is significant in this case, because the
positive terms, "fairness", "honesty", "loyalty" and "bravery" are high-
lighted in contrast to the second image which blindly sees Othello as in-
herently evil, barbarous and "grim-visage".
Again in Othello, Iago's deep-seated antagonism towards Othello, parti-
cularly his marrying Desdemona, is unquestionably a product of racial in-
tolerance and has nothing to do with Othello's inferior personality as a
racial Other. Drawing on the black/white binarism to strengthen his case,
Iago maliciously implores Brabantio to annul the engagement:

Zounds! sir, you're robb'd; for shame put on your gown;

Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you.
Arise, I say.
(I.ii: 86-92)

This stereotypical depiction of Othello as "an old black ram", aimed at

denigrating his identity, merits serious attention because it reflects the
futility and contradictory nature of the "civilising" mission. Reference to
Othello's insatiable libido is a significant stereotype in postcolonial dis-
course, because it implicitly depicts him

as possessing a sexuality highly dangerous to the secure nightcaps of white

husbands, a paranoid complex most evident in Iago's imagination.
(Salway 1991:121)

Taken at this level, as Salway does, Othello's sexuality is indicative of the

colonised's latent potential to conquer and dominate the coloniser. Othello's
marriage to Desdemona is similar to the appropriation and subversion of
colonialist discourse, because "colonial and imperial discourse implicitly
draws upon sexual paradigms to represent itself" (Chrisman 1995: 193). In
this case, it is the ambiguous Othello, simultaneously embodying colonial/-
colonised, and not Iago, nor anyone else, who poses a threat to the tem-
porary stability of the colonial centre because "there is an irreconcilable
duality in white ideas about [his] attractiveness" (Salway 1991: 121).
Initially commanding respect and glory at his first arrival in Venice,
Othello is perceived as a villain and natural savage only after it becomes

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public knowledge that he is secretly marrying Desdemona. The ambivalence

of Othello's position as both a powerful ruler and a "blackamoor" in the
Venetian state is "symptomatic of a confusion within imperialism about its
own identity in relation to Africa" (Chrisman 1994: 511).
The implication of Othello's belated "incivility" is that the marriage
stimulates the repressed anxieties of the coloniser, especially the deeply
entrenched fear of miscegenation. One conclusion might be that Othello has
his savagery and lack of civilisation eroded by constant contact with the
colonially constructed image of him, contrasted with his real self. This
paradox stems from the colonial idea of blackness as a representation of
what is mysterious and fearsome in the human psyche.
Othello seems to have slavishly assimilated colonialist attitudes to a point
where he treats racial "Others", that is, the Turks and Cypriots, with con-
tempt seemingly forgetting the important fact that he is also perceived
stereotypically as "Other" by the colonising Venetians. For example,
Othello, who, according to Martin Orkin, "represents the masterful civil
society which must deal with both the submissive Cypriot population and
with the alien Turkish power (and culture)" (1986: 3-4), explains how he
deals with the element of savagery in the colonised:

Set you down this;

And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduc'd the State
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him thus.
(V.ii: 350-355)

However, and in spite of his undoubted loyalty to Venetian life, the

colonisers cannot afford to assimilate him completely into their own culture
for fear that

if such actions have passage free.

Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be.
<LU: 98-99)

This debilitating fear culminates in the painful recognition, on the part of

the coloniser, of his own irrationality and an acute awareness of the effects
of oppression.
The total inclusion of Othello in Venetian state affairs, especially the fear
of the miscegenous consequences of his marriage to Desdemona, would
actually constitute an act of subversion to colonial rule in the eyes of

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 A POSTCOLON1AL READING OF COLONIAL STRATEGIES IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

Brabantio; an imminent threat which deserves to be urgently counteracted.

Othello has not assimilated Venetian culture and values completely, for
he still believes, though vaguely, in his indigenous beliefs. He values, as
opposed to his newly acquired Christianity, the traditional significance of
the handkerchief, a gift from his mother, which he gives to Desdemona.
The handkerchief serves as a tenuous umbilical cord which ties him tenaci-
ously with his diminishing historical past.
The handkerchief assumes a particular significance for Desdemona and,
according to Emilia's testimony,

... she loves the token.

For he hath conjured her she should ever keep it -
That she reserves it evermore about her
To kiss and talk to.
(m.iii: 290-293)

Through the subtle association of the handkerchief with his lost and unat-
tainable past, or history, Othello is actually resisting complete domination
by Venetian culture while at the same time (re)constructing or, more cor-
rectly, affirming his indelible indigenous identity. Othello is not ashamed
of his identity as a black man. In a contentious statement, which seems to
point to his self-oppression and at the same time to self-affirmation, he says:

Her name that was as fresh

As Dian's visage is now begrimed and black
As mine own face.
(m.iii: 383-385)

This statement, as well as other related statements, does not necessarily

indicate Othello's self-negation; rather, he uses the master discourse of the
coloniser subversively to assert his identity and his latent potential to
exercise control over the coloniser: "I fetch my life and being/From men of
royal siege" (I.ii: 21-22).
In the quest for identity, postcolonialism often has recourse to history by
inverting and rewriting the unreliable colonial history. The inversion of
history, especially a history which is inherently biased against the cultures
of the colonised, in order to create alternative histories, is relevant to post-
colonial literature. Colonialism thrives by falsely assuming that the colon-
ised territory had no inhabitants or history prior to the arrival of the colon-
iser. The history of the island and its inhabitants in The Tempest is written
by Prospero, though not without open resistance from Caliban. Edward Said
stresses the pivotal significance of Calibanic resistance when he says:

201
 JLS/TLW

Never was it the case that the imperial encounter pitted an active Western
intruder against a supine or inert non-Westem native; there was always some
form of active resistance, and in the overwhelming majority of cases, the
resistance finally won out.
(Said 1993: xii)

Prospero's narration of the history, foregrounded in Act I Scene ii, forms

a subtext of the play. Salway explains the significance of narrating this
history:

His own story, his version of the island's history, his knowledge and preoc-
cupations, although only marginally represented in the manifest text, bubble
irrevocably beneath the structure of the action.
(Salway 1991:114)

Prospero's speech, together with his irrational dimension, constitutes the

dominant colonialist discourse of the play, because it enables the assembled
characters "to recognise themselves as subjects of his discourse, as bene-
ficiaries of his civil largesse" (Brown 1985: 59).
Practically none of the other characters in The Tempest have any positive
historical identity. This identity is ingeniously invented and "narrated" by
Prospero, who sees such a narration of history as his task. Only Caliban,
one of the indigenous inhabitants of the island, has his own history, and this
is always marginalised and suppressed by the coloniser, Prospero:

This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,

Which thou tak'st from me.
(I.ii: 331-332)

Prospero's response to this charge is ostensibly a way of repudiating

Caliban's identity and the history of the island by shifting the main thrust
of the discourse and stressing Caliban's alleged intention to rape Miranda:

Thou most lying slave,

Whom stripes may move, not kindness! I have us'd thee
Filth as thou art, with human care; and lodg'd thee
In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate
The honour of my child.
(n.ii: 344-348)

Ironically, and perhaps for unstated colonialist reasons, Prospero obviously

chooses to forget that he has also "penetrated" and "raped" the island!
As a defence mechanism for his colonising of the island, Prospero, the

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 A POSTCOLONIAL READING OF COLONIAL STRATEGIES IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

false "liberator", seeks to induce guilt-feelings of ungratefulness in Caliban,

when he claims to have saved Ariel from the tyranny of Sycorax, to render
legitimate his colonial mission of conquest which, indeed, "has followed a
familiar colonialist pattern" (Salway 1991: 112).
Colonial discourse is maintained and sustained through the emphasis on
hierarchical differences between the cultural practices of the coloniser and
the colonised. This is particularly relevant in The Tempest, where both
Prospero and Caliban's mother, Sycorax, are depicted as magicians, though
of different breeds. Prospero's magic, which he puts to "good" use - "the
bettering of my mind" (I.ii: 90) - is sharply contrasted with Sycorax's which
is presumably "terrible to enter human hearing". Similarly, in Othello, the
Moor is also unfairly accused of winning Desdemona's hand through
"black" magic. Such descriptions are important because they actually cast
into stark contrast the cultural differences between the coloniser and the
colonised. Prospero becomes a magus-like figure, while the colonised
Sycorax, who miscegenously gave birth to the deformed Caliban by copu-
lating with the devil, is seen as a witch and tyrant. Prospero's task as a
coloniser-magus, to "civilise" the degenerate colonised, is not entirely
successful, because Caliban ends up resisting domination by Prospero.
Typical of a colonialist with his insecurities, Prospero maintains his
power over Caliban through threats of physical pain and coercion. After the
abortive rape of Miranda, which is symbolic of Caliban's resistance to
colonialism, and by extension a crude denial of civilisation and its con-
comitants, Prospero threatens him thus:

to-night thou shalt have cramps,

Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins
Shall forth at vast of night, that they may work
All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinch'd
As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made them.
(I.ii: 325-329)

Despite Prospero's threats, the spirit of resistance in Caliban is never

diminished, for on recognising that Prospero was only interested in appro-
priating the island and colonising its inhabitants, he promises: "I'll be wise
hereafter,/And seek for grace" (V.i: 294-295), thus affirming his legitimate
ownership of the island.
Prospero's ill-treatment of Caliban covertly reveals the ineffectiveness of
colonialism because Prospero, the coloniser, becomes more of a victim of
his evil schemes than Caliban, the putative victim, thus complying with
Ashis Nandy's postcolonial model outlined in his The Intimate Enemy: Loss

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 JISITLW

and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (1983). Nandy's incisive critique

shifts the focus from the colonised as victim of colonialism to the coloniser
as co-victim in the master/slave relationship by negating the basis on which
the coloniser articulates his identity as superior to the colonised. Instead, he
argues rightly that rather than emphasising racial binarisms, attention should
be given to the dichotomy of

the exclusive part versus the inclusive whole ... not the oppressor versus the
oppressed but both of them versus the rationality which turns them into co-
victims.
(Nandy 1983: 99)

In the case of The Tempest, we need to sympathise with Prospero because

he is the victim of his own colonial atrocities and this, Sal way avers, is
linked not only to his inability to respect the humanity of the oppressed, but
also to defects in his personality. John Salway observes, quite rightly, that
these irrational acts "are generally attributed to defects in Prospero's
personality, his anger, his intolerance, his jealous guardianship over
Miranda's virginity" (1991: 112).

3 Linguistic (De-)Colonisation

The Tempest profoundly captures the essence of linguistic colonialism in

Shakespeare by foregrounding "the absence of the language of the colon-
ised" (Stam & Spence 1983: 7), a trend "symptomatic of colonialist atti-
tudes" . After Caliban's futile attempt to rape Miranda, Prospero curses him:

Abhorred slave,
Which any print of goodness wilt not take,
Being capable of all ill. I pitied thee,
Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage,
Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like
A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes
With words that made them known. But thy vile race,
Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures
Could abide to be with; therefore wast thou
Deservedly confin'd into this rock,
Who hadst deserv'd more than a prison.
(I.ii: 351-362)

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 A POSTCOLONIAL READING OF COLONIAL STRATEGIES IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

Caliban's response to this charge, which breaks the deafening silence im-
posed on the colonised, clearly reflects the futility and irony of imposing
language on the colonised; instead of using the language of the coloniser
profitably, the only thing Caliban is capable of doing, which provokes the
tempestuous anger of Prospero is, ironically, to curse the coloniser himself:

You taught me language; and my profit on't

is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!
(I.ii: 363-365)

Caliban's scathing statement, which in a way, is a momentary affirmation

of a self untainted by the values and definitions of the coloniser, boldly
asserts that though linguistically colonised, Caliban, like all colonised
people, is not perpetually muted but can still undergo the psychotherapeuti-
cal process of linguistic decolonisation even in the face of malicious coloni-
alism. In Janheinz Jahn's words, "Caliban broke out of the prison of Pros-
pero's language, by converting that language to his own needs of self-
expression" (1969: 242). Intricately linked to linguistic colonialism is the
potential of language to serve as a tool for articulating power. Language,
therefore, can be the locus of the power struggle among characters.
When Don Pedro appropriates Claudio's story in Much Ado About
Nothing, he is actually manifesting his control over language as a represen-
tative of colonial authority. After listening to Claudio's story about his love
for Hero, Don Pedro decides to appropriate the discourse by changing it to
suit his own purposes. He will

take her hearing prisoner with the force of

And strong encounter of my amorous tale,
(Li: 324-325)

thus maliciously effecting a linguistic "twist [to] so fine a story" (Li: 325).
This move, though painful to Claudio, is not as malicious as it seems at
first; by appropriating Claudio's speech Don Pedro inadvertently brings to
the centre of his authoritative and "official" discourse the once marginalised
discourse of Claudio, thus producing an ironic twist which evidences,
however subtly, signs of hybridity. In defence of linguistic hybridity,
Benedick cautions Claudio and Don Pedro not to elevate master discourses
over minority discourses because none of them can lay claim to perfection:

Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with
fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout old

205
 JLS/TLW

ends any further, examine your conscience: and so leave you.

(Li: 295-299)

Accordingly, Leonato's counsel supports the important point made by Ash-

croft et al. that

the appropriation of the language is essentially a subversive strategy, for the

adoption of the "standard" language to the demands and requirements of the place
and society into which it has been appropriated amounts to a far more subtle
rejection of the political power of the standard language.
(Ashcroft et al. 1995: 284)

Ashcroft et al. observe that "one of the main features of imperial oppression
is control over language" (1989: 7). Linguistic control, in this case couched
in patriarchy, is again evidenced in Leonato's authoritative command to
Friar Francis in the wedding scene:

Come, Friar Francis, be brief

only to the plain form of marriage.
(IV.i: 1-2)

Leonato's statement clearly suggests his desire to take control over the
religious register that is supposed to be the domain of the clergy, particular-
ly when it is directly connected with a sacred religious rite such as
marriage.
Another particularly interesting incident, which illustrates the fact that
language directly reveals the play of power relations, is Leonato's confron-
tation with Claudio and Don Pedro. He condescendingly addresses Claudio
as "boy" and "thou" (V.i: 79), thus revealing his superiority over him.
However, when he addresses Don Pedro, the representative of sovereign
power, he respectfully calls him "my lord" (V.i: 48) who, in turn, refers to
him as "old man" whom he "will not hear" (V.i: 107). Language, there-
fore, not only effectively assumes the crucial role of reinforcing and
maintaining authority and power relations in society, but also, and more
significantly, its potential to destabilise power distribution.
Women were officially excluded from language and any autonomous
sense of identity in colonial and patriarchal society. The enterprise of
women is to render impotent the language of the dominant male culture
whose ulterior aim is to subordinate women in order that they do not get
access to a feminine self-identity which escapes the dictates of patriarchy.
Dale Spender elaborates on the dangers of acknowledging and operating
from within male/colonial discourse:

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This monopoly over language is one of the means by which males have ensured
their own primacy, and consequently have ensured the invisibility or "other"
nature of females, and this primacy is perpetuated while women continue to use,
unchanged, the language which we have inherited.
(Spender 1980: 12)

Resistance to linguistic colonisation engendered from paternalism and gender

politics is vividly demonstrated in The Taming of the Shrew where Katharina
defiantly revolts against Petruchio for denying her freedom of speech:

Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak,

And speak I will. I am no child, no babe.
Your betters have endur'd me say my mind.
And if you cannot, best you stop your ears.
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,
Or else my heart concealing it will break,
And rather it shall, I will be free
Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.
(IV.iii: 73-80)

Although Katharina is ultimately tamed by the chauvinistic and patriarchal

male characters in the play, she has successfully challenged the traditional
belief that women should always be silently submissive to male domination
in all spheres of life. In the Elizabethan and Jacobean era women were
judged on the basis of their speech, a principle which fits Katharina
squarely. Juan-Luis Vives explains: "If thou speak uncunningly, they count
thee dull witted; if thou speak cunningly thou shalt be counted but a shrew"
([1523]1912: 94-95). Katharina does not want to fall prey to linguistic
colonisation because it is dehumanising. Her protest against Petruchio,
"Belike, you mean to make a puppet of me" (IV.iii: 103), betrays her
resistance to the far-reaching effects of linguistic colonisation:
depersonalisation and dehumanisation.
In Much Ado About Nothing, the chauvinistic Benedick, who appropriate-
ly refers to himself as "a profess'd tyrant to their sex" (Li: 168), similarly
associates any talkative woman with the shrew stereotype. In a speech
directed to Beatrice, but which he applies to women in general, he miso-
gynistically says:

Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any,

I will do myself the right to trust none.
(I.i: 242-244)

The shrew stereotype attached to Katharina is rendered ineffective if The

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Taming of the Shrew is contrasted with Titus Andronicus, where silence,

instead of the cunning and shrewish speech, becomes subversive to male
discourse. Titus, whose rule imposes an enforced silence on the virtuous
Lavinia, feels threatened by the obedience and silence to the extent that he
forces her to talk:

Speechless complainer, I will learn thy thought;

In thy dumb action will I be as perfect
As begging hermits in their holy prayers:
Thou shalt not sigh, nor hold thy stumps to heaven,
Nor wink, nor nod, nor kneel, nor make a sign,
But I of these will wrest an alphabet,
And by still practice leam to know thy meaning.
(m.ii: 39-45)

Similarly, Ophelia's passivity in Hamlet is even more subversively unset-

tling because it is mostly characterised by paradoxical comments such as:

I do not know what to think

I think nothing, my lord.
(ra.ii: 116)

and comments by other characters:

Her speech is nothing (IV.v: 7).

This nothing's more than matter.
(IV.v: 172)

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar has imperial connotations in its depiction of

Caesar, the conqueror of Rome, as an ambitious and ruthless imperial
general who, at the beginning of the play, is portrayed as a powerful and
authoritative victor of civil wars. As befits an imperial hero, his stature is
exaggerated in a language which suggests the power of the empire. Cassius
deferentially says of him:

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
(I.ii: 135-138)

The chaos into which the state is plunged after Caesar's assassination by
Brutus and his fellow conspirators, who are essentially representatives of a
disturbance in the expansion of empire, signals the indispensable importance

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of imperial rule in Shakespeare's time. Julius Caesar demonstrates the

weakness of the empire and its perpetual subjection to destruction despite
its self-professed strength. When Cassius says:

Stoop then, and wash. How many ages hence

Shall this our lofty scene be acted o'er,
In states unborn and accents yet unknown.
(m.iii: 111-113)

he is actually exposing the failure of the empire to maintain everlasting

control over the colony. Cassius clearly concedes that the drama of sub-
verting the centre will always play on as long as the oppressors are in
absolute power and have access to articulate in "accents yet unknown".

4 Conclusion

The symptomatic reading of Shakespeare's plays adopted in this article has

attempted to demonstrate that it is possible to read the plays "alternatively"
without necessarily assessing them as direct and homogenised expressions
of colonialism and cultural imperialism. Instead, the main objective, as the
article has indicated, is to demonstrate that colonial readings of the plays
can be deconstructed by pointing out, following symptomatic readings, the
often overlooked inherent postcolonial features and strategies embedded in
their narrative. This reading, as it turns out, is opposed to statements to the
effect that "Shakespeare, as playwright perhaps but as text-function certain-
ly, has always been the tool of cultural conservatism, nationalism, and
imperialism" (Inglis 1991: 63) in favour of the contrary which would see
Shakespeare as potentially subversive to these positions. After all, it stands
to reason that at the time of writing the plays Shakespeare (or any other
writer) had not the slightest idea of such concepts as colonialism, imperial-
ism and postcolonialism. Such concepts might be regarded as typically
Victorian or, more precisely, post-Victorian, and one wonders if in Eng-
land, at any rate, such criticism stems from a phenomenon known as "post-
colonial guilt", a feeling which used to be encouraged by left-wing
elements.

Notes

1. All citations of Shakespeare are from William Shakespeare: The Complete Works.
Craig, W.G. (ed.). Magpie Books: London, 1993.

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