The Jew of Malta: Character Mind Map & Summary
Everything you need on Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta: every key character, Barabas’s trail of victims, the lines examiners love to quote, an act-by-act summary and the key exam facts.
The Character Mind Map
Tap any name to open the character’s role, key moment, fate and famous line.
Barabas
The richest merchant in Malta. When the Christian Governor seizes all his wealth to pay tribute to the Turks, Barabas turns to revenge, and then to plot after plot of murder, poisoning and betrayal. Clever, witty and totally self-interested, he talks directly to the audience with gleeful asides. His name recalls the thief freed instead of Christ.
Infinite riches in a little room.Fate: falls into his own boiling cauldron
🎭 The Prologue
The frameMachevilThe ghost of Machiavelli
Role: Speaks the Prologue, introducing Barabas as one of his followers. He sets up the play’s theme of “policy”: cunning, ruthless self-interest.
I count religion but a childish toy, / And hold there is no sin but ignorance.
🏠 Barabas’s Household
Daughter & slaveAbigailBarabas’s only daughter
Role: Loyal at first. She pretends to become a nun so she can recover her father’s hidden gold from their house, now turned into a nunnery. She loves Don Mathias.
Key moment: When Barabas’s plot kills Mathias, she truly converts to Christianity. Barabas poisons her with the whole nunnery; dying, she reveals his crimes to Friar Barnardine.
Poisoned by her fatherIthamoreTurkish slave · Barabas’s partner in crime
Role: Bought at the slave market, he delights in villainy and helps Barabas kill Barnardine.
Key moment: Seduced by the courtesan Bellamira, he betrays his master and helps blackmail him.
Poisoned by Barabas✝️ Christian Malta
The rulersFernezeGovernor of Malta
Role: Seizes the Jews’ wealth to pay the Turkish tribute, then refuses to pay the Turks after all. A Christian hypocrite whose “policy” matches Barabas’s own.
Key moment: Cuts the rope that drops Barabas into the cauldron and ends up in control of Malta.
…let due praise be given / Neither to Fate nor Fortune, but to Heaven.Survives and wins
LodowickFerneze’s son
Role: Wants to marry Abigail. Barabas pretends to agree while secretly planning his death.
Killed in a duel with MathiasDon MathiasAbigail’s true love
Role: A young gentleman who loves Abigail. Barabas sends him and Lodowick forged challenges.
Killed in the same duelKatherineMathias’s mother
Role: Mourns her son with Ferneze; together they vow revenge on whoever caused the duel.
Martin del BoscoSpanish vice-admiral
Role: Arrives with captured Turks to sell as slaves and persuades Ferneze to break with the Turks and rely on Spain.
🌙 The Turks
The outside powerSelim-CalymathSon of the Turkish Sultan
Role: Demands ten years of unpaid tribute from Malta, which sets off the whole plot.
Key moment: Captures Malta with Barabas’s help and makes Barabas governor, then is trapped at Barabas’s banquet and taken prisoner by Ferneze.
Survives as a hostageThe BashawsTurkish officers (pashas)
Role: Calymath’s officers who come to Malta to collect the tribute and return later to demand it.
⛪ The Church
Greedy friarsFriar BarnardineAbigail’s confessor
Role: Hears Abigail’s dying confession, which reveals Barabas’s murders. He tries to use the secret for gain and competes with Jacomo for Barabas’s wealth.
Strangled by Barabas & IthamoreFriar JacomoRival friar
Role: Received Abigail into the nunnery. Barabas props up Barnardine’s corpse; Jacomo strikes it, thinks he killed him, and is blamed.
Hanged for Barnardine’s “murder”The Abbess & NunsThe nunnery in Barabas’s old house
Role: Take in Abigail.
All poisoned by Barabas’s rice porridge💋 The Blackmailers
The underworldBellamiraA courtesan
Role: Seduces Ithamore to get at Barabas’s money. Before dying she exposes Barabas’s crimes to Ferneze.
Poisoned by BarabasPilia-BorzaBellamira’s pimp
Role: Carries the blackmail letters to Barabas and collects the money.
Poisoned by BarabasMemory Hook: 3 Faiths, 1 God: Gold
Marlowe’s big joke: the Jew, the Christians and the Turks are all driven by the same greed and “policy”.
Barabas’s Trail: The Death Map
Almost every death in the play leads back to Barabas, including his own.
Famous Lines: Who Says What
The most frequently quoted lines in competitive exams, in the order they appear.
Act-by-Act Summary
The whole plot in five quick stops.
Act 1The Seizure
- Machevil introduces the play. Barabas gloats over his wealth.
- The Turks demand ten years’ tribute. Governor Ferneze orders the Jews to give up half their wealth or convert. Barabas refuses and loses everything; his house becomes a nunnery.
- He sends Abigail into the nunnery, pretending to convert, to recover gold hidden under the floor.
Act 2Gold & a Slave
- Abigail throws down the money bags at night: “O girl! O gold!…”
- Del Bosco persuades Ferneze to refuse the Turks. At the slave market Barabas buys Ithamore.
- Barabas promises Abigail to both Lodowick and Mathias.
Act 3The Poisonings
- Lodowick and Mathias kill each other in a duel set up by Barabas.
- Heartbroken, Abigail truly becomes a nun. Barabas poisons the whole nunnery; Abigail confesses his crimes before she dies.
- The Turks declare war on Malta.
Act 4Friars & Blackmail
- The two friars try to squeeze Barabas; he kills Barnardine and gets Jacomo hanged for it.
- Ithamore falls for Bellamira and joins Pilia-Borza in blackmailing Barabas.
- Disguised as a French musician, Barabas poisons them with a bunch of flowers.
Act 5Betrayal & the Cauldron
- Exposed, Barabas fakes his death with a sleeping drug and is thrown over the city walls.
- He shows the Turks a secret way into Malta and is made governor.
- He then plots with Ferneze to kill the Turks at a banquet. Ferneze double-crosses him, and Barabas falls into the boiling cauldron.
Must-Know Exam Facts
The details that keep coming up in UGC NET, SET, PGT and state PSC papers.
Full Title & Dates
The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta. Written c. 1589–1590; very popular on stage. First printed only in 1633, edited by Thomas Heywood, who added new prologues and epilogues.
Machiavelli & “Policy”
The Prologue is spoken by Machevil, Marlowe’s version of Niccolò Machiavelli. Barabas is the classic Elizabethan “Machiavellian villain”, and “policy” (political cunning) is the play’s key word.
Genre & Tone
A revenge tragedy full of black comedy. T. S. Eliot argued it should be read not as tragedy but as farce, full of “savage comic humour”.
Setting
Malta, ruled by the Christian Knights of St John, caught between Spain and the Ottoman Turks. The real Great Siege of Malta (1565) is the historical background.
Influence on Shakespeare
Shaped The Merchant of Venice: Barabas and Shylock, and Abigail and Jessica, the Jewish daughters who convert. The title role was a star part for Edward Alleyn.
Key Themes
- Greed and the worship of money
- Religious hypocrisy: Christians, Jews and Turks alike
- Machiavellian “policy” and self-interest
- Revenge that destroys the avenger
- Antisemitic stereotype, and Marlowe’s ironic use of it
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All the character mind maps in one printed book.
