Thursday, December 15, 2011

Shakespeare in the Bush

One of my students just e-mailed me a copy of that staple of high school and college reading lists, “Shakespeare in the Bush.”  She asked for my thoughts.  So, since I had to type up my thoughts anyway, I might as well put them here.  Now future students who are assigned a paper on this much overrated essay can find an analysis, explanation and review of the true meaning of the essay "Shakespeare in the Bush" about the true meaning of the play Hamlet.

“Shakespeare in the Bush” is much beloved by the Multicultural Leftists because it purports to show that the works of Shakespeare are not universal.  After all, if we can show that even Shakespeare is inherently bound up by his culture, then it isn’t much of a leap to say that there is nothing that isn’t inherently bound up by a culture.  And if we can say that, then it isn’t much of a leap to argue that the products of Western Civilization aren’t universally True.  And if we can say that, then we can argue that there is no Universal Truth.  And then the Teacher can say whatever the Teacher wants.  Mission accomplished.


But, look again at the story.  The members of a tribe in Africa have a hard time understanding the plot of
Hamlet because, for example, they don’t believe in ghosts.  Thus, the tribal leaders argue, the storyteller is getting the plot wrong, because according to the Tribe’s norms, Hamlet would have behaved in a different way after his encounter with the Spirit.  The whole point of the article is that this, along with all sorts of other culture-bound parts of the play, proves that understanding Hamlet requires being of the same cultural milieu as Shakespeare.

But, here is the funny thing.  I don’t believe in ghosts.
  I also don’t believe that the ghosts of dead kings walk around in the night. I don’t have any cultural norms about how a royal family should behave after meeting a ghost since I grew up in a culture without a royal family in a world without ghosts.  And, yet, even though I have different cultural norms than the Prince of Denmark, I understand the plot of Hamlet quite well.  Why?  Because I can understand that some stories are from different cultures and thus to understand a story one must understand how the characters in it are supposed to behave.  Thus, I read the story Hamlet and extract universal truths, not from the basic story—that is not universal since nobody in my social circle will ever have a similar experience—but from the lesson the story is trying to teach.

Now, here is the curious thing.  If I can understand
Hamlet, why did the tribal leaders in Africa have an impossible time understanding the story?  Perhaps it is because we here in Western Civilization make a point of understanding different cultures.  That is a unique feature of Western Civilization; other cultures did not develop an interest in The Other.  The West did.

So, here we have an essay arguing that we have to consider cultures other than our own.  It does so by showing us a culture which cannot understand cultures other than its own.  The Lesson:
 Western Civilization sure is superior to that of this tribe in Africa.  Look how broad-minded we are compared to them.   We actually try to understand the African tribe’s cultural norms—that after all is the whole point of the essay.  They cannot understand the cultural norms in Hamlet.  That is a failure of their imagination.  All of which makes me really glad I am a product of the West and not tribal Africa.  All of which gives us another reason to take Pride in Western civilization.  Which, of course, is exactly the opposite conclusion than the one the types who assign this essay want us to take from it.

Ah, but then again, Hamlet is a deep reflection on the tension in the Western Mind, that conflict between Athens and Jerusalem which we products of the West can never escape.  So, maybe the tribal leaders truly were incapable of understanding the depths of that conflict.  Of course the essay doesn’t reflect on that deeper problem of understanding Hamlet’s dilemma.  Instead, we just get to laugh at how silly the tribal leaders are because they cannot understand the simple plot.  And as a result, they have no hope of understanding the deeper problem in the play.  Sadly, the author of “Shakespeare in the Bush” also doesn’t seem to understand the deeper problem of the play.  So, the joke is really on both the tribal leaders and our anthropologist.  The question for take home test:  Consider the Tribal leaders and the Anthropologist.  Which one has the more childish intellect?

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