There seem to be two basic things that drive Barabas- his love for money and his hate for Christians. He is willing to do almost anything in order to protect his money and show his spite for Christians. When he finds out that Abigail is converting to Catholicism, he instantaneously decides that he’s going to poison her and kill her for deliberately going against his wishes. This was pretty baffling to me. After reading about Jews and Catholics during the time, it become somewhat clearer and a tad bit less baffling as to why Barabas would kill his own daughter because she has converted to a religion he hates the most. Jews and Christians at the time were strictly divided. Christians wanted nothing to do with Jews; to the point that the English ousted all jews from England because they didn’t want them in English society. Jews were also blamed for many terrible deeds, such as killing Christian children, when in fact it was was often that the oppisite occurred- Christians killing Jews.

Barabas abhors Christians so much that prefers Abigail to be dead instead of living as a Catholic. In class last Wednesday, we spoke about Barabas and came to the conclusion that he does not really hate Catholicism as a religion, but rather hates Catholics for being hypocrites. This is now debatable, seeing as how Barabas has decided to kill his own daughter simply because she has become a Catholic. He does not seem to be concerned for whether she is being like the rest of the hypocritical Catholics or not, he simply wants her dead because he knows she did this to spite him. To me, it seems like Barabas has a power struggle. He loves the feeling that power gives him- for this reason he loves money so much- but he also uses this power to manipulate those around him and use them to his advantage.

Notice how he uses his daughter Abigail. In his scheme to take revenge on Ferneze for taking all of his money, he devises a plot to have Ferneze’s son Ludowick be killed by Mathias in a duel between them. Barabas knows that Mathias is Abigail’s true love, but she utilizes her in his scheme without any concern for her feelings whatsoever. In his scheme, he never realizes that Mathias might be killed in the duel with Ludowick, nor does he really care when he is killed. He cares more that Abigail has deliberately gone against his wishes than anything else, and he never for a second takes into consideration how his daughter might be feeling about what he has done. Abigail is not really his daughter anymore, she seems to be just another tool for him to use in his plan. He uses lot of people to his convenience- other Jews, and Ithamore. When he buys Ithamore at the slave market, it is clear that he has no concern for the slave. However, when he sees that Abigail has betrayed him, he declares Ithamore his sole heir and friend, so long as he can use Ithamore.

For these reasons, I have come to the conclusion that Barabas is an unkind mind who uses people for his own interests, including his own daughter. What else would you expect from a money hungry man?