Shakespeare in the Bush by Laura Bohannan summary

 

    The essay Shakespeare in the Bush by Laura Bohannan, is a perfect example that literature is open ended and embraces as many interpretations as possible. It is about Laura Bohannan’s experience with the Tiv people of Nigeria. She believes that human nature is universal and the same everywhere, so that the Tiv  people can understand and interpret the story of Hamlet as same as western people. Earlier she believed that Shakespeare’s Hamlet is universally intelligible and that the story only has one worldwide interpretation. As she puts in her essay  “I protested that human nature is pretty much the same the whole world over; at least the general play and motivation of the greater tragedies would always be clear-everywhere-although some details of custom might have to be explained and difficulties of translation might produce other slight changes” .

Bohannan was in Nigeria as a cultural anthropologist from America she happens to talk about Shakespearean classical tragedy Hamlet to the elders of the Tiv.

She feels that the story will be easy to make clear because it is understood and embraced by everyone . So Bohannan tells the story of Hamlet to the Tiv elders and as she does she comes across many problems and finds the Tiv disagree with the numerous sections of the story.

The first case of a misunderstanding is with Hamlet’s uncle Claudius marries Hamlet’s mother. Laura Bohannan and the modern Western culture consider this action or marriage was slightly incestuous and also happened too quickly after the death. In fact hamlet expresses the western temperament in his words, like “frailty thy name is woman”.

The Tiv on the other hand did not have a problem with it because they would practice the same action as a custom in their culture. It is very normal for the brother of a deceased man to marry his wife so the family’s field/farm could still be maintained. That too happens quickly.

 

Another case of misunderstanding was the Tiv did not understand  Hamlet’s desire to avenge to his father’s murder Claudius. The Tiv believed that it is impossible for someone to kill or even plan to kill his elders that too uncle.

 They believed that Hamlet should have contacted his father’s friends to avenge the murder of King Hamlet. They definitely did not agree with Hamlet attempting to avenge the murder himself as the enemy was very much elder to him.

Another part of disagreement was Hamlet’s reason for madness. Even there are different kinds of interpretations among westerners for this. Like the madness is real or he pretends madness. Or even Hamlet went mad because he wasn’t able to marry Ophelia. The Tiv on the other hand related Hamlet’s madness to witchcraft because they think that witches cause madness; therefore, it is the only thing they can relate to someone going mad.

     Despite  Bohannan and the Tiv have different interpretations of Hamlet, they embrace the multiple aspects of the text. They admit the fact that each interpretation of the play is correct and obvious to them because of their cultural views on situations. In fact the culture and context have a significant influence on establishing the meaning and interpretation of a text. One could easy to say they are both right because they feel they each have the authority to interpret Hamlet correctly.