An Analysis Of Laura Bohannan's Essay 'Shakespeare In The Bush'

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In the essay “Shakespeare in the Bush,” Laura Bohannan attempts to demonstrate whether there is truly a “universal understanding” through her experience of sharing Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” with the Tiv tribe in West Africa. Throughout Laura’s story, the Tiv people object to many key details of the Shakespearean drama, however, overall they are able to accept and understand Hamlet. The drastically different cultural backgrounds made the Tiv and Bohannan’s interpretations fascinating to witness, as well as directing attention to the differences in their general ideas of life and death. Laura’s essay focuses on the contrasting relationship between the culture of the Tiv and that of Western society.

In the very opening paragraph, Bohannan implies a very assumptive comparison between herself and the Tiv people. She does this by using a sharp contrast of “left Oxford for the Tiv in West Africa.” (300) Here Bohannan implies that she is from an educated and
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Bohannan is quickly proven wrong in her assumption when she begins telling the story to the Tiv. Both the Tiv and Bohannan assume that all people are like them and share their customs. For example, the Tiv were shocked that King Hamlet had only one wife. Also, the Tiv believed it to be completely acceptable that Claudius takes his dead brother’s widow as his own wife, for that is the tradition in their culture. This proved a difficult concept for Laura to grasp, as it is the main catalyst for the plot of Hamlet. This is a good example of the importance of Cultural Relativism. To Laura, the Tiv’s tradition of marrying a dead brother’s widow was shocking, however, to the Tiv people it was approved and expected. The Tiv people’s interpretation caused Laura to realize that many different values are practiced all over the

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