Comparing Spiritual Conquest And The Merchant Of Venice

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Recommended: Effects of European exploration

During 15 to 16 centuries many things changed in Europe. Especially, as navigation system developed, Europe could expand to other continents. In Francois Pyrard’s travel account, Francois Pyrard who was a French navigator who spent years in South Asia, he was unwilling guest to native Indians. However, by learning the local languages, he could gain the memories about natives never experienced by Europeans before. Similarly, Ruiz-de-Montoya’s Spiritual Conquest, Montoya narrated his missionary journey to European whom had never experienced. His attitude to native Indians understood their habits and tried to Christianized them. Meanwhile, in William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare wrote a story based on differences between Christians’ and Jews’ culture in Europe. Each author illustrated that the religion, clothes, gender relations and habits of the age.
European and non-European religions were completely opposite. According to François Pyrard’s Travel account, Jesuits were not the main religion at that time. “Native Indians, and men of all manner of religions are ordained as priests, but not Jesuits, whom they require to be Christians born of both father and mother of Europe.”(Pyrard, 96) Native Indians had their religious preachers and did not easily accept the Jesuits faith.
In Ruiz-de-Montoya’s Spiritual Conquest, …show more content…

Shakespeare wrote the Merchant of Venice in England, in the play, Jews put on a red hat as a symbol of being Jews. It was a common sense to show their cultural differences with their clothing to European. In The Merchant of Venice, Gratiano said, “If I do not put on a sober habit, Talk with respect, and swear but now and then, Wear proper-books in my pocket, look demurely, Nay more, while grace is saying hood mine eyes Thus with my hat, and sigh and say ‘amen’”(Shakespeare, 2. 2. 181-85) Here, a hat distinguished a person’s identity socially and culturally at that time in

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