Analysis of the characters in the novel

     "Speak of me as I am" (Oth, V, II, 342). Othello's final words point to the interconnections that can be established between one's story and one's identity; specifically, to the process of identity construction determined by the act of story-telling. As pointed out by Calbi, Othello's invitation to relate his story is not without complications: as a migrant, the general has in fact inhabited a "multiplicity of personalities" (Calbi, 39) which makes it difficult to pinpoint his identity and, therefore, to "speak of" him Caryl Phillips's The Nature of Blood, answers Othello's plea by linking his story to those of other displaced figures from early modernity to our postcolonial globality. The discourse around the migrant is thus re-articulated through a plurality of voices which by addressing each other across time and space function as tiles in a composite mosaic of European racism and anti-semitism. Not only does Phillips propose a new way of looking at history, "through the prism of people who have normally been written out of it" (Jaggi, 26), but he also creates a narrative space where the "displaced and the dispossessed" (Phillips, 5) can reappropriate their voices and tell their own stories. By interlocking narratives of Jewish and Black oppression, Phillips let these marginalized figure address each other and their respective sufferings: the figure of the migrant is re-shaped through the dialogue established among outsiders. This essay will attempt to analyze the juxtapositions between the characters of the novel and to explore the role of narration in relation to identity construction.

Analysis of themes

                          

     A number of themes have been dealt with by Caryl Phillips in his novel The Nature of Blood. This essay aims at examining the themes of racial discrimination, identity crisis, alienation and isolation in The Nature of Blood.  A considerable part of the essay, however, deals with racial discrimination. The comparative analysis to the source text and the effects of migration remains focal during the course of discussion.

Language and Intertextuality in "The Nature of Blood" and "Othello"

Caryl Phillips's novel The Nature of Blood consists of five main story lines. There are several narrators who are shifting throughout the novel. The first one is being told by the first person-narrator Stephen Stern who is jewish and leaves pre-Nazi Germany in order to help found the state of Israel. The second story line is told by his niece, Eva Stern who is also a first-person narrator and who tells her story of surviving the Holocaust.

Analysis of the main structural aspects of Caryl Phillip’s The Nature of Blood

“ There is nobody with whom I might share memories of a common past, and nobody with whom I might converse in the language that sits most easily on my tongue[...]There is no turning back[...]Let the storm do its work!” 

 (Phillips,2008:160)