ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the presence of anti-Jewish sentiment in Christopher Fry’s biblical drama. It analyses how Fry’s representation of the relation between Christianity and Judaism in The Firstborn (1946) and A Sleep of Prisoners (1951) intersects with what Bryan Cheyette terms ‘semitic discourse’ in British culture. I demonstrate how the plays imitate and strengthen the contradictory image of the Jew as bearing the potential for both good and evil, with evil tendencies being predominant. Further, I consider what they tell us about the relation of Judaism to Christianity in modern Britain and the degree to which Christological discourse continued to rely upon anti-Judaic tropes, even after the Shoah.
