Some of Shakespeare's most memorable characters are treated as outsiders in at least part of their plays--Othello, Shylock, Malvolio, Katherine (the 'Shrew'), Edmund, Caliban, and many others. Marked as different and regarded with hostility by some in their society, many of these characters have become icons of group identity. While many critics use the term "outsider," this is the first book to analyse it as a relative identity and not a fixed one, a position that characters move into and out of, to show some characters affirming their places as relative insiders by the way they treat others...

Some of Shakespeare's most memorable characters are treated as outsiders in at least part of their plays--Othello, Shylock, Malvolio, Katherine (the 'Shrew'), Edmund, Caliban, and many others. Marked as different and regarded with hostility by some in their society, many of these characters have become icons of group identity. While many critics use the term "outsider," this is the first book to analyse it as a relative identity and not a fixed one, a position that characters move into and out of, to show some characters affirming their places as relative insiders by the way they treat others...