The Merchant Of Venice By William Shakespeare

(1564 – 1616) Essay, Research Paper

As with many of Shakespeare’s plays, the

titular protagonist of The Merchant of Venice (Antonio) plays a relatively

minor role in the action. Bassanio and Portia are more central characters,

but even they are upstaged by the brilliant and perplexing character of

Shylock.

How is the audience or reader meant to

react to Shylock? He ought to strike us as thoroughly loathsome – he is

a usurer, an abusive parent, violent, legalistic, bitter, unsociable and

greedy. In spite of all these faults, though, one cannot help feeling some

sympathy for him. After all, he is forced to live among neighbors who neither

understand nor respect his religious beliefs; “Christians” who treat him

with cruelty. Forced into his money-lending by legal restrictions on Jewish

professions, he remains highly intelligent and capable of great eloquence,

as in this passionate complaint against Antonio’s abuses:

He hath … laughed at my losses, mocked

at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends,

heated mine enemies; and what’s his reason? I am a Jew.

Hath not a few eyes? hath not a Jew hands,

organs, dimensions, sense, affections, passions? [Is not a Jew] fed with

the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,

healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer,

as a Christians? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do

we not laugh? If you poison us ,do we not die?

Marvelous lines, and in some respects a

more compassionate speech than uttered by any of the Christian characters.

So, Shylock is an ambiguous villain.

But the play is not Shylock’s story; it

is a comedy, and the triumph of mercy over unyielding justice is the theme

that finally brings The Merchant of Venice to its happy resolution.