The Merchant of Venice

1/ Shakespeare seems to like comparing the world to a stage—he does it in As You Like It, in Macbeth, and also in The Merchant of Venice. 

“ANTONIO I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano—

A stage, where every man must play a part,

And mine a sad one.” 

(Act 1 scene 1) 

The next speech is even more interesting, especially this part:

“GRATIANO […] There are a sort of men whose visages

Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,

And do a willful stillness entertain 

With purpose to be dressed in an opinion

Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit, 

As who should say, “I am Sir Oracle,

And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!” 

O my Antonio, I do know of these 

That therefore only are reputed wise

For saying nothing; when I am very sure

If they should speak, would almost dam those ears,

Which hearing them would call their brothers fools.” 

(ibid.) 

All types of people can be found in Shakespeare, methinks.

2/ Shylock’s daughter Jessica elopes with Lorenzo, with the intention of converting to Christianity and marrying him. Should we see her as a bad daughter, or see Shylock as a villain whose own daughter must run away?

One way of judging Jessica is by comparing her to other characters in similar situations: she steals her father’s money and jewels; Desdemona doesn’t; neither do Juliet and Hermia. We cannot know what she’s intended to be, but we can say what she is: she is a thief, and a treacherous daughter. Later we’re told that she spends 80 ducats—stolen money—in a night. 

Not only so, Jessica callously exchanges for a monkey the ring Shylock got from Leah (presumably his wife). That’s not very sympathetic, is it?

“SHYLOCK Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.” 

(Act 3 scene 1) 

Isn’t that heartbreaking? These lines give more depth to the character of Shylock. 

3/ The main debate about The Merchant of Venice, which I cannot avoid, is whether or not it’s anti-Semitic.

The question is not whether Shylock is a villain—he is—but that doesn’t mean that he’s not, at the same time, a tragic figure. The first time we see him is when Bassanio comes to him asking for a loan, with Antonio providing the bond. Antonio and Shylock have a debate about interest, and Shylock justifies it by quoting Genesis. 

“ANTONIO Mark you this, Bassanio,

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

An evil soul producing holy witness

Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,

A goodly apple rotten at the heart. 

O what a goodly outside falsehood hath!” 

(Act 1 scene 3) 

The first insult comes from Antonio. 

“SHYLOCK Signior Antonio, many a time and oft 

In the Rialto you have rated me 

About my moneys and my usances.

Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,

For suff’rance is the badge of all our tribe. 

You call me misbeliever, cutthroat dog,

And spet upon my Jewish gabardine,

And all for use of that which is mine own.

[…] You that did void your rheum upon my beard

And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur

Over your threshold!...” 

(ibid.) 

Antonio denies nothing, and says he would do it again. Is that reasonable, considering that he’s there to ask for Shylock’s help? 

Whatever you think about the play, you cannot say that Shylock is a two-dimensional character, a stock character of a Jew, a mere ruthless moneylender. Whatever you think about the play, you cannot deny that Shakespeare gives voice to Shylock and lets us understand his grievances.

“SHYLOCK […] He hath disgraced me, and hind’red me half a million, 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.” 

(Act 3 scene 1) 

From his perspective, he has reason for taking revenge on Antonio. What’s Antonio’s reason for hating him?

Later on, he says to Antonio:

“SHYLOCK […] Thou call’dst me dog before thou hadst a cause,

But since I am a dog, beware my fangs…”

(Act 3 scene 3) 

Now look at the most famous speech in the play: 

“SHYLOCK […] Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?—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 Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. […] The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.” 

(Act 3 scene 1) 

How could anyone think Shakespeare’s anti-Semitic after reading or hearing that speech? I’ve read somewhere that we may just look at it from the modern perspective, and in the Elizabethan era, the audience may have just laughed and found it ridiculous, but I don’t buy it. It is a powerful speech, and Shakespeare must have thought about what it did to a man’s soul when he’s subjected to hatred and humiliation for a long time, just because he’s Jewish.

Moreover, the Christian characters aren’t particularly good: Antonio is foolish (in his love for Bassanio—yes, I think he’s gay) and hateful; Bassanio is dishonest and unreliable, and he borrows money in order to be Portia’s suitor; Gratiano is empty-headed; Lorenzo is a thief and his friends all condone it; both Bassanio and Gratiano are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing… Shylock also refers to the Christian characters having slaves. 

It is undeniable that Shylock is particularly cruel for insisting on the pound of flesh and refusing larger amounts of money, but at the same time, I can understand that he grows more vengeful after losing his daughter to the Christians—he thinks Antonio has something to do with it.  

4/ Before we talk about the trial, let’s talk about Portia. Her dead father’s will dictates that all suitors must play a lottery—out of 3 caskets, the man who picks the right one can marry her and the ones who fail can never propose marriage to any woman. I have no idea how they can enforce it and what they can do if a man marries someone else, but let’s ignore it.

This is what the prince of Morocco says, when he comes to court Portia: 

“MOROCCO Mislike me not for my complexion, 

The shadowed livery of the burnished sun,

To whom I am a neighbor and near bred.

Bring me the fairest creature northward born,

Where Phoebus’s fire scarce thaws the icicles,

And let us make incision for your love

To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine...”

(Ac 2 scene 1) 

Is that not an interesting speech? In this play, the Jewish character and the black character claim full equality to the white characters, and Shakespeare does not portray either of them as ridiculous.

The prince of Morocco loses, and this is Portia’s reaction: 

“PORTIA A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains, go.

Let all of his complexion choose me so.” 

(Act 2 scene 7) 

She sounds racist, no? She’s no Desdemona.

Later on, Portia has a song played whilst her favourite Bassanio is picking the caskets. She is hinting, and that’s the first sign of her manipulativeness. 

Scholars and critics and readers have debated the trial scene for centuries: how should we view the trial? What should we think about Portia’s win over Shylock? Are we meant to see it as an intelligent, resourceful woman’s rightful triumph over a cruel and vindictive villain, or is it rather a cunning woman exploiting hair-splitting legalism and mercilessly crushing a Jew? 

Or perhaps both are true at the same time? On the one hand, Portia is clever and offers a way out for Shylock at the beginning, but he himself doesn’t want to have a surgeon at hand when taking his pound of flesh. 

On the other hand, the result of the trial is problematic in many ways. First of all, Portia is in disguise and has no right to act as a judge. Secondly, Shylock is alone whereas everyone else, including the Duke, is on the same side because they’re all Christians and/or Antonio’s friends. Thirdly, Shylock not only loses his money (and his daughter), the Christians now work together to take away from him his money, his livelihood, and also his religion, with the threat of killing him otherwise. The Christian characters all talk about mercy, especially Portia herself, but that’s not very merciful, is it? Gratiano says more than once that he wants Shylock hanged and continues ridiculing him after the judgment. 

One may argue that I’m looking at it from the modern perspective and Shakespeare didn’t mean to portray Portia and other Christian characters as hypocritical, but earlier in the play we hear Portia say:   

“PORTIA If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions; I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching...”  

(Act 1 scene 2) 

Why would he have written these lines if they had absolutely no significance later on? The Christian characters do not practise what they preach, and here Shakespeare’s hinting at it. 

Bassanio’s speech, as he reasons about the caskets, is also meaningful: things are not as they seem. 

5/ The ring trick, which at first seems pointless, has a purpose: Portia wants the men, especially Bassanio and Antonio, to know that she was the lawyer—she saved them both. In a world ruled by men, she outsmarts them all. It’s almost like she wants to establish her power, from the start, in her marriage with Bassanio and establish her place in regard to Antonio, who clearly loves her husband (she has heard what they say to each other at the trial, when they’re unaware of her presence). 

But the ring trick has another significance, as it echoes Jessica stealing Shylock’s ring from Leah and exchanging it for a monkey. It makes you think of Shylock’s real pain (as opposed to the feigned pain of Portia and Nerissa) and Jessica’s callousness—note too that the whole fake quarrel over the ring happens in front of Jessica.  

6/ Tony Tanner says: 

“The play is a comedy; but Shakespeare has here touched on deeper and more potentially complex and troubling matters than he had hitherto explored, and the result is a comedy with a difference. And, of course, it is primarily Shylock who makes that difference.” (Introduction)

Shylock, he says, appears in 5 scenes out of 20 scenes of The Merchant of Venice. And yet, he dominates the play. I’m not quite sure how Shakespeare does it, but somehow Shylock is one of the most powerful, striking, and complex characters I’ve encountered in literature.