The Merchant of Venice​ and Understanding Human Nature 

Sarah Gorbatov 
 
Whether Shakespeare was hoping to perpetuate or interrogate the stereotype of the “dog Jew” 
cannot be known beyond speculation, but the significance of continuing to put on M ​ erchant of 
Venice​ is that the more aware society becomes of the nature of oppression, the more complex 
the play becomes as a work that shakes the very core of its originally comfortable, comic 
resolution. Meaning, even if M ​ erchant​ was written from an anti-Semitic standpoint, that doesn’t 
make it any less worthy of our attention today.  
 
The play begins ​by following the relatively generic male lead, Bassanio, as he sets out on a quest 
to accrue crushing debt for love. But the thing is that the debt won’t actually be Bassanio’s. He 
wants to court the currently-available Portia of Belmont, so he asks his titular merchant friend, 
Antonio, for some money with which to do so. Yet, because Antonio currently has no money due 
to his investing all of it in ships that are still abroad, they seek the help of a moneylender, 
Shylock. Shylock, who’s ghettoized, disenfranchised, and forced to go around Venice wearing a 
red cap to indicate he’s Jewish, hesitates at first since, in the past, Antonio has been outwardly 
anti-Semitic and has even sabotaged his business. He eventually agrees to give him the money 
on one famous condition: he can carve out a pound of Antonio’s flesh if he cannot punctually 
return the funds. When Antonio defaults on the loan, Portia, disguised as a man, defends him in 
court, ultimately outwitting Shylock with meticulous logic: Shylock’s oath entitles him to a 
pound of Antonio’s flesh, but not his blood, making any attempt at collecting his fee without 
killing Antonio impossible. S ​ hylock is charged with conspiring against a Venetian citizen, and 
therefore his fortune is seized. The only way he can keep half his estate is by converting to 
Christianity. 
 
Some believe it is time to put T ​ he Merchant of Venice​ to rest. “One would have to be blind, deaf, 
and dumb not to recognize that Shakespeare’s grand, equivocal comedy is nevertheless a 
profoundly anti-Semitic work,” writes preeminent literary critic Harold Bloom. The play is said 
to be a comedy, but more recently, it’s been characterized as one of Shakespeare’s “problem 
plays.” No matter how liberally one interprets Shakespeare’s intentions or the play’s themes, it 
is difficult to ignore its anti-Semitic language. Shylock, the Jewish villain of the play, serves as a 
stereotypical greedy Jew spat upon by his Christian enemies. He’s repeatedly referred to as “the 
devil himself,” “the very devil incarnate,” and “the devil in the likeness of a Jew.” And that’s 
when his opponents are feeling generous. At other times, he is a “damned, execrable dog” and 
an “inhuman wretch.” He’s not once referred to by his actual name; he’s just “the Jew.” The 
revival of ancient slurs that encouraged decent Christians to become Hitler’s willing 
executioners is admittedly disturbing. ​Merchant​ was a fan-favorite in the early Nazi era, between 
1933 and 1939, during which it was produced more than 50 times. When it was presented at the 
Burg Theater in Vienna in May of 1943, one critic described Shylock’s first appearance as such: 
“With a crash and a weird train of shadows, something revoltingly alien and startlingly repulsive 
crawled across the stage.” So was Shakespeare being anti-Semitic or simply exploring 
anti-Semitism? After all, his motivation could have been anything from T ​ he Jew of Malta​ to ​The 
Lopez Affair​, and most of what he knew about Jews in the first place was based on hearsay and 
legend since they had been expelled from England in 1290. Nevertheless, as Susannah Heschel, 
professor of Jewish studies at Dartmouth College, says, ​it is true that if Shakespeare had wanted 
to write something sympathetic toward Jews, he would have done so more explicitly.  
 
It is thought that sympathetic readings of Shylock are a post-Holocaust invention, that 
contemporary audiences only read Shylock sympathetically since reading him any other way 
would reflect poorly on the reader, and that no one in Shakespeare’s day would have felt 
sympathy for Shylock. I disagree. While we don’t have access to Shakespeare’s forethought, it’s 
not an accident that the central Jewish character is given the most humanizing and powerful 
speech in the entire play. “Hath not a Jew eyes?” Even if you’re rooting against Shylock, when 
he asks this question, you suddenly have an irrevocable allegiance to him, one that you can’t 
ever really recover from. Now, you are willing to see in Shylock the tragedy of a man. He might 
act the villain, but can you blame him? When considering general Christian virtues, such as 
showing mercy, being generous, and loving one’s enemies, we see that the Christian characters 
within the play don’t necessarily uphold these principles. Antonio spits on Shylock, calls him a 
dog, and says he’d do it again if given the chance. Gratiano, Bassanio’s friend, isn’t content with 
Shylock losing his wealth and wants him hanged at the end of the courtroom scene. Portia gives 
a whole speech on “the quality of mercy,” and then betrays it when she deceives Shylock 
through revenge and fails to show him any sort of compassion. As a result, Shylock is forced to 
convert, evidently the play’s most problematic event. Theatre critic Charles Marowitz writes in 
the Los Angeles Times, “There is almost as much evil in the defending Christians as there is in 
the prosecuting Jew, and a verdict that relieves a moneylender of half his wealth and then forces 
him to convert to save his skin is not really a sterling example of Christian justice.” Although 
Shakespeare’s blatant mockery of the play’s Christians doesn’t erase its prejudice, it does 
redress the moral balance of the play.  
 
Shakespeare isn’t necessarily advocating for Jewish rights with ​Merchant​ — ​ ​ it would be 
anachronistic of us to hold him culpable for failing to do so —​ but ​the play does allow for an 
inquiry of the entrenched anti-Semitism of both Shakespearean and modern times. I think it 
would be counterintuitive, it would be wrong to claim it’s anti-Jewish and therefore we 
shouldn’t produce or even study it. It’s one of the most historic, monumental pieces of literature 
from Western Civilization. Disregarding it because the language is politically incorrect or the 
characters aren’t wholesome enough would be such a waste. M ​ erchant​ is a play about 
interpretation. By reviving a work from a time when being ethnicist was entirely the norm, we 
can debunk the perception that hate and oppression originate from evil since, in reality, they 
originate from the more unsettling human ability to remove oneself from other people’s pain 
based on difference and socialized illusions of superiority. Honestly, it’s a struggle not to be 
wholly unsettled by the stratification of privilege and anti-Semitism that are depicted in the 
play, but I believe being wholly unsettled is the best part of theater. We can’t just ignore T ​ he 
Merchant of Venice ​because it makes us uncomfortable. Instead, we should embrace it and 
question it in the hopes of better understanding human nature.