The Merchant of Venice - Analysis

The Merchant of Venice or The Jew of Venice

 Composed: 1596-1598

 Register of Stationers Company: July 1598

 Published in quarto: 1600

 Sources:

o Il Pecorone 14th century (Giovanni Fiorentino, 1558)

o The Orator (Alexandre Sylvane, 1596)

o “Gesta Romanorum” – 13th century

Comedy or Tragedy?

 Structure-wise: comedy

 Content-wise: dark undertones

 Titular character: Antonio

 Heroine: Portia (?)

 Hero: Bassanio (?)

Comic Structure

 Block to young love:

o Portia’s father’s will

o Shylock re Jessica & Lorenzo

 Friend to lover shift:

o Portia-Nerissa: sisterly bond

o Antonio-Bassanio: brotherly bond

o Bonds severed when Portia marries Bassanio

 Green World – escape from city & its limitations

o Belmont – nature, leisure, art, romance

 o Venice: world of law

 Crossdressing:

o Portia & Nerissa

o Jessica

 Scapegoat:

o Someone to mock / cast our sins on

o Punishment of the opponent of mirth

o Shylock

The Fairy Tale

 Unrealistic elements:

o Winning the hand of a princess by lottery

o Borrowing money on collateral of a pound of flesh

 Shakespeare frequently used unlikely plots

o The purpose of art is not realism

o Characters and events may be true to life without being realistic on the surface

 E.g. Portia’s father’s will displays a genuine concern of fathers

The Casket Plot

 The prince of Morocco

o a man of heroic exploit and reputation

o Love = desire to have what every other man desires

o Portia is desirable to Morocco because everyone else desires her

o Desire is not love!

 The Prince of Arragon

o a snob - will not be common or be ranked with the multitude

o Assumption: he deserves Portia

o But desert is suspicious... damned unless given God's grace

o Like Morocco, Arragon essentially chooses himself rather than Portia.

 o Desert is not love!

Bassanio

 The problematic hero - does nothing heroic

 High comedy - stresses the more womanly values of wit, grace, and civilized behavior

 a fortune-hunter out to gain Portia’s money in order to repay his debts, but she is also fair,

beautiful and virtuous

 a knight on a romantic quest – Jason in search of the Golden Fleece…

 Portia describes him as Hercules – she - princess of Troy left on beach to be devoured by

Neptune, but saved by Hercules (Alcides)

Bassanio’s Heroism

 in his choice

 The song distinguishes between desire ("fancy") and love.

o Fancy is just attraction and desire (eyes)

 Love is not merited, but bestowed, who chooses must give and hazard

 Bassanio is aware of this distinction

o world deceived with ornament – he rejects appearances

 Bassanio’s great generosity is to leave the choice to Portia: “I come by note to give and to

receive”

Bassanio - the Mercenary

 His choice – guided by Portia’s hints?

 His speech – a moral treatise – disdain of gold and ornament, money and corruption

 But!

o Obsessed with monetary gain!

o Describes Portia in economic metaphors

o Antonio - the man “I owe the most in money and in love.”

o “You shall not seal to such a bond for me, / I’ll rather dwell in my necessity.”
 o His speeches about love are coloured by notations of value

 It is because Bassanio thinks in this fashion that Antonio is able to convince

him to give his ring to Balthazar.

 “My Lord Bassanio, let him have the ring./Let his deservings and my love

withal/Be valued against your wife’s commandment”

Portia’s Integrity

 holds a central place in play

 emerges triumphant, stepping out from under the shadow of her husband Bassanio

 The ring – a method to ensure his fidelity and to protect herself

 wealth and comfort springs from the promise of fidelity Bassanio made to his beloved

“Balthazar”

 Turns tables on Shylock

 Argues the benefits of mercy

 Conducts trial according to the law

 Rejects Bassanio’s plea for overthrowing the bond

Justice

 4.1.

 Antonio’s trial

 Shylock called to the court

 Bassanio trying to repay Antonio’s debt:

o Offering double the amount owed

 DUKE: How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendering none?

 SHYLOCK: What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?

 Bassanio trys to cheer Antonio up and offers his life for Antonio’s

 Antonio refuses, because he has accepted his fate

 Enter:
 o Nerissa dressed as a lawyer’s clerk

o Dr. Bellario’s letter

o Portia disguised as Balthazar

 Portia urges Shylock to show mercy

 PORTIA: The quality of mercy is not strain’d,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes...

 Shylock refuses mercy, demands justice

 Portia asks if the debt could be payed

o Bassanio offers ten times the sum and even his life, begging the court to bend the law

 Portia replies that the law shall not be broken,

 Examines the bond, declaring it legal

 Shylock praises her wisdom: “A second Daniel!”

 She asks Shylock if a surgeon is at hand

o Not specified by bond

o Legally: premeditated murder

 Antonio bids Bassanio farewell, telling him that he is happy to sacrifice his life, to prove his

love

 Bassanio and Gratiano would give up their wives in order to save Antonio

 Portia and Narissa tell them that their wives would not appreciate that

 Shylock prepares to collect his pound of flesh

 Portia reminds him that the bond does not specify blood

 He will be guilty of conspiring against the life of a Venetian citizen

 Shylock asks for the sum instead of the pound of flesh

o Too late – sought justice; gets justice according to law

 He is penalized for threatening the life of a Venetian

  Half of Shylock’s property goes to the state

 Half goes to Antonio

 Portia orders Shylock to ask the duke for mercy. The duke spares his life and demands only a

fine

 Antonio promises to return his share of the estate if Shylock converts to Christianity and if he

promises to give all his good to Jessica and Lorenzo after his death

 “I’m not feeling well”, Shylock leaving

Shylock

 Partly functions to reveal the moral character of the people with whom he interacts

 Is he a heroic victim?

 Is Shylock’s villainy rooted directly in his Jewishness, or is he an individual responding to

stimulus?

Shylock & Antonio

 Irony: Antonio asking Shylock for money

 The hatred Shylock feels for Antonio is a reaction to Antonio's personal treatment of him as

well as Antonio’s attempts to undermine him in business

 Antonio despises Shylock not just as a usurer, but also as a Jew.

 Antonio’s hatred takes on a personal and a political cast. By despising the Jew who trades in

money, Antonio can self-righteously loathe his competitor. He can feel superior even as he

wades in similar economic ponds.

The "Instruction"

 Shylock insists that he will be just as merciful to Antonio as Antonio and all of the Christian

world has been to him:

 [Antonio] hath disgrac'd me, and hind'red me half a million, laugh'd at my losses, mock'd at

my gains, scorn'd my nation, thwarted my bargains, cool'd my friends, heated mine enemies;

and what's his reason? I am a Jew.

 o 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, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd 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. If a Jew wrong a Christian,

what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance

be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute,

and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

(3.1.54-73)

Shylock’s Humanity

 Turquoise ring: “I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys” (3.1.122-23)

 Bassanio and Gratiano give their rings away without much persuasion

 Shylock wishes that his daughter had avoided marriage with a gentile.

 Shylock condemns the “Christian husbands” who wish their wives dead and in the grave for

the sake of rescuing their good friend

Shylock Over Time

 Richard Burbage 1596 ?

 17th c. - a comic villain –character to be despised

 18th c., Charles Macklin - a serious villain

 Romantic period, Edmund Kean - an honest villain, marked by directness and honesty - honest

in his hate, Christians hypocritical virtues.

 Victorian period, Henry Irving - a heroic patriarch, marked by dignity and heroic pride

 1970, Laurence Olivier - a banker-aristocrat of the industrial age

Christian Mercy

 Portia: mercy is not “strained” – the Jew must be merciful (contradiction)

 Jews – practitioners of justice; Christians – agents of mercy

 Are the Christians unmerciful towards Shylock because he refused to be “gentle” and show

mercy?

 Is Justice rendered to Shylock?