merchant of venice essay prejudice

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Prejudice in The Merchant of Venice

• Prejudice in The Merchant of…

William Shakespeare’s satirical comedy, The Merchant of Venice, believed to have been written in 1596 was an examination of hatred and greed. The premise deals with the antagonistic relationship between Shylock, a Jewish money-lender and Antonio, the Christian merchant, who is as generous as Shylock is greedy, particularly with his friend, Bassanio.

The two have cemented a history of personal insults, and Shylock’s loathing of Antonio intensifies when Antonio refuses to collect interest on loans. Bassanio wishes to borrow 3,000 ducats from Antonio so that he may journey to Belmont and ask the beautiful and wealthy Portia to marry him. Antonio borrows the money from Shylock, and knowing he will soon have several ships in port, agrees to part with a pound of flesh if the loan is not repaid within three months.

Shylock’s abhorrence of Antonio is further fueled by his daughter Jessica’s elopement with Lorenzo, another friend of Antonio’s.  Meanwhile, at Belmont, Portia is being courted by Bassanio, and wedding plans continue when, in accordance with her father’s will, Bassanio is asked to choose from three caskets — one gold, one silver and one lead.

Bassanio correctly selects the lead casket that contains Portia’s picture. The couple’s joy is short-lived, however, when Bassanio receives a letter from Antonio, informing him of the loss of his ships and of Shylock’s determination to carry out the terms of the loan. Bassanio and Portia marry, as do his friend, Gratiano and Portia’s maid, Nerissa.  

The men return to Venice, but are unable to assist Antonio in court. In desperation, Portia disguises herself as a lawyer and arrives in Venice with her clerk (Nerissa) to argue the case. She reminds Shylock that he can only collect the flesh that the agreement calls for, and that if any blood is shed, his property will be confiscated. At this point, Shylock agrees to accept the money instead of the flesh, but the court punishes him for his greed by forcing him to become a Christian and turn over half of his property to his estranged daughter, Jessica.

Prejudice is a dominant theme in The Merchant of Venice, most notably taking the form of anti-Semitism. Shylock is stereotypically described as “costumed in a recognizably Jewish way in a long gown of gabardine, probably black, with a red beard and/or wing like that of Judas, and a hooked putty nose or bottle nose” (Charney, p. 41).

Shylock is a defensive character because society is constantly reminding him he is different in religion, looks, and motivation. He finds solace in the law because he, himself, is an outcast of society. Shylock is an outsider who is not privy to the rights accorded to the citizens of Venice. The Venetians regard Shylock as a capitalist motivated solely by greed, while they saw themselves as Christian paragons of piety.

When Shylock considers taking Antonio’s bond using his ships as collateral, his bitterness is evident when he quips, “But ships are but board, sailors but men. There be land rats and water rats, water thieves and land thieves — I mean pirates — and then there is the peril of waters, winds, and rocks” (I.iii.25). Shylock believes the Venetians are hypocrites because of their slave ownership.

The Venetians justify their practice of slavery by saying simply, “The slaves are ours” (IV.i.98-100). During the trial sequence, Shylock persuasively argues, “You have among you many a purchased slave, which (like your asses and your dogs and mules). You us in abject and in slavish parts, because you bought them, shall I say to you, let them be free, marry them to your heirs… you will answer, `The slaves are ours,’ — so do I answer you: The pound of flesh (which I demand of him) is dearly bought, ’tis mine and I will have it” (IV.i.90-100). 

Shakespeare’s depiction of the Venetians is paradoxical. They are, too, a capitalist people and readily accept his money, however, shun him personally. Like American society, 16th century Venice sought to solidify their commercial reputation through integration, but at the same time, practiced social exclusion. Though they extended their hands to his Shylock’s money, they turned their backs on him socially. When Venetian merchants needed usurer capital to finance their business ventures, Jews flocked to Venice in large numbers.

By the early 1500s, the influx of Jews posed a serious threat to the native population, such that the Venetian government needed to confine the Jews to a specific district. This district was called geto nuovo (New Foundry) and was the ancestor of the modern-day ghetto. In this way, Venetians could still accept Jewish money, but control their influence upon their way of life.  

Antonio, though the main character in The Merchant of Venice remains a rather ambiguous figure. Although he has many friends, he still remains a solitary and somewhat melancholy figure. He is generous to a fault with his friends, especially Bassanio, which lends itself to speculation as to his sexuality. His perceived homosexuality makes him somewhat of a pariah among his countrymen, much like Shylock.

Shylock’s loathing of Antonio, he explains simply, “How like a fawning publican he looks! I hate him for he is a Christian” (I.iii.38-39). Antonio holds Shylock in the same contempt, trading barbs with him and spitting at him. His contempt for shylock is further demonstrated when he addresses Shylock in the third person, despite his presence.

Antonio’s prejudice is clearly evident when he asks, “Is he yet possessed? (I.iii.61). The word “possessed” is synonymous with the Devil in the Christian world. In his mind, his greed and his Judaism are one, and because Shylock lacks his (Antonio’s) Christian sensibilities, he is, therefore, the reincarnation of the Devil and the embodiment of all that is evil. Images of a dog, which is coincidentally God spelled backwards, are abound. Society must restrain the Jew because he is an untamed animal.

Shylock sees himself in society’s eyes and muses, “Thou call’dst me a dog before thou hadst a cause. But since I am a dog, beware my fangs (III.iii.6-7).” When Antonio spits on Shylock in public, this is perfectly acceptable behavior in a society where Jews are considered on the same level as dogs. Antonio is presented as a “good” Christian who ultimately shows mercy on his adversary, the “evil” Jew, Shylock. By calling for Shylock’s conversion to Christianity, Antonio is saving a sinner’s soul, and by embracing Christianity, he will be forced to repent and mend his avarice ways.  

Most of the women in The Merchant of Venice, true to the Elizabethan time period, are little more than an attractive presence. Despite their immortalization in art, Shakespeare, like his contemporaries, appears to perceive women as little more than indulged play things with little to offer society than physical beauty.

Shylock is devastated when his daughter leaves him to marry a Christian, he regards her as little more than one of his possession, just as he regards jewels and ducats. Portia, though possessing both strength and intelligence, she, too, is inclined to prejudicial judgments. She takes a disdainful view of the lowly class, and dismisses the 3,000 ducats as “a petty debt.”

Although she truly loves Bassanio in spite of his low social rank, Bassanio is initially portrayed as a crass materialist who regards Portia as little more than a prize to be won. Only by marrying her can he achieve any kind of social nobility.

Although Portia plays a powerful role in the play’s climax, she must disguise herself as a man for her words to be taken seriously.  Racial prejudice is also hinted at in The Merchant of Venice.

The Prince of Morocco, though elegant in both manner and dress, has a pomposity which perhaps stems from being a dark-skinned man not altogether accepted in the predominantly white Christian surroundings. The bias of the city-state ruler is evident when during the trial, the Duke of Venice tells Shylock, “We all expect a gentle answer, Jew” (IV.i.34).

The implication is that Christians are the models of gentility and social grace, whereas Jews are coarse in both manner and words.  Is Shylock really the epitome of evil? Over the years, the “pound of flesh” phrase has been interpreted by both scholars and students alike. Author W.H. Auden draws a similarity between Shylock’s demand for payment in a pound of flesh with the crucifixion of Christ.

Auden wrote, “Christ may substitute himself for man, but the debt has to be paid by death on the cross. The devil is defeated, not because he has no right to demand a penalty, but because he does not know the penalty has been already suffered” (Auden, p. 227).

Shylock regards Antonio as his number one nemesis because of the countless public humiliations he has subjected him to and because Antonio has purposely hindered his business by refusing to collect interest on loans. Would Shylock have demanded a pound of flesh from anyone else in the world but Antonio? Does this make him a bad person or just a human one? By herding the Jews like cattle into the confines of the New Foundry district, aren’t the Venetians symbolically extracting their own pound of flesh from the Jewish people? Why is Shylock singled out for his behavior? Because he is Jewish and therefore incapable of humanity in the eyes of the Christian world?  

III. Conclusion  

Was William Shakespeare a bigot? His perceived anti-semitism in The Merchant of Venice depicts the Elizabethan perception of Jews, a people who were truly foreign to them in both appearance and demeanor. Edward, I banished Jews from his kingdom in the 11th century, however, Jewish stereotypes abound in England throughout the Renaissance.

Although the average Elizabethan had probably encountered only a few Jews in his lifetime, his church sermons condemned them with words like “blasphemous,” “vain,” and “deceitful.” The Christians considered the lending of money to be sacrilegious, but the using of this money to finance their businesses was not. The Merchant in Venice is no more anti-semitic than Christopher Marlowe’s earlier play, The Jew of Malta.

The parallels between Marlowe’s protagonist, Barabas, and Shylock are startling. Marlowe’s play begins with a description of Barabas “in his counting-house, with heaps of gold before him,” discussing with his comrades his world of “infinite riches” (I.i.37). Barabas’ self-serving deception and superficiality are identical to Shylock’s.

Marlowe’s character, Ferneze acts as a self-appointed spokesman for the Christian community when he dismisses Barabas and all Jews with the words, “No, Jew, like infidels. For through our sufferance of your hateful lives, who stand accursed in the sight of heaven” (I.ii.73-75). Couldn’t Antonio have uttered the same words to Shylock? Both authors were products of the Elizabethan world in which they lived, and their writings were bound to be a reflection of their times.

Was Shakespeare an anti-semitic person, or was The Merchant of Venice a piece of timely social commentary? This will be the fodder for much discussion and argument for years to come. There must be a distinction between Shakespeare the writer and Shakespeare the man, and while there may be similarities, they should be regarded as two separate entities. However, when one reads The Merchant of Venice and speeches illustrating the hypocrisy that was so prevalent in Christian society, one can almost sense Shakespeare is satirically winking at us.

Though the world has moved away from the rigid Elizabethan social convention, have times or people really changed? The continued bloodshed in the Middle East, the ongoing struggle for racial equality in Africa, religious strife in Northern Ireland, and the continued practice of genocide in the world suggest otherwise. What about American society? The recent criminal trial and a subsequent not guilty verdict in the O.J. Simpson case show that racial lines are still carefully drawn.

Isn’t O.J. Simpson reminiscent of Shylock, an outcast in white, Beverly Hills social strata in much the same way as Shylock was in Venice? His upbringing in the slums of San Francisco made him as foreign to southern California socialites as Shylock was to the Venetian bourgeoisie. Despite being found not guilty by a jury of his peers, he has been ostracized by this society nevertheless, and in establishments where his money was once accepted, he now is not. Pending the outcome of his civil trial, he may lose his money and property as did Shylock.

In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare articulates the frustrations of the oppressed masses for all time with the words of 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 pick at 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 wrongs 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” (II.i.55-69). Quite simply, society teaches by example.

Auden, W.H. 1965. “Brothers and Others,” The Dyer’s Hands and Other Essays. New York: Random House.  Charney, Maurice. 1993. All of Shakespeare. New York: Columbia University Press.  

Marlowe, Christopher. Ed. Russell A. Fraser and Norman Rabkin. 1976. Drama of the English Renaissance I: The Tutor Period. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.  

Shakespeare, William. Ed. Kenneth Myrick. 1965. The Merchant of Venice. New York: Signet Books.

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• Merchant of Venice: Shylock Analysis

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A Modern Perspective: The Merchant of Venice

By Alexander Leggatt

The Merchant of Venice is a comedy. Comedies traditionally end in marriage, and on the way they examine the social networks in which marriage is involved: the relations among families, among friends, among parents and children, and what in Shakespeare’s society were the all-important ties of money and property. Comedies also create onstage images of closed communities of right-thinking people, from which outsiders are excluded by being laughed at. If The Merchant of Venice has always seemed one of Shakespeare’s more problematic and disturbing comedies, this may be because it examines the networks of society more closely than usual, and treats outsiders—one in particular—with a severity that seems to go beyond the comic.

In the interweaving of the play’s stories we see a chain of obligations based on money. Bassanio needs money to pay his debts, and plans to get it by marrying the rich heiress Portia. To make money he needs to borrow money—from his friend Antonio, who borrows it from Shylock, who borrows it, according to the patter of his trade, from Tubal. Once Bassanio has won Portia she becomes part of the network, and the obligations become more than financial. She imposes on herself the condition that before her marriage is consummated, Antonio must be freed from his bond to Shylock; as she tells Bassanio, “never shall you lie by Portia’s side / With an unquiet soul” ( 3.2.318 –19). She takes on herself the task of freeing Antonio. As Bassanio must journey to Belmont and answer the riddle of the caskets, Portia must journey to Venice and answer the riddle of Shylock’s bond. Antonio thus becomes “bound” ( 4.1.425 ) to the young doctor (Portia) who saved him, and the only payment the doctor will take is Bassanio’s ring. Antonio now, in effect, has to borrow from Bassanio to pay Portia: it is at Antonio’s insistence that Bassanio reluctantly gives away the ring. Yet the ring represents Bassanio’s tie of loyalty to Portia, the husband’s obligation to be bound exclusively to his wife; she gives the ring, as Shylock gives money, with conditions attached:

Which, when you part from, lose, or give away,

Let it presage the ruin of your love,

And be my vantage to exclaim on you.

( 3.2.176 –78)

The line of obligation runs, like the play itself, from Venice to Belmont, then from Belmont to Venice, and back to Belmont again. The ring exemplifies the paradox of marriage: it binds two people exclusively to each other, yet it does so within a social network in which they have inevitable ties with other people, ties on which the marriage itself depends. Portia and Bassanio depend on Antonio, who is Portia’s chief rival for Bassanio’s affection. The story of the ring is based on paradoxes: Bassanio, in giving it to the young “doctor,” is betraying Portia at her own request, and giving her back her own. In the final scene Portia gives the ring to Antonio, who returns it to Bassanio, thus participating in a symbolic exchange that cements the marriage relationship from which he is excluded. As Portia’s ring comes back to Portia, then back to Bassanio, the line of obligation becomes at last a circle, the symbol at once of perfection and exclusion.

Portia is also bound to her father. When we first see her she is chafing at the way her father has denied her freedom of choice in marriage: “So is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father” ( 1.2.24 –25). But by the end of that scene she is reconciled to her father’s will when she hears that her unwanted suitors have departed rather than face the test; and of course Bassanio, the man she wants—the man who visited Belmont in her father’s time ( 1.2.112 –21)—is the winner. The will of the dead father and the will of the living daughter are one. Portia sees the value of the test from her own point of view when she tells Bassanio, “If you do love me, you will find me out” ( 3.2.43 ), and in the moment of victory he insists that to have satisfied her father’s condition is not enough “Until confirmed, signed, ratified by you” ( 3.2.152 ). The dead father is satisfied, but theatrically the emphasis falls on the satisfaction of the living daughter.

In the story of Shylock and Jessica all these emphases are reversed. Jessica’s loyalties are divided. She recognizes a real obligation to her father—“Alack, what heinous sin is it in me / To be ashamed to be my father’s child?” ( 2.3.16 –17)—and she hopes her elopement will “end this strife” ( 2.3.20 ). For her it does (with reservations we will come to later); but Shakespeare puts the focus on the pain and humiliation it causes Shylock. The vicious taunts he endures from the Venetians identify him as an old man who has lost his potency, “two stones, two rich and precious stones” ( 2.8.20 –21), and his cry, “My own flesh and blood to rebel!” draws Solanio’s cruel retort, “Out upon it, old carrion! Rebels it at these years?” ( 3.1.34 –36). While Portia’s father retains his power beyond the grave, Shylock is mocked as an impotent old man. We may find Lancelet Gobbo’s teasing of his blind father cruel; while Shakespeare’s contemporaries had stronger stomachs for this sort of thing than we do, Shakespeare’s own humor is not usually so heartless. With the taunting of Shylock he goes further: the jokes of Salarino and Solanio, like those of Iago, leave us feeling no impulse to laugh.

This brings us to the problem of the way comedy treats outsiders, and to the cruelty that so often lies at the heart of laughter. Portia begins her dissection of her unwanted suitors “I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but . . .” ( 1.2.57 –58) and goes on to indulge that sin with real gusto. The unwanted suitors are all foreigners, and are mocked as such; only the Englishman, we notice, gets off lightly. (His fault, interestingly, is his inability to speak foreign languages; in one of the play’s more complicated jokes, the insularity of the English audience, which the rest of the scene plays up to, becomes itself the target of laughter.) Morocco and Arragon lose the casket game for good reasons. Morocco chooses the gold casket because he thinks the phrase “what many men desire” is a sign of Portia’s market value. This is a tribute, but not the tribute of love. Arragon thinks not of Portia’s worth but of his own. Besides, Morocco and Arragon are foreign princes, and Morocco’s foreignness is compounded by his dark skin, which Shakespeare emphasizes in a rare stage direction specifying the actor’s costume: “a tawny Moor all in white” ( 2.1.0 SD). Portia’s dismissal of him, “Let all of his complexion choose me so” ( 2.7.87 ), is for us an ugly moment. The prejudice that is, if not overturned, at least challenged and debated in Titus Andronicus and Othello is casually accepted here.

The most conspicuous problem, of course, is Shylock, and here we need to pause. The Merchant of Venice was written within a culture in which prejudice against Jews was pervasive and endemic. It can be argued that this goes back to the earliest days of Christianity, when the tradition began of making the Jews bear the guilt of the Crucifixion. Throughout medieval and early Renaissance Europe the prejudice bred dark fantasies: Jews were accused, for example, of conducting grotesque rituals in which they murdered Christian children and drank their blood. The story of a Jew who wants a pound of Christian flesh may have its roots in these fantasies of Jews violating Christian bodies. Shylock’s profession of usury is also bound up with his race: barred from other occupations, the Jews of Europe took to moneylending. Antonio’s disapproval of lending money at interest echoes traditional Christian teaching (Christian practice was another matter). Shylock’s boast that he makes his gold and silver breed like ewes and rams would remind his audience of the familiar argument that usury was against the law of God because metal was sterile and could not breed. Not just in his threat to Antonio, but in his day-to-day business, Shylock would appear unnatural.

Prejudice feeds on ignorance; since the Jews had been expelled from England in 1290, Shakespeare may never have met one. (There were a few in London in his time, but they could not practice their religion openly.) Given that the villainy of Shylock is one of the mainsprings of the story, it would have been far more natural for Shakespeare to exploit this prejudice than resist it. Many critics and performers, however, have insisted that he did resist it. His imagination, so the argument runs, worked on the figure of Shylock until it had created sympathy for him, seeing him as the victim of persecution. The great Victorian actor Henry Irving played him as a wronged and dignified victim, representative of a suffering race. Shylock’s famous self-defense, “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands . . .?” ( 3.1.57 –58), has been taken out of context and presented as a plea for the recognition of our common humanity. In context, however, its effect is less benevolent. Shylock’s plea is compelling and eloquent, but he himself uses it not to argue for tolerance but to defend his cruelty: “The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction” ( 3.1.70 –72). Gratiano’s taunt, “A Daniel still, say I! A second Daniel!— / I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word” ( 4.1.354 –55), shows that Gratiano, along with the word “Daniel,” has also picked up from Shylock, without knowing it, the word “teach,” and the echo is a terrible demonstration of the ways we teach each other hate so that prejudice moves in a vicious circle.

Does the play itself break out of this circle? There is little encouragement in the text to think so. In other plays Shakespeare casually uses the word “Jew” as a term of abuse, and this usage is intensified here. The kindest thing Lorenzo’s friends can find to say about Jessica is that she is “a gentle and no Jew” ( 2.6.53 ). We are aware of the pain Shylock feels in defeat; but the play emphasizes that he has brought it on himself, and no one in the play expresses sympathy for him, just as no one—except Shylock—ever questions Antonio’s right to spit on him. Given the latitude of interpretation, there are ways around the problem. Critics and performers alike have found sympathy for Shylock in his suffering, and have attacked the Christians’ treatment of him. But these readings are allowed rather than compelled by the text, and to a great extent they go against its surface impression.

It has to be said that many people who normally love Shakespeare find The Merchant of Venice painful. It even has power to do harm: it has provoked racial incidents in schools, and school boards have sometimes banned it. One may reply that the way to deal with a work one finds offensive is not censorship but criticism; in any case, everyone who teaches or performs the play needs to be aware of the problems it may create for their students and audiences, and to confront those problems as honestly as they can. At best, there are legitimate interpretations that control or resist the anti-Semitism in the text. At worst, it can be an object lesson showing that even a great writer can be bound by the prejudices of his time. To raise this kind of question is of course to go beyond the text as such and to make the problem of Shylock loom larger than it would have done for Shakespeare. In discussions of this kind, the objection “Why can’t we just take it as a play?” is often heard. But we cannot place Shakespeare in a sealed container. He belonged to his time, and, as the most widely studied and performed playwright in the world, he belongs to ours. He exerts great power within our culture, and we cannot take it for granted that this power is always benevolent.

To return to the text, and to explore the ramifications of the figure of Shylock a bit further: Shylock, Morocco, and Arragon are not the play’s only losers. The group, paradoxically, includes Antonio, who is the center of so much friendship and concern. In the final scene he is a loner in a world of couples, and the sadness he expressed at the beginning of the play does not really seem to have lifted. He resists attempts to make him reveal his secret; but when to Solanio’s “Why then you are in love” he replies “Fie, fie!” ( 1.1.48 ), we notice it is not a direct denial. Solanio himself later makes clear the depth of Antonio’s feeling for Bassanio: “I think he only loves the world for him” ( 2.8.52 ). In the trial scene Antonio tells Bassanio to report his sacrifice and bid Portia “be judge / Whether Bassanio had not once a love” ( 4.1.288 –89). Antonio has not only accepted Bassanio’s marriage, he has helped make it possible—yet there is a touch of rivalry here. In the trial his courageous acceptance of death shades into an actual yearning for it, and in the final restoration of his wealth there is something restrained and cryptic. Portia will not tell him how she came by the news that his ships have been recovered; his own response, “I am dumb” ( 5.1.299 ), has the same curtness as Shylock’s “I am content” ( 4.1.410 ), and the same effect of closing off conversation. Whether we should call Antonio’s love for Bassanio “homosexual” is debatable; the term did not exist until fairly recently, and some social historians argue that the concept did not exist either. Our own language of desire and love does not necessarily apply in other cultures. What matters to our understanding of the play is that Antonio’s feeling for Bassanio is not only intense but leaves him excluded from the sort of happiness the other characters find as they pair off into couples. This gives Antonio an ironic affinity with his enemy Shylock: both are outsiders. Many current productions end with Antonio conspicuously alone as the couples go off to bed.

Another character who is in low spirits at the end of some productions of The Merchant of Venice is Jessica. There is less warrant for this in the text, apart from her line “I am never merry when I hear sweet music” ( 5.1.77 ). Jessica is a significant case of a character who has broken the barrier between outsider and insider, joining a group (the Christians) to which she did not originally belong. She is welcomed, and seems at ease in her new world, but Lancelet Gobbo, the plainspoken and sometimes anarchic clown of the play, raises doubts about the efficacy of her conversion—she is damned if she is her father’s daughter, and damned if she isn’t ( 3.5.1 –25)—and about its economic consequences: “This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs” ( 3.5.22 –23). In a play in which money counts for so much, this is a very pointed joke. Lancelet uses his clown’s license to raise the question of whether Jessica will ever be fully accepted in Christian society. (His own contribution to race relations has been to get a Moor pregnant, and his reference to her does not sound affectionate.) Jessica’s uneasiness at going into male disguise could suggest a worry about the deeper change she is making in her nature.

Her uneasiness also makes a revealing contrast with Portia’s attitude to her disguise, and suggests there may be a parallel between the two women. Given her easy dominance of every scene in which she appears, it may seem odd to think of Portia as an outsider. But she is a woman in a society whose structures are male-centered and patriarchal. She greets her marriage with a surrender of herself and her property to a man who, like her father, will have full legal control over her:

Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours

Is now converted. But now I was the lord

Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,

Queen o’er myself; and even now, but now,

This house, these servants, and this same myself

Are yours, my lord’s.

( 3.2.170 –75)

Yet she continues to dominate Bassanio, and more than that: like Jessica, she uses male disguise to enter another world, the exclusive male club (as it then was) of the legal profession. Unlike Jessica, she moves into this new world with confidence. Her mockery of swaggering young men as she plans her disguise is irrelevant to the story but seems to answer a need in the character to poke fun at the sex whose rules she is about to subvert. Not for the only time in Shakespeare, we see a stage full of men who need a woman to sort out their problems.

Portia may also be seen as bringing fresh air from Belmont into the sea-level miasma of Venice, and readings of the play have often been constructed around a sharp opposition between the two locations, between the values of Portia and the values of Shylock. Shakespeare, however, will not leave it at that; there are constant echoes back and forth between the play’s apparently disparate worlds. Portia gives a ring to Bassanio, who gives it away; Leah gave a ring to Shylock, and Jessica steals it. Keys lock Shylock’s house and unlock the caskets of Belmont. Portia calls Bassanio “dear bought” ( 3.2.326 ) and Shylock uses almost the same words for his pound of flesh, which is “dearly bought” ( 4.1.101 ). Shylock’s proverb, “Fast bind, fast find” ( 2.5.55 ), could be a comment on the way the women use the rings to bind the men to them. His claim on Antonio’s body is grotesque, but the adultery jokes of the final scene remind us that married couples also claim exclusive rights in each other’s bodies. Marriage is mutual ownership, and Shylock’s recurring cry of “mine!” echoes throughout the play.

The final images of harmony are a bit precarious. The moonlight reminds Lorenzo and Jessica of stories of tragic, betrayed love, in which they teasingly include their own. These stories are stylized and distanced, but not just laughed off as the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe is in A Midsummer Night’s Dream . The problem of the rings is laughed off, but there is some pain and anxiety behind the laughter. The stars are “patens of bright gold” ( 5.1.67 )—that is, plates used in the Eucharist which are also rich material objects. The play’s materialism touches even the spiritual realm, and Lorenzo’s eloquent account of the music of the spheres ends with a reminder that “we cannot hear it” ( 5.1.73 ). When Portia describes the beauty of the night, she creates a paradox: “This night methinks is but the daylight sick; / It looks a little paler” ( 5.1.137 –38). So, as we watch the lovers go off to bed, we may think of their happiness, or of the human cost to those who have been excluded; we may wonder how much it matters that this happiness was bought in part with Shylock’s money. A brilliant night, or a sickly day? We may feel that this is another harmony whose music eludes us. Or we may conclude that the happiness is all the more precious for being hard-won, and all the more believable for the play’s acknowledgment that love is part of the traffic of the world.

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Merchant of Venice

Venetian prejudice christophe dorsey-guillaumin.

Enter the Jew. In this way does Shakespeare usher the character Shylock into his play The Merchant of Venice, and here begins the greatest controversy that plagues this work. The Elizabethan era, the time in which Shakespeare lived, was a time brimming with hostility toward Jews. Elizabeth's own court doctor, a Portuguese Jew, was condemned to death (unjustly, history says) after rumor spread that he might assassinate the queen. Shakespeare's own peer playwright, Christopher Marlowe, had already written The Jew of Malta, a play full of prejudice and stereotypes - the main character, Barrabbas, named after the infamous serial killer in the Bible, is one of the most bloodthirsty and heartless characters in literature of that time period, and not incidentally, he is a Jew. The Merchant of Venice is also a seemingly very anti-Semitic work. Shakespeare displays anti-Semitism in his play through the terrible things he writes for the Jew to say, what he has other characters say about this Jew and conversely about the Christians, and in the very way he chooses to portray the Jewish culture.

Shylock the Jew says many things that appall the audience. To what likely would have been (in the time of Shakespeare) an audience almost...

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What The Merchant of Venice tells us about racism and prejudice

This is a particularly uncomfortable time to be re-reading The Merchant of Venice .

Yet, with the social fracturing , racial divides and geopolitical strife that dominate our world today, there is perhaps no better time than now to revisit this play. 

(By the way, I have another comprehensive post on the portrayal of justice in Merchant , which you can check out here .)

Merchant is most famous for being Shakespeare’s ‘Antisemitic’ play (or his play about Antisemitism, perspective depending), and while this label is at best a crass generalisation, it’s definitely a relevant starting point for us to reflect on prejudice and racism, and specifically, on why and how they persist in human societies. 

If history has taught us anything, it is that all value systems change over time; and if literature has taught us much, it is that humans don’t always respond well to change.

The fear, ignorance, distrust, and inferiority that arise from seeing any sort of change or difference – whether it be social, economic, cultural or political – are endemic to all. It doesn’t matter if we’re white, black, yellow or brown, humans are reflexively wary of what’s different from themselves. 

Supposedly, education and exchange should help diminish wariness and increase receptivity, but even with 21st century levels of globalisation and cross-cultural contact, it seems that there’s still a lot more work to be done. 

While it’s certainly important to resist prejudice and racism, it’s equally worthwhile to consider why – despite decades of activism and awareness-raising – racial inequality persists. 

What  Merchant of Venice  wants us to ask about race

From the modern reader’s view, the key issue with Merchant of Venice is perhaps the way with which Shakespeare seems to normalise what we would nowadays call racist (specifically, antisemitic) behaviour through his negative characterisation of ‘the Jew’.

To most people, it would appear that the ‘heroes’ in the play are the white Christians who humiliate and discriminate against – in Salanio’s words – “the dog Jew”, while the ‘villain’ is Shylock, the Jewish usurer who makes a legal request for his bond to be fulfilled in a “pound of flesh”.

For this characterisation alone, Merchant is an emotionally difficult play to read and/or watch. 

Of course, that’s not to say Shakespeare himself endorsed racist behaviour (in fact that’s much evidence to the contrary), but the fact that he portrayed such dynamics in Renaissance Venice – an era when racism was so rampant and accepted – gives us much food for thought.

In the words of the eminent Shakespearean scholar Stephen Greenblatt, the Bard “wanted… to excite laughter at a wicked Jew’s discomfiture… in a play about money and love – [but] he wanted at the same time to call the laughter into question, to make the amusement excruciatingly uncomfortable.” 

For a 21st century audience, such discomfort would perhaps manifest itself in the questions that may arise after we watch the play.

For example, are racists necessarily evil people, despite their evil actions?

Do victims of racism – by virtue of being different – have to be extra cautious of their behaviour lest they be held to harsher social standards?

And are victims of racial targeting ever able to improve their own situation by amplifying their status of victimhood?

These are uncomfortable questions to ask, but important ones to address.

In an age where polarising, passion-driven rhetoric dominates social media discourse, it’s critical for us to acknowledge that while we may disagree, we should always seek to understand.

And this understanding is the first step to closing the prejudicial gap. 

Act 1: The problem of not seeing racial prejudice as a problem 

Prejudice manifests itself in many ways. The violent ones tend to get press coverage, and while the quiet ones don’t, they can be equally damaging. 

Among these ‘quiet’ types of racism is cultural insensitivity, which Bassanio shows towards Shylock in Act 1 Scene 3 – 

SHYLOCK I will be assured I may; and, that I may be assured, I will bethink me. May I speak with Antonio? BASSANIO If it please you to dine with us. SHYLOCK Yes, to smell pork; to eat of the habitation which your prophet the Nazarite conjured the devil into. I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following, but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you. What news on the Rialto? Who is he comes here? Enter ANTONIO

On the surface, Bassanio seems friendly here. Why don’t you dine with us, he asks Shylock casually, where you can speak with Antonio about lending me three thousand ducats? 

The response he gets is one of disdain, and to a certain extent, of despair. Sure, Shylock replies sarcastically, except that you’ve probably forgotten that as a Jew*, I don’t eat pork, so thanks but no thanks.

This is because Jews observe the kosher dietary law of kashrut , which forbids the consumption of pork, what the Christian’s “prophet the Nazarite” – Jesus – had conjured the devil into”, echoing the Jewish belief in pigs as an ‘unclean’ food source. 

Shylock’s stance towards Bassanio and his fellow Christians is clear: I’ll be civil with you in trade and conversation, but we won’t be sitting at the same table or worshipping together.

So while Shylock’s spurn is less than cordial, it’s not an entirely inappropriate reaction to Bassanio’s cultural insensitivity, because such cultural ignorance is also a gesture of tacit disrespect. 

From Shylock’s vantage, then, what seems like an innocent, even friendly, comment, is no less than another spit on his beard. 

Another type of racial discrimination is verbal violence, which Antonio admits to having once demonstrated towards Shylock – 

ANTONIO Well, Shylock, shall we be beholding to you? 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 sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine, And all for use of that which is mine own. Well then, it now appears you need my help: Go to, then; you come to me, and you say ‘Shylock, we would have moneys:’ you say so; You, that did void your rheum upon my beard And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur Over your threshold: moneys is your suit What should I say to you? Should I not say ‘Hath a dog money? is it possible A cur can lend three thousand ducats?’ Or Shall I bend low and in a bondman’s key, With bated breath and whispering humbleness, Say this; ‘Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last; You spurn’d me such a day; another time You call’d me dog; and for these courtesies I’ll lend you thus much moneys’? ANTONIO I am as like to call thee so again, To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too. If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not As to thy friends; for when did friendship take A breed for barren metal of his friend? But lend it rather to thine enemy, Who, if he break, thou mayst with better face Exact the penalty.

This exchange between Shylock and Antonio raises a question that continues to be relevant for us today: would you ever do business with someone who discriminates against you?

And if so, is it morally justified to use this as an opportunity to teach your perpetrator a lesson, either by overcharging or setting unequal terms, so as to effect a sort of financial ‘tit for tat’?

In this moment, Shylock shows his incredulity towards Antonio’s request for a loan, and he uses this opportunity to return some of the humiliation that he’s long had to endure from the Christian Antonio, all of which he – 

borne… with a patient shrug For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe

The “badge” metaphor deserves some attention here.

First, it conveys the idea that discrimination has so long been a fact of life for Jews, Shylock’s become so used to suffering now he sees it as no different from wearing a uniform.

But there’s also an undertone of pride in the way Shylocks says this, a sense that he’s almost proud to declare to the world that he’s a member of the persecuted, ‘suffering’ tribe.

By being forced to wear this ‘badge of sufferance’, it condemns him to de facto second-class citizen status, but the fact that everyone sees this badge also relieves him of the social burden to project any false image of ‘uprightness’.

Because even if he did, none of the Christians would treat him any better anyway, so he might as well just be himself by saying what he wants to say, and behaving how he wants to behave. This psychology is often present in members of society who feel ‘left behind or marginalised. 

The problem of Antonio for modern audiences

What makes Antonio interesting as a character is how differently Renaissance and modern audiences would view him. Early Modern playgoers would probably find him a lot more likeable and less problematic than their contemporary counterparts, choosing instead to have focus on his valiance and steadfastness as Bassanio’s friend.

For us, however, these qualities are unlikely to distract us from his blatant antisemitism towards Shylock – a factor that one could very well argue to be the trigger for Shylock’s ‘pound of flesh’ demand in the first place. It’s not the victim who’s cruel for wanting his perpetrator’s “pound of flesh” as bond for his loan; nothing happens without a reason, and the reason – Antonio’s long-standing humiliation of “the Jew” – would seem to be reason enough. 

Antonio seems to think that asking Shylock for a loan is ‘strictly business, not personal’, and for all his disgust towards the Jewish usurer, he doesn’t think such personal views need get in the way of what seems to him a purely financial ask.

This shows Antonio’s obliviousness to the impact of his discriminatory actions towards Shylock. In the face of Shylock’s sarcastic riposte about whether “a dog” would possibly have any money to lend, and if he should lend the Christian money while “bend[ing] low” with “bated breath and whispering humbleness”, Antonio shows the sort of self-entitlement that’s so characteristic of racial privilege – 

ANTONIO I am as like to call thee so again, To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too. If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not As to thy friends; for when did friendship take A breed for barren metal of his friend? But lend it rather to thine enemy Who, if he break, thou mayst with better face Exact the penalty.

To Antonio, human emotions don’t have to be involved in commercial transactions, which Shylock, of course, doesn’t agree.

In fact, by suggesting that enemies can “with better face/Exact the penalty” of the debtor who “break[s]” the bond, Antonio possibly inspires the idea of punitive penalty, which Shylock reciprocates by proposing to have Antonio’s “pound of flesh” as collateral for a forfeited loan. It seems, then, that prejudice creates the very conditions that breed hostility. 

Act 2: The problem of seeing racial difference as a problem

Technically, Merchant of Venice is a comedy, because it ends with happy marriages (between Bassanio and Portia, Gratiano and Nerissa).

For modern audiences, however, Merchant is at best a tragicomedy, a ‘tragedy masquerading as a comedy’, or a comedy with a tragic hero you can’t ignore. The presence of Shylock makes it difficult for us to finish the play feeling the same sense of joy and closure as we would other comedies, like Much Ado About Nothing or A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

Despite his capacity for mercilessness, Shylock is a figure of pathos, and one of the reasons for why we would sympathise with him is his absolute isolation in the play.

Not even his daughter, Jessica, stands by him. Indeed, Jessica is ashamed to be associated with her father, and specifically, of being – in her husband Lorenzo’s words – “issue to a faithless Jew”. She sees her Jewish heritage as a biological blot, one which she is determined to remove by marrying a Christian – 

JESSICA   Alack, what heinous sin is it in me To be ashamed to be my father’s child! But though I am a daughter to his blood, I am not to his manners. O Lorenzo, If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife, Become a Christian and thy loving wife. (2.3) 

Earlier on in this short scene, Jessica metaphorises the house that she and her father lives in as “hell” (“Our house is hell”). This reference to ‘hell’ is not made out of resentment, but desperation. Her “heinous sin”, however, is not something she can control, and for her to feel “ashamed to be my father’s child” is at least partly Shylock’s fault for bringing her into existence.

But Jessica understands deep within that she can never really abandon her Jewishness, because she is “a daughter to his [Shylock’s] blood”, despite “not to his manners”. Launcelot, Shylock’s once-servant who ultimately switches allegiance to Bassanio, reminds Jessica of the unchangeable in Act 3 Scene 5, when he points out that she is “damned” unless she disassociates herself from her father – 

LAUNCELOT Yes, truly; for, look you, the sins of the father are to be laid upon the children: therefore, I promise ye, I fear you. I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation of the matter: therefore be of good cheer, for truly I think you are damned. There is but one hope in it that can do you any good; and that is but a kind of bastard hope neither. JESSICA And what hope is that, I pray thee? LAUNCELOT Marry, you may partly hope that your father got you not, that you are not the Jew’s daughter.

While Jessica refuses to do so, she retorts by saying that marrying a Christian will ‘wash’ her of this Jewish connection. This, however, only runs up against Launcelot’s flippant put-down – 

JESSICA I shall be saved by my husband; he hath made me a Christian. LAUNCELOT Truly, the more to blame he: we were Christians enow before; e’en as many as could well live, one by another. This making Christians will raise the price of hogs: if we grow all to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the coals for money.

“Making” too many Christians will result in too many pork-eaters, and in turn, jack up the price of meat, Launcelot says. So w hat’s thought of by one person as a chance at social redemption is dismissed by another as a mere practical inconvenience, which again, highlights the lack of empathy that’s so often shown by those ‘blessed’ with racial privilege. 

Another moment in the play where racial difference is indicated to be a problem is Portia’s response to the Prince of Morocco’s failed pursuit. In fact, her comment is so brazenly ‘racist’ by modern standards that I don’t think any reader today can overlook it when evaluating her character. Upon the Prince of Morocco’s departure, Portia remarks – 

A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains, go. Let all of his complexion choose me so. (2.7) 

“Let all of his complexion choose me so”: I hope anyone who looks like him will choose the wrong casket (and as such, won’t be my husband). This echoes the Moroccan’s opening to his speech in Act 2 Scene 1, when he says –

Mislike me not for my complexion, The shadow’d livery of the burnish’d sun, To whom I am a neighbour and near bred. 

Well, Portia clearly isn’t a fan of the Moroccan’s complexion, and if we watch the 2004 film adaptation of Merchant (starring Al Pacino as Shylock) , we’ll see that this ‘complexion’ is understood to be black. To think of Portia as a racist, however, would probably be difficult for most audiences to stomach, because she is otherwise brave, generous, intelligent, beautiful – and overwhelmingly likeable .

This forces us to consider whether positive traits count for much in those who also happen to be racist – do we cease to like them or view them as decent people?

Can racists also be brave, generous, intelligent and beautiful?

Can you have likeable racists, or is this a contradiction in terms?

These are, of course, not at all easy questions to answer, but certainly very human ones that we should consider.

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Act 3: The problem with racial prejudice bringing about more problems 

One of the major dilemmas in approaching this play is how we respond to Shylock. Deserving of sympathy as he may be, his ‘an eye for an eye’ insistence on having Antonio’s heart (the “pound of flesh”) as bond portrays him to be a cruel, and overall unlikeable character.

But is his desire for revenge against one racist individual really so cruel, or was the systemic discrimination against Jewish people in Renaissance Venice crueller?

A t the very least, is Shylock’s technically lawful but inhumane demand of Antonio’s flesh justifiable, given the long-standing injustice that he’s been subject to by this same man who’s now asking him for money?

The essential question, then, is whether vengeance is legitimate when the system itself is deeply unjust. 

In what’s perhaps the most famous speech in Merchant (if not in all of Shakespeare’s works), Shylock poses this moral challenge to Salarino, when he asks whether Jews are any different from Christians.

Ever the racially blinkered Venetian, Salarino questions what good there is for Shylock to take Antonio’s pound of flesh; there’s no use you can make out of human meat, so why insist on it and not just settle for compensation instead? 

Shylock, however, sees this as a matter beyond transactional logic. It’s a historical grudge that he must address – a moral wrong that he can finally make right: 

SALARINO Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his flesh: what’s that good for? SHYLOCK To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered 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. 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. 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 villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. (3.1) 

In enumerating Antonio’s unjust actions – “He hath disgraced me, and/hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies”, Shylock exposes the range of abuse that this Christian has subjected him to.

And all for what? The fact that “I am a Jew”.

Racial animus alone, it seems, is “reason” enough for some to exact all kinds of injustices on their fellow men. 

He then launches into an impassioned, anaphoric string of rhetorical questions, whereby he asks if Jews don’t have the same “eyes”, “hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions” as Christians, and if they aren’t “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”.

As a specimen of rhetorical study, this is surely a brilliant moment that’s very likely to garner support for Shylock amongst audiences (especially modern day ones). But this is not so much a triumphant moment as a tragic one, because it reveals why prejudice persists in societies. 

For all the fundamental physical traits that Jews and Christians share, they are divided on the deeper aspects which shape the core of one’s identity and values, such as  religion, race and culture.

To some, seeing people who look different from them and live according to different rules is a threat*, because they represent what we don’t understand, and not understanding is often the quickest route to fear, from which more unpleasant emotions stem.  

By listing out all the surface similarities between Jews and Christians, Shylock reveals that their common ground is, in fact, rather limited, and not inclusive of those elements which actually bind humans together – conviction, familiarity and trust. Ironically, Shylock is also right in pointing out what Jews and Christians – for all their differences – do share: feelings of vengeance – 

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. 

It’s unfortunate, but too often, common humanity shows itself in our mutual capacity for inhumanity against one other. 

*The alternative response is fascination, which tends to result not in racism, but exoticism. This sentiment can be just as problematic when viewing people of other races or backgrounds, because it assumes a basis of interest in their state of difference (i.e. we are interested in them primarily for the fact that they are different). 

What are your thoughts on how Merchant of Venice portrays the themes of racism and prejudice?

Has it made you think more critically about discrimination in our society, and what can we do to overcome this barrier in human relations? 

Comment below with your thoughts! I’d love to hear from you.

Does Shylock deserve our sympathy? Check out my video below to find out!

For a detailed analysis on some of Shakespeare’s other plays, check out my other posts below: 

• Justice in The Merchant of Venice: 3 key ideas (with quotes, analysis & video)
• The supernatural in Macbeth: 3 key ideas (with quotes, analysis & video)
• Ambition in Macbeth: 3 key ideas (with quotes, analysis & video)
• Who is to blame for Macbeth’s fall? Here are the top 3 culprits
• What does Romeo and Juliet tell us about love?
• What does King Lear show us about blindness?
• Why is Hamlet such a fascinating character?

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3 thoughts on “ What The Merchant of Venice tells us about racism and prejudice ”

This is a great overview of ‘MOV’. I enjoyed reading it.

I’d be interested to read your take on the many biblical and classical allusions that are used throughout ‘MOV’.

A lot of my students struggle to grasp the story of Jacob and Laban, for example, which ties in quite well with some of the ideas in your post. This allusion to the Bible so early on in the play (A1S3) allows the audience to anticipate Shylock’s technically legal, but arguably immoral, manipulation of the terms of the deal with Antonio (which you also discuss). The allusion also acts as a justification for the practice of usury, countering Antonio’s perspective that usury is unsavoury. While not about money, Jacob profits by gaining possession of the sheep in the same way that Shylock sets terms in order to charge interest. Shylock uses the Bible to advance the idea that making profit is a form of ingenuity: just like Jacob, who has to rely on his intelligence in an unfriendly system, Shylock too must be creative in the ways he gains power in an unjust society. Shylock is concerned with more figurative profit or ‘interest’: power. This is why he foregoes charging Antonio monetary interest, instead requesting a pound of flesh. Charging interest in order to get money and manipulating the deal with Antonio in order to get a pound of flesh are both ways of gaining status and social mobility. Antonio already has access to status and mobility as a member of the merchant class but Shylock as a Jew is deprived of this. This ties in with your question about ‘whether vengeance is legitimate when the system itself is deeply unjust’. Shylock’s actions are framed as a response to prejudice and the societal constraints placed upon him. While Shylock is presented as a stereotypical Jew to an extent, duplicitous and driven by his own need (parallels can be drawn with Barabas in ‘The Jew of Malta’) and willing to cite scripture for personal gain, here, deceit is the only way in which Shylock can gain power over Antonio in a society in which he is the Jewish Other.

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Thanks for reading! I like your analysis of the Jacob and Laban allusion – it got me thinking about a key difference in the nature of the allusive sources that Shylock and the Christians use. Shylock only ever alludes to characters in the Hebrew Bible, while the rest of the characters allude to Greek and Roman figures. This alone tells us that there’s a fundamental chasm in Shylock’s relationship with the society around him: as a Jew, his identity and belief de facto marginalise him, because the values he draws on aren’t understood or accepted by the Christians. For example, Gratiano is at first unfamiliar with Shylock’s “Daniel” reference in 4.1, but he is able to quickly learn and use it against his Jewish adversary (“I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.”), which befits the power dynamics between racial superiors vs inferiors in any society. Ironically, the mock lyrical references that Lorenzo and Jessica make to tragic medieval and Greek characters in their banter at the start of 5.1 show their *lack* of knowledge in these myths, given the oddity of alluding to doomed pairs in a dialogue which celebrates the success of romantic elopement. But of course, this could be foreboding for a Christian-Jewish union (also doomed), in that Shakespeare may be hinting at the eventual breakdown of a relationship built upon the heavy history of racial distrust and mutual prejudice between two peoples.

I’ve never really considered how different characters use different allusions. Perhaps the way that Christian characters (who, by virtue of their religion and subsequent social acceptance, tend to be more privileged in the play) use classical allusion more frequently is a reflection of education and privilege. Education used to be more focussed on classical texts and Ancient writers. Even Lancelot alludes to Charybdis and Scylla, perhaps illustrating how, despite his servitude and low status, he is still more socially mobile than characters like Shylock.

I roll my eyes at the classical allusions in Act 5 every time but I agree that they’re effective in undermining the comedic ending by hinting at Jessica and Lorenzo’s ignorance as well as the potential doom that may befall their relationship beyond the parameters of the play. It’s hardly the “happy” ending of comedy when so many supposedly great loves end in death or suicide.

A disclaimer: I don’t know the ins and outs of the Bible or different religious texts. However, if the Old Testament is part of both the Torah and the Christian Bible, does Shylock’s citation of this establish some kind of common ground or does it simply draw attention to Shylock’s selection of specific parts of the Bible and rejection of other parts of the Bible, thereby characterising him in an unfavourable way?

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The Merchant of Venice

William shakespeare.

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

Prejudice and Intolerance

The Venetians in The Merchant of Venice almost uniformly express extreme intolerance of Shylock and the other Jews in Venice. In fact, the exclusion of these "others" seems to be a fundamental part of the social bonds that cement the Venetian Christians together. How otherwise would the ridiculous clown Launcelot ingratiate himself with the suave Bassanio ? Or why would the sensitive Antonio tolerate someone as crass as Gratiano ? It is possible to argue…

Human and Animal

Closely related to the theme of prejudice and intolerance is the theme of humanity—and the inhumanity of which various characters accuse one another. In insulting and abusing Shylock , the Venetians frequently denigrate him as an animal or devil. Shylock, in turn, seeks to reduce his debtor Antonio to the status of an animal whose body can be bought or sold. In the courtroom scene, he justifies his purchasing of a pound of Antonio's flesh…

Law, Mercy, and Revenge

Both the central action of The Merchant of Venice — Shylock's attempt to revenge himself on the Christian Antonio —and the romantic subplot—between Bassanio and Portia —explore the relationship between law, mercy, and revenge.

Shakespeare's contemporary, the philosopher Francis Bacon, defined revenge as a "kind of wild justice." When one private individual decides to revenge himself on another, he is going outside the official justice system. And yet, as the phrase "wild justice" suggests, the…

Greed vs. Generosity

The primary grievance that Antonio has against Shylock is that he is greedy—for charging interest to those who borrow money from him when they are in need. The Venetians implicitly contrast Shylock's greed with the generosity that they show one another. For instance, Antonio is willing to place his whole "purse and person" at Bassanio's disposal and regularly saves other Christians from having to pay interest to Shylock by paying off their debts for them.

Reading and Interpretation

Instances of reading and interpretation occur many times in The Merchant of Venice . An early scene in which Shylock and Antonio bicker over the meaning of Biblical scripture shows that the all-important distinction between Jews and Christians basically boils down to interpretive differences—different ways of reading and understanding a shared heritage of texts.

The play also stages "scenes of interpretation"—in which the act of reading becomes a dramatic event. The first major instance, connected…

Love and Friendship

In connection with mercy and generosity, The Merchant of Venice also explores love and friendship between its characters. The central romantic relationship of the play is that between Bassanio and Portia . Their marriage is paralleled by several others: the elopement of Shylock's daughter, Jessica , with the Christian, Lorenzo ; and the marriage of Portia's servant, Nerissa , to Bassanio's companion, Gratiano . In addition, numerous critics have suggested that the strongest friendship in…

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The Merchant of Venice: Context ( AQA GCSE English Literature )

Revision note.

English Senior Content Creator

Context should inform, but should never dominate, your reading of the test. Any comments on contextual factors must always be linked to the ideas in the play. When exploring the context in which The Merchant of Venice was written, you should consider: 

the contexts in which the text is set

the contexts in which the text is received

and its literary context (genre)

Each of the below topics links directly to Shakespeare’s ideas in The Merchant of Venice:

Prejudice and Intolerance

Love and Friendship

Power and Wealth

Jews were banned in England from 1290 until the mid-1500s and the minority that were in England in Elizabethan times, were barely tolerated:

This is evidenced in The Merchant of Venice where the Christian characters demonise demonise Jews:

For example, Antonio does not deny insulting and spitting on Shylock

Despite being involved in various trades, Jews were renowned for their occupation as usurers , lending money at interest rates:

As a despised practice among the Elizabethans, Shakespeare's audiences would have also scorned Shylock as an unconverted and alien Jew

Shylock's downfall in Shakespeare's play would have been met with different responses depending on the audience:

In Elizabethan England, people seeking cultural homogeneity  would have found solace  in observing the coerced conversion of Shylock

Those who were of the opinion that non-Christians would suffer eternal damnation would have viewed it as a favourable result

During the Elizabethan era, there was a prevalent belief that Jews had animosity  towards Christians and would resort to any means necessary to harm them:

Furthermore, it was considered inconceivable for a Jew to retaliate against their persecutors, which is the exact course of action taken by Shylock

Consequently, it was not uncommon for Renaissance comedy to feature a Jewish character as the primary antagonist

Nevertheless, it could be viewed that Shylock's portrayal is less stereotypical than typical for the time of Shakespeare

At the time, Venice was a commercial port and one of the richest trading cities in the world:

Trade would have been an essential aspect of Venice's economy and it would have been imperative to provide equal protections to merchants of all religions and nationalities:

However, prejudice and intolerance would have been common

For example, the Prince of Morocco expects to be met by Portia with a negative response to his skin colour and declares: “Mislike me not for my complexion”

In viewing the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, it is important to consider the convention of sentimental   friendships between men during the Renaissance period

In 16th century England, platonic , passionate friendships between men were a commonality which is evidenced in the relationship between Bassanio and Antonio:

Antonio’s help in Bassanio’s pursuit for Portia’s love is his way of showing love for his friend

Marriages in the Elizabethan era, especially among the aristocracy – but also extending to the middle and lower classes – were frequently organised between families:

This was done to benefit both parties and marriage was highly influenced by factors such as money, status and alliances

Women had no influence over who they were to marry and were obliged to comply with their parents' (particularly fathers') decision:

This is evidenced through Portia who is unable to choose her own husband and who must comply with her father’s will

However, as Europe moved towards modernisation, there arose a new ideal of marriages based on mutual attraction and love:

Therefore, traditions surrounding courtship and marriage went through substantial changes

In Venetian culture, paternal authority was held in high regard and was considered to be sacred:

Any resistance or rebellion against it ran the risk of facing severe consequences, including the possibility of death, although typically such a severe punishment was not carried out

Sons who disobeyed their fathers were typically disowned or sent into exile, whereas daughters were often locked up or sent to convents

Therefore, Jessica’s conduct would have been perceived as one of the worst things to happen to an orthodox Jewish community:

Shylock's declaration that he would rather see Jessica dead, along with the stolen ducats, is plausible and reflects this perspective

For centuries, wealth was predominantly held by landowners and the aristocracy

Venice was a city driven by trade and commerce:

Its opulence  was founded on business, legal and financial matters rather than inherited wealth or noble status

The Merchant of Venice was written during a period in which a new group of merchants and business people were on the rise:

Shakespeare's use of Portia's predicament with her suitors enables Shakespeare to mock the aristocrats of varying nations for the entertainment of his Elizabethan audience

Due to the social conventions of courtship during this period, Bassanio needs wealth in order to pursue Portia

Lending money with the intention of profiting from it was considered to be against Christian religious beliefs

In England, borrowing money to finance ventures was made legal, although it still carried a negative connotation as it was traditionally done through Jewish lenders:

Shylock, a character who values his wealth over his own daughter, Jessica, would have been viewed unfavourably by Shakespearean audiences

Shylock's fixation on his home, jewellery, finances, and assets reveal his status as an outsider to Venetian society, which is further emphasised by the legal principles Portia speaks about

However, as an audience, it is important to have an understanding of the reasons why money held such significance to Shylock:

Shylock views usury  as a means of maintaining his financial stability

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Plays — Merchant of Venice

Essays on Merchant of Venice

The importance of writing an essay on merchant of venice.

Writing an essay on Merchant of Venice is important as it allows students to critically analyze the themes, characters, and messages portrayed in the play. It also helps in developing critical thinking and analytical skills, as well as improving writing abilities.

When writing an essay on Merchant of Venice, it is important to carefully analyze the characters and their motivations. For example, Shylock’s character can be explored in depth to understand the themes of prejudice, justice, and revenge. Additionally, the themes of love, friendship, and loyalty can be examined through the relationships between the characters.

Furthermore, it is crucial to consider the historical and social context of the play, as it provides a deeper understanding of the themes and messages conveyed by Shakespeare. For instance, the portrayal of anti-Semitism in the play reflects the societal attitudes of the time, and this can be analyzed in the essay.

When writing the essay, it is important to provide evidence from the text to support the arguments and analysis. This can include direct quotes, references to specific scenes, and interpretations of the characters’ actions and dialogue. Additionally, it is essential to structure the essay in a coherent and logical manner, with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a strong conclusion.

In conclusion, writing an essay on Merchant of Venice is important for students to develop critical thinking, analytical, and writing skills. By carefully analyzing the characters, themes, and historical context of the play, students can gain a deeper understanding of the text and its significance.

Best Merchant of Venice Essay Topics

• The portrayal of Shylock as a villain or victim
• The role of women in The Merchant of Venice
• The theme of mercy and justice in the play
• The symbolism of the bond and the caskets
• The use of language and imagery in The Merchant of Venice
• The significance of the title in relation to the themes of the play
• The role of friendship and loyalty in The Merchant of Venice
• The portrayal of prejudice and discrimination in the play
• The relationship between Antonio and Bassanio
• The concept of appearance vs reality in The Merchant of Venice
• The motif of money and wealth in the play
• The portrayal of love and romance in The Merchant of Venice
• The role of religion in the play
• The use of comedy and tragedy in The Merchant of Venice
• The significance of the courtroom scene
• The portrayal of power and authority in the play
• The role of fate and destiny in The Merchant of Venice
• The theme of deception and manipulation
• The portrayal of outsiders and insiders in the play
• The relevance of The Merchant of Venice in today's society

Merchant of Venice Essay Topics Prompts

• Imagine you are Shylock's defense attorney. Write a closing argument that challenges the court's decision.
• Write a letter from Portia to Bassanio, expressing her feelings about the outcome of the bond and the caskets.
• Create a modern-day adaptation of The Merchant of Venice, set in a different cultural or social context.
• Write a dialogue between Antonio and Shylock, exploring their conflicting views on money and morality.
• Imagine you are a journalist interviewing Jessica after she elopes with Lorenzo. Write a series of questions and answers that reveal her motivations and feelings.

How Shakespeare Presents The Character of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice

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Juxtaposition of Love and Wealth in The Merchant of Venice

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The Theme of Inequality in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice

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Shylock's Personality in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice"

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1596-1599, William Shakespeare

Shakespearean comedy

Antonio, an antisemitic merchant, takes a loan from the Jew Shylock to help his friend to court Portia. Antonio can't repay the loan, and without mercy, Shylock demands a pound of his flesh. The heiress Portia, now the wife of Antonio's friend, dresses as a lawyer and saves Antonio.

The Merchant of Venice is structured partly on the contrast between idealistic and realistic opinions about society and relationships. On the one hand, the play tells us that love is more important than money, mercy is preferable to revenge, and love lasts forever

Antonio, Bassanio, Gratiano, Lorenzo, Portia, Nerissa, Balthazar, Stephano, Shylock, Jessica, Tubal, Launcelot Gobbo, Old Gobbo, Leonardo, Duke of Venice, Prince of Morocco, Prince of Arragon, Salarino and Salanio

The forfeit of a merchant's deadly bond after standing surety for a friend's loan was a common tale in England in the late 16th century. In addition, the test of the suitors at Belmont, the merchant's rescue from the "pound of flesh" penalty by his friend's new wife disguised as a lawyer, and her demand for the betrothal ring in payment are all elements present in the 14th-century tale Il Pecorone by Giovanni Fiorentino, which was published in Milan in 1558.

The Merchant of Venice is one of the most famous plays of Shakespeare. The play is frequently staged today, but is potentially troubling to modern audiences because of its central themes, which can easily appear antisemitic. Critics today still continue to argue over the play's stance on the Jews and Judaism.

“You speak an infinite deal of nothing.” “With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.” “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” “All that glisters is not gold.”

1. Shakespeare, W., Shakespeare, W., & Kaplan, M. L. (2002). The merchant of Venice (pp. 25-120). Palgrave Macmillan US. (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-137-07784-4_2) 2. Lewalski, B. K. (1962). Biblical Allusion and Allegory in" The Merchant of Venice". Shakespeare Quarterly, 13(3), 327-343. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2866826) 3. Halio, J. L. (2006). The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare Bulletin, 24(2), 63-68. (https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/199046/summary) 4. Ferber, M. (1990). The Ideology of The Merchant of Venice. English Literary Renaissance, 20(3), 431-464. (https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1475-6757.1990.tb01442.x?journalCode=elr) 5. Willson, M. J. (1994). View of Justice in Shakespeare's the Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure. Notre Dame L. Rev., 70, 695. (https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/tndl70&div=24&id=&page=) 6. Metzger, M. J. (1998). “Now by my hood, a gentle and no Jew”: Jessica, The Merchant of Venice, and the discourse of early modern English identity. PMLA, 113(1), 52-63. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/abs/now-by-my-hood-a-gentle-and-no-jew-jessica-the-merchant-of-venice-and-the-discourse-of-early-modern-english-identity/51E9B840D2AB9DB0ABAB356C6FBC0B20) 7. Moisan, T. (2013). " Which is the merchant here? and which the Jew?": subversion and recuperation in The Merchant of Venice. In Shakespeare Reproduced (pp. 196-214). Routledge. (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315018584-15/merchant-jew-subversion-recuperation-merchant-venice-thomas-moisan-188) 8. Sokol, B. J., & Sokol, M. (1999). Shakespeare and the English Equity Jurisdiction The Merchant of Venice and the Two Texts of King Lear. The Review of English Studies, 50(200), 417-439. (https://academic.oup.com/res/article-abstract/50/200/417/1531451)

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