i.101) if they choose not to keep their own law when it does work according to their preferences at the time. Shylock is making a statement here that property - whether or not it is human - is property. His implication is that the law is good for all and, mercy can indeed trump the law as long as that mercy does not infringe upon one's comfort.
This scene is also significant because it demonstrates the extent of Shylock's personality. As we have previously noted, Shylock is a man driven by hatred and anger. In addition, it must be noted that he is also walking into the court as a victim. He understands what it feels like to be ostracized for being different. He understands completely how a man feels when he is shunned for his beliefs. Shylock is a strong man because he does not bend or break when we might expect him to. We might even expect him to have some mercy when he is offered a generous amount of money but he illustrates his determination when he refuses the offer. Years of oppression and mistreatment have emerged in this moment, for Shylock believes he has finally won and gained the upper hand on his Christian contemporaries. Shylock is looking to avenge yeas of having people turn their back on him because he is a Jew. He is looking to make up for all that he has lost in the way of being ostracized. He wants nothing material or monetary - he wants something that only Antonio can give him. This desire becomes his downfall. Harold Bloom notes that Shylock is certainly endowed with powerful emotions but they "make him dreadfully vulnerable" (Bloom 183). Shylock's lesson is one that we should all take to heart.
This passage reveals to us a very frightening side of humanity, when we look at it from a broad perspective. Shylock could have walked out of the court wealthier than he was when he walked in had he only taken...
Bassanio chooses lead, when asked to select from the three caskets that Portia offers to test her suitors. She is happy that he wins, and the lead is supposed to be the correct choice, for the person who chooses lead is supposed to be a man who has hazarded all he has, to win Portia. But in truth, Bassanio has hazarded nothing and desires Portia's gold. It is Antonio
Shylock is also perceived and portrayed as an enemy of the Christian faith and as the nemesis of the play's protagonist, Antonio. He therefore serves a distinct literary purpose by contrasting the depth of friendship exhibited by Antonio's group. Because he is not viewed as a friend, he cannot truly betray any of them. Thus, when Shylock does not back down from his bond with Antonio he is merely
The parallels between these situations and Frye's basic assessment of the plot of New Comedies are not, perhaps, immediately apparent, but they have the same effect by the end of the play, where "the audience witnesses the birth of a renewed sense of social integration" (Frye 94). The parent/child relationships have been largely done away with in favor of te romantic ties that seem to be favored by the play.
Also, the role of the Duke would not be as prominent if the city of Venice would not have been selected for the majority of the activity of the play. The city in itself ensures a certain aura that traditional cultural life as well as the fame of a modern, yet traditional in many instances cities, that provides the story a special twist, embedded in culture, yet modern in
Merchant of Venice: Queen Elizabeth vs. Portia There are a number of similarities that exist between Queen Elizabeth of England and William Shakespeare's character Portia in his play The Merchant of Venice. Both women had a good amount of money and power; although Portia was not royalty, she was still a wealthy heiress in the city of Belmont. Because of the money and power associated with these women, they each had
Shylock Character the Merchant Venice Portia and Queen Elizabeth: Through the trenches of the microcosm of play, no character serves as much semblance to Elizabeth Tudor as Portia. I agree so, and forthwith draw more comparisons between her and a contemporaneous learned Renaissance woman going by her terrific rhetorical skills, markedly in the trial scene. By all measure, Elizabeth Tudor was a learned woman, possibly of the highest caliber in all of
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