Analysing Shylock's Dual-Role as Villain and Victim

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Analysing Shylock's Dual-Role as Villain and Victim      Shakespeare presents Shylock as both a villain and a victim in 'The Merchant of Venice'. To what extent is this true?Shylock is shown as a villain because he has attempted to kill Antonio, he's abused Jessica's freedom and cares more about his money than his daughter. He is, however, presented as misunderstood and a victim, because not only is he physically abused in the text (he is spat on and kicked), his business is undermined, and he is an alien in his own city. A modern audience would not understand Shylock's personality as well as an Elizabethan audience, or at least as Shakespeare would have seen Shylock, because the racial tensions between Christians and Jews at Shakespeare's time have been mostly resolved, and because it was written for an Elizabethan, Christian audience. Consequently, it shows Christians in a forgiving light, in that their actions against Shylock, the Jew, are largely exonerated, both morally and in the courts. Jews in Elizabethan times were generally thought of as murderous, sometimes accused of poisoning wells and wiping out whole (Christian) villages at once. One of Shakespeare's contemporaries, the playwright Christopher Marlowe, portrayed one of his Jewish characters, Barabbas, as a villainous, well-poisoning murderer. Shakespeare however, presents Shylock as 'a villain of circumstance', he presents Shylock's motivations as well as his transgressions. Typically, Shylock is an traditional Jew-character, a Jew attacking a Christian. Untypically, the Christian attacked first with his spitting and kicking.A modern audience would most likely blanche at the blatant racism in 'The Merchant Of Venice', but in Elizabethan
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England, 'Jew' was a word associated with 'criminal' and 'murderer' and so they would be treated as a criminal or murderer was treated.Shylock sees an opportunity , and it could be interpreted that he seems to orchestrate a method to murder Antonio within the law. Shylock is spiteful towards Jessica, he tells her to 'stop [his] house's ears,' she is not allowed to look at or hear the merriment outside, possibly because it's made by Christians, or possibly because of the sexual immorality of a Christian masque; a Christian masque was an event where Christians wore masks and commited acts ...

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