“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.”
What Shylock has said here means that Antonio has humiliated him in so many different ways, has delayed returning him his half a million, sniggered in his face when Shylock lost, scorned him when he gained, stole his friends and motivated his enemies.
Shylocks problem with Antonio is that Antonio doesn’t let people see Shylock in a positive light; instead Antonio makes us see Shylock as a miserly, cruel and in a tedious form.
Christians treat Shylock as if he isn’t human and that he shouldn’t deserve to live.
They treated Shylock like this because in Shakespeare’s time Jews were hated by Christians for many reasons. Firstly Jews didn’t believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, they didn’t believe in the Christian faith and they were hated for simply being a Jew.
What Shylock said about being a Jew 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?”
What Shylock is implying here is that a Jew and a Christian are equal and that were all human.
The trial is about Shylock taking revenge on the thing that he hates most, Antonio. Just like some Christians back then hated cats, pigs and rats that is how much Shylock hated Antonio. Also the trial goes back to the bond Antonio signed in Act 1 Scene 3 saying that Shylock owns a pound of Antonio’s flesh.
In this scene Antonio’s lawyer is none other than the Princess of Belmont, Portia.
Shylock is prevented from claiming Antonio’s pound of flesh because Portia reminds him that on the bond it says that he is not allowed more than one pound and that a drop of blood is not allowed to be spilled, and if does then Shylock would be guilty and that all of his land would be confiscated by the state. Then Shylock is told that he cannot even take the 3 thousand ducats, he can only take a pound of flesh or nothing. So Shylock had dropped all charges, Antonio’s life was spared but Shylock had to leave his religion and convert to Christianity.
In my opinion I think that Shylock does deserve sympathy from the audience because he was treated differently because of his religion and he was forced to leave his religion and convert to Christianity in the end. But Shylock shouldn’t have tried to take out his revenge on Antonio; even though he was humiliated by him he should have tried to be the bigger person.
I think a lot of his behaviour was understandable and if we were in his shoes we would have probably reacted in the same way.
I think that Shylock doesn’t deserve his punishment but then again he does. Because I see when Shylock was right in what he did but when he did something wrong it was very bad. When he almost took another mans life for his personal reasons even if that man wronged him he didn’t have the right kill him. But I felt sympathy for him when he was ripped away from his religion and was forced to convert to Christianity.
This play is relevant to us today because people are still treated differently if they are from another religion, by a few people. Although religion at the moment is much better then it was back then, racism is becoming a much bigger issue in the world.
