Shakespeare’s three women characters – Portia, Nerissa and Jessica – are portrayed as typical women of their time. Discuss

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Martha Ricketts                              

Shakespeare’s three women characters – Portia, Nerissa and Jessica – are portrayed as typical women of their time.  Discuss

The story of The Merchant Of Venice looks at very typical attitudes of the day on many subjects such as the treatment of Jews and the way women should have acted towards men (mainly their fathers and husbands).  After studying the Merchant Of Venice I have decided to discuss weather Shakespeare’s three women characters are portrayed as typical women of their time.

In The Merchant Of Venice Shakespeare’s three women characters – Portia, Nerissa and Jessica – are portrayed in very different ways but all have certain similarities, which link the characters.  There are certain key scenes in the play where we get a really good look at the characters of the three women and I am going to look at these and see if their attitudes match to the typical attitudes of the day.  From this I should be able to tell whether Shakespeare meant them to be typical of the era or rebels without a cause.

All three of the characters are portrayed completely differently but have certain similarities like short courtships, they all marry friends of Antonio at about the same time and are all involved in making a mockery of Shylock.  Firstly all three had very short courtships; I think this is because in Shakespeare’s era women only had status through their fathers or husbands.  Women couldn’t even own property.  We see this when Portia marries Bassanio, “This house, these servants, and this same myself Are yours, my lord’s”

Her father, despite the fact that he is dead, controls Portia.  She isn’t allowed to choose her own husband and is tied by her fathers will to marry the man who picks the right casket, we know this because right at the beginning of the play Portia says, “O me, the word ‘choose’! I may neither choose who I would, nor refuse who I dislike, so is the will of the living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father.”  She has to stick to this by law as it is written in her fathers will.  However I believe that she knew what was in the caskets and tried to manipulate her suitor’s decisions.  I think this because there are two lines in the play, which suggests she knows.  These are, “I pray thee set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket, for if the devil be within, and that temptation without, I know he will choose it.” And, “I could teach you how to choose right.”  The first of these tells us that she does know which casket has her picture in it also tells us that she wishes to discourage the suitor from choosing it.  The second of these tells us this also and shows she has a great preference for Bassnio.

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Today Portia’s name is linked with the Qualities of justice and mercy, but she is cruel in her defeated and humiliation of Shylock.  When she dresses up in men’s clothing with Nerissa she made sure she pushed Shylock into a corner he couldn’t get out of.  She did this cleverly by making sure Shylock had basically told them he wanted to kill Antonio and then springing the loophole on him.  First she asks him, “Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge, To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death.” After she has attained this information she ...

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