All these theories being the shared thoughts of Shakespeare’s Christian audience, it could only be expected that the Jew would be the enemy in the play, and the character that everybody loved to hate and blame.
Shakespeare creates a caricature of a Jew, just as he might have seen done by Christopher Marlowe in “The Jew of Malta”. Shakespeare’s “Shylock” was easily recognisable as a Jew, wearing traditional clothing, immediately showing the audience that he is different. The money lending profession adds to the Jewish look, and the way he acts also, without even a care for his own daughter, making references to his desire for Christian blood. It all allows Shakespeare’s audience to create an even stronger hatred for the Jew.
Although perhaps no English individual had essentially met a Jew, almost certainly the entire audience had been brought up to deride such an appalling religious conviction, all the while hearing terrible tales of sin and misery caused by the Jewish society.
Hundreds of years on, Anti Semitism still survived in some parts of the world. In the early twentieth century the Jews were persecuted in Russia, and so many fled to Germany. But Germany soon turned against the Jewish society, when Hitler came to power. Hitler hated the Jews insanely. He became obsessed by the fact that Jews ran many of the most successful businesses, particularly large department stores. And this offended his idea of the superiority of Aryans. Hitler also blamed Jewish businessmen and bankers for Germany’s defeat in the First World War. His hatred of Jews was not logical, and the Jews were no more to blame than any other German community.
Hitler removed German citizenship from the Jews, alienating them from their home country. The infamous Holocaust was derived where by death camps were set up by the Nazis, where Jews would be worked to death, gassed or shot. Six million out of Europe’s eight million Jews were killed in cold blood towards the end of the Second World War.
Some children were even used for hideous medical experiments. One doctor injected virulent tuberculosis into twenty infants and watched as the serious illness developed to their deaths.
Britain’s wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the Holocaust “the most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world”. This at least suggests Anti Semitism was not active worldwide. Hitler’s actions to the Jewish society were disgusting, and absolutely horrendous. Jews were used like bits of meat!
Nowadays the world is much more of a multi-racial community, and I for one am sickened to hear of such awful treatments Jews were awarded in the past, merely because of their beliefs. They are as human as anyone, and have been truly victimised for the majority of all time!
As I have already stated, Jews were entirely alienated as far as Shakespeare’s audience were concerned and today’s modern views would most probably have never even been imagined. Brought up to despise and fear the Jewish name, the 16th Century English citizens knew no better.
Shakespeare presents Shylock as a stereotypical Jew throughout the play in numerous ways. It seems evident that almost every time Shylock speaks, the talk is based around his religion and his hatred of Christians. One can imagine the response of the audience after hearing such blasphemy against Christianity! Shylock played the enemy, which was how Shakespeare portrayed him.
On stage in the 16th Century Shylock would have worn his Jewish gaberdine and skullcap, notoriously recognisable for the evil demon he was thought to be.
“Three thousand ducats; well”, is the very first comment made by the Jew in the play, which entirely builds on the myth of the greedy, spiteful religion the audience believe Judaism to be, based solely around money and wealth.
Shylock is depicted as the traditional moneylender following his initial entrance in the play. The Christian audience are able to build up vigilance and disrespect for the Jew instantaneously.
At Bassanio’s invitation to dine together Shylock replies:
“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.” By religion, Shylock is not permitted to eat pork, as it was thought that the pig possessed the devil. Shylock tells Bassanio that he will only conduct business with him. The Jew will not socialise as friends, because of their alternative beliefs. Bassanio here is conveyed as an impartial, unprejudiced gentleman, for it is doubtful in my mind that any of the other characters would ever have suggested dinner.
“I hate him for he is a Christian”, Shylock declares at Antonio’s entrance. Jews were thought to despise the Christian society, and this quote conveys the Jew as a true villain. One can again envisage substantial audience participation as the infamous enemy belittles their Christian race.
“But more for that in low simplicity he lends out money gratis”, Shylock continues, assessing that religious distinctions appear to be less vital than professional envy. Shylock embraces more abhorrence for the Christian on account of money affairs, than that of alternative beliefs.
“Cursed be my tribe” Shylock goes on to say, again a noteworthy claim that he is diverse. Throughout the play Shakespeare persists in reminding his addressees that Shylock is undeniably a Jew, and an adversary to Christians ubiquitously. The quotation “My tribe” alienates Shylock exceedingly, suggesting that the Jew deems himself to be an element of a superior, elite power. Shylock reinstates his theory barely moments after with,
“Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe”.
Towards the closing stages of the play Shylock is pictured in court in an appeal to slice flesh from a Christian’s body, sharpening a knife on the sole of his shoe as he anticipates inauguration. Shylock here is portrayed as a monster, and Christians are reminded that Jews are considered to be perilous. Jews were thought to have eaten the blood of Christian babies with bread.
Shylock’s unremitting clarification concerning his religious conviction, and his analysis on capital, love and Christianity, in addition to his facade on stage, acts as a continuous reminder to the audience that Shylock is a Jew.
“Let the forfeit be nominated for an equal pound of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken in what part of your body pleaseth me”. If Antonio fails to repay the borrowed sum of money to Shylock within three months, the penalty is flesh removed from the Christian. Shylock is exposed at this point as a villain exclusively, for he would rather the demise of a Christian than supplementary interest.
Shylock’s first scene ends with conflicting objectives of the Jew. As the bond of flesh is sealed, Antonio claims,
“Gentle Jew. The Hebrew will turn Christian: he grows kind”. Antonio considers the Jew to be doing a good, almost Christian endeavour by not charging interest on the borrowed fee.
“I like not fair terms and a villains mind”, Bassanio contradicts Antonio with the point that the Jew requires flesh from the Christian should the loan fail to be reimbursed.
“Our house is hell”, Shylock’s daughter Jessica proclaims to a faithful servant. Shylock instructs her to stay away from the windows, and to lock the doors while he goes away from home, for Christians parade through the streets. Years of artificial fatherly anguish have piloted Jessica to feel no affection for the Jew, driving her clandestinely in the direction of the Christian world.
Predictably Jessica escapes from the torture she once identified as home, and flees from Shylock to a Christian lover. It is in this scene that Shylock protests that he has been victimised.
“My own flesh and blood to rebel! I say my daughter is my flesh and my blood”, Shylock cries, demanding pity from the audience as he shows affection and sorrow after the loss of his daughter. She had run away, taking Shylock’s money and a ring of great sentimental value. Clearly she had done all this out of spite, and hatred of her own father.
“I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” Shylock cries out to be recognised as an individual. He has been mocked and reviled all of his life because of his religion. He is only a moneylender because that is one of the solitary vocations he is sanctioned to be! Shakespeare communicates the proposal that Shylock is the victim here, forsaken by his own descendant, allocating the audience to ultimately demonstrate some genuine compunction for the Jew.
The sympathy for the Jew is hastily mislaid as Shylock takes Antonio to court over the bond, and the pound of flesh the Jew feels he ought fittingly to have. Shylock assembles, sharpening the blade of his knife on the sole of his shoe. Even though the Jew is offered three times the borrowed amount to drop his case, Shylock persists in wanting a pound of the Christians flesh. Here he shows his true villainy,
“The pound of flesh which I demand of him is dearly bought; ‘tis mine and I will have it.”
Shylock stipulated an austere observation of the law, and in poetic justice it is accurately this that overpowers him. The audience almost certainly would have applauded as the Christian won the skirmish with the Jew.
“I pray you give me leave to go from hence: I am not well. Send the deed after me and I will sign it”, was Shylock’s closing line of the play after he had been stripped of his house, and possessions, his daughter, his money and status and his Jewish religion. For the Jew was sentenced to become a Christian, as chastisement for machinations to murder Antonio.
Antonio had initially accepted the bond, as it had seemed reasonable. But there was no denying the mutual detestation between himself and the Jew. As Shylock questions the Christian as to why he should loan him money after he ridicules him so, Antonio replies,
“I am as like to call thee so again, to spit on thee again, to spurn thee too”. It is no secret that Antonio is discriminating to Shylock, whom he analyses as a villain unequivocally.
Jessica is pictured as being ashamed of Shylock, describing her household as “hell” to Launcelot. She does not even desire to be part of the Jewish society to any further extent, and disregards her creed in favour of her Christian lover.
“To be asham’d to be my father’s child! But though I am a daughter to his blood, I am not to his manners.”
“I shall end this strife, become a Christian, and thy loving wife”. Jessica is eager to escape her father, the devil in her life. She shall seek retribution over her father by becoming a Christian; an affiliate of the collection of those the Jew hate the most. Out of malice, Jessica takes Shylock’s most loved chattels, however it seems he cares more for the return of these than of Jessica herself. The relationship they do have is hostile and sad.
Hypothetically just, yet obviously chauvinistic against Jews, the Duke refers to Shylock solely as “Jew”.
“Thou art come to answer a stony adversary, an inhuman wretch uncapable of pity, void and empty from any dram of mercy”. Feeling sympathy for the fellow Christian, the Duke asks Shylock to show mercy. The Duke thinks the bond pitiless and malicious, and in turn thinks the Jew to be greedy and spiteful and an embarrassment to mankind. For Shylock to wish the suffering or death on another is quite unheard of.
None of the Christian characters demonstrate any empathy towards the Jew, and throughout the play Shylock is portrayed as the villain, out to take the life of another. As Shylock learns of his daughter’s elopement the audience is drawn to temporarily feel strong remorse as the Jew questions his humanity.
Shakespeare meant for the audience to despise Shylock. He was written to portray the evil character of the plot, and legend read that the Jew was an evil character in itself. Shakespeare never intended on changing worldly views on Judaism, but merely wanted a wicked character to challenge Christianity.
It is almost certain that nobody at that time had actually met a Jew, and so using the Jewish name, and wearing what were thought to be Jewish clothes, and hating the myth of the Jewish person was all done in jest. Shakespeare managed to create a character that his audience could participate with. The inhuman wretch of a man, inhuman not solely because of his religion, but also because of his profession and want of money.
The audience had definitely heard dreadful anecdotes of the Jewish nation for most of their lives, and Shakespeare only meant to transmit a caricature of somebody they may have always imagined. Shylock is undoubtedly portrayed as the villain, and the one solitary victimising scene showed the audience that Jews are real people, and not aliens. Real as they are though, they are treacherous and evil.
The play results in the Christians getting their justice, as the entire audience would have hoped for.
Today, of course, Jews are universally accepted as equals and there are no laws written which could ever substitute a person’s religion for another. Attitudes to Jews are entirely different today, and modern productions of “The Merchant of Venice” show Shylock more as the victim who lost everything because of persecution as a Jew.
