The next scene he appears in is Act 2 Scene 5 where he is saying goodbye to Launcelot who is going to Bassanio. Shylock is made to look like a miser and is obsessed of getting rid of Launcelot because he is costing him money. He is happy to eat the Christians food and cost them money. He is going against what he has said earlier in the play in that he said he would never eat with Christians, “I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you,” Act 1 Scene 3. He also seems to have an obsession with locking up his house, “Shut doors after you. Fast bind, fast find,”
He next appears in Act 3 Scene 1 where he accuses Solanio and Salerio of knowing about his daughter’s elopement with a Christian and the theft of his money, “You know, none so well…of my daughter’s flight” (line 23). This is where Shylock becomes more of human character with feelings and emotions and not just the comic villain, but a more complex character. The audience would feel a little sympathy for him at this moment because he has lost his daughter. He tries to say to Salerio and Solanio that he is also a human and not different to everyone else just because of his religion, “I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?” (lines 54-56). He justifies his cause for revenge against the Christians because of their prejudice against Jews and vows that he will kill Antonio (because he is convinced that he helped his daughter escape) if he doesn’t pay the money, “Let him look to his bond” (line 43). The audience would feel very angry towards Shylock at this point because he is saying that he wants to kill Antonio because he thinks that he has something to do with his daughter disappearing. He also seems more concerned about his money than his daughter which shows that he is an evil person who thinks that money is everything, “I would the daughter be dead at my foot and the jewels in her ear” (line 83). After that the audience would feel sympathy for him because we are told that his daughter sold his engagement ring for a monkey. At the end of the scene he learns of Antonio’s ships and seems happy about it because now he thinks that Antonio might not be able to get the money, “I am very glad of it, I’ll plague him, I’ll torture him” (line 110). The audience would feel ambiguous towards Shylock because he is upset about some things in this scene but he is also saying some very provocative things, which would make the audience angry towards him.
In Act 3 Scene 3 he is very obstinate and wants to keep the bond. He hates Antonio so much that he wants to kill him, which this bond now allows him to do, legally. “I’ll have my bond, I will not hear thee speak” (line 12). Shylock is very merciless and vengeful. This scene shows the contrast between Shylock and Antonio with Shylock being very aggressive and Antonio not getting angry at all. The audience would feel very angry towards Shylock in this scene.
Shylock’s main scene in the play, as with most of the other characters in the play is Act 4 Scene 1 – the trial scene. Near the beginning of the scene, in his biggest speech, he says that he feels like killing Antonio, “But say it is my humour; is it answered?” (line 43) and he is justifying the bond. The audience would probably feel very angry towards Shylock because he said that he wants to kill Antonio because he just wants to and that he is being very vindictive. He praises Balthazar (Portia in disguise) because he feels that he is going to win the trial and that the law cannot stop him killing Antonio, “O noble judge, O excellent young man” (line 245). Shylock makes a fair point in lines 89-103. He is saying that the bible does not encourage slavery and says about hypocrisy in Christians. He is saying that he is not the only person who does bad things, “You have among you many purchased a slave.” The audience would feel ashamed and embarrassed by this point because they know that they are going against the bible. When Balthazar is finding the loopholes in the bond, Shylock quickly backs off the claim and tries to get out as quick as he can. The audience would think that he deserves his punishment at this moment. His punishments quickly pile up and a modern audience would probably think the punishments are too much but Shakespeare’s audience would think they are fine and they would have thought that it would have been giving Shylock a favour by telling him to change his religion. Towards the end of the scene, Shylock feels almost suicidal because he has lost everything, “Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that” (line 373). We feel sorry for him because he is a broken man and his life is worthless. At the end of the scene, Shylock says that he feels sick and must leave the courtroom, “I pray you give me leave to go from hence, I am not well” (lines 394-5). We would now think that he is the victim of the story because he has been severely punished. The audience would have sympathy for him because he is destroyed. Shakespeare does this deliberately for Shylock to leave the play when the audience would feel sorry for him.
Other people in the play hate Shylock for a number of reasons. Probably the main reason is that he is a Jew and everyone else in the play is Christian so they are prejudiced against him. They call him “Jew” in the play and they only use his real name a few times. Antonio is scathing against him because Shylock wants to kill him. Shylock is compared to lots of things in the play by other people like, “the devil incarnation” by Launcelot (Act 2 Scene 2, line 26). Also an “inexecrable dog” and a “wolf,” both by Gratiano. Even his daughter is against him “To be ashamed to be my father’s child” (Act 2 Scene 3, line 17).
Shylock is very different to his daughter Jessica in that she is more willing to listen to Christians. She is also different to everyone else in the play because she hates Shylock because he is not a nice person and not because he is a Jew. Antonio is also very different to Shylock because Antonio gives mercy to Shylock at the end and suffers quietly in the trial scene while Shylock rants and raves when he is angry.
In Elizabethan times the prejudice shown to Shylock in the play would be perfectly normal because Jews were banned in England since 1290 and were seen as evil people. Nowadays we are shocked at the prejudice because we are living after the holocaust when Hitler attempted to wipe out the whole Jewish race and now everyone has a degree of sympathy for Jews. The anti-Semitism shown in the play would be seen as comedy in the Elizabethan period because since Marlowe’s play The Jew of Malta where the Jew there called Barabas was shown as a wicked ogre. Another reason for Shakespeare’s play to be so successful was because Queen Elizabeth’s doctor was executed for high treason in 1954. He was a Jew.
Shylock has been seen as both the victim and the villain of the play. A victim because he loses all his money and has to change his religion at the end of the trial scene. Also he is the victim of lots of prejudice from the Christians like them spitting on him and calling him names. But in conclusion I think that ultimately Shylock is a villain. The way he treats those close to him, for example his daughter Jessica exposes his evil character. He lets his need for vengeance engulf all other aspects of his life and his complete lack of mercy towards Antonio, renders him as a villain in the eyes of the audience.