The merchant of Venice - Is Shylock a villain or a victim?

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GCSE Shakespeare Coursework Essay

Is Shylock a villain or a victim?

One of the factors that make Shakespeare plays famous is its capability to appeal to wide range of audience. For example in The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare brings up the question of religion, racism and morality for the intellectuals amongst the Elizabethans but for most off the groundlings and ill-educated it was a simply a battle between Christians and Jews in which the Jew (e.g. Shylock) should end up facing the heat of defeat in the climax.

 England was a Christian country, where Christianity was followed and taught from early ages. At this time Jews were perceived as “villains of society” in fact in the Venetian community towards the centre of Venice, you would find the homes of Christians and towards the outskirts and suburbs you would find the homes of Jews which showed that were hated, unwanted and excluded members of society. They were far inferior and a marginalized community to that of the Christians because of their religion. It was also at the time when the buzz was going around about Jews being the killers of Christ for which they were hated and secluded more.

  Venice was a very desirable and rich place to live in being the important trade route from the east to the west. Jews were often banned from owning land or to participate in any trade. So effectively the Jews ended up with a lot of spare cash to spend on investment. Christians were banned to profit on lended money there fore they borrowed money from the Jews and were hated by Christians for making profit on money lending.

The first scene of the play is important because it introduces Antonio the Christian who looks depressed about an unexplained cause in the play. We see him being comforted by his friends. This tells us about popularity of Antonio amongst his friends. This is very important because already Shakespeare is suggesting that Christians had a bigger social circle than to that of the Jews or that Jews had different social circles but less popular that that of the Christians. The Elizabethans would like this because majority of them were Christians. It was a pleasure for them to see Jews less popular than Christians. It is also important because it shows a loyal bond of friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, as we seen him prepared to take a huge risk that of borrowing money from Shylock to rescue Antonio. The relationship stays strong and firm throughout the play.

Act I scene 3 marks the introduction of Shylock that of a typical harsh Jew for the audience. It starts off with Bassanio and Shylock discussing about the sum of money to borrow. We see Shylock carefully evaluating out all the risks of lending money to Antonio. Bassanio in a very polite manner asks Shylock to joining them for dinner to which shylock replies

Shylock – I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you…but will not eat with you, drink with you nor pray with you

This tells us the level of hatred he has in which he is prepared to offer his profit-making services e.g. lending money, financial deals to Christians but is not prepared to keep any social contact with the Christians which emphasises the different social circles of Christians and Jews there were in a community of Venice.

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Shylock – I hate him for he is a Christian ……..He hates our sacred nation…………..Cursed be my tribe if I forgive him ………… you call’d me a dog and for these courtesies I’ll lend u thus much moneys

This establishes antagonism between the Christians and the Jews in Venice showing their conflict is both personal and racial. We know that Antonio has been victimising Shylock by shouting abuses and insults at him in the past. We see both for them as proud champions for their race and culture in a thin contest for advantage. There is a ...

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