'There are two Shylocks in The Merchant of Venice- the beast and the human being. Discuss with reference to the play.'

The first 200 words of this essay...

'There are two Shylocks in The Merchant of Venice- the beast and the human being. Discuss with reference to the play.'

In William Shakespeare's 'The Merchant of Venice' the

character Shylock, a Jewish moneylender is shown to

the audience in more than one. In one way we see a

good aspect of him as a caring and loving father, in

another way we see a dreadful part of him as a beast

that loves his money more than his daughter and

follows a brutal and cruel desire to end a man's life in

this case Antonio the merchant.

We see that Shylock suffers from awful and physical verbal abuse from all the Christians in Venice but especially from Antonio, Shylock states that,

"You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,

And spit upon my Jewish gabardine"

This tells us Antonio called Shylock a misbeliever, cut-throat dog and has spat on him. This metaphor is comparing Shylock to an animal. So he doesn't have any rights at all.

Shylock is mocked at every opportunity by Salerio and Solanio. They deliberately repeat