Wo gets justice in the Merchant of Venice?

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Matthew Farren

WHO GETS JUSTICE IN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S THE MERCHANT OF VENICE?

What is justice? Justice is being treated fairly and receiving punishment or reward for your actions. Society expects justice to be enforced through courts and legal proceedings; however, some people believe that justice finds its own way to be done.

‘The Merchant of Venice’ was written by William Shakespeare probably around 1596; as a result the audience then was very different from today. During that period the play was written and based the treatment of Jews was very different from today, the reason being society often refuses to except immigrants as actual people that believe still exists today, the treatment of Jews was very poor, Jewish people were not allowed to hold employment except for the job of money lender, this made the Jewish people even more despised by the Christians of the time.

The basic idea of the Jew and the merchant dates back centuries before Shakespeare’s time. The main story is a composed of aspects and ideas from many other stories, the idea of choosing caskets comes from ancient medieval folk tales, shylock is based on the Jew in Marlow’s play ‘The Jew of Malta’, Portia’s decision making scene (Act One Scene II), appears in Shakespeare’s earlier pay, ‘two Gentlemen of Verona’ these links to other stories made the play very popular and familiar to Elizabethan audience.

By putting this story in its social context, it is clear that modern society will have a different perspective on the story than their Elizabethan counterpart. Shakespeare’s target audience would find the irony around Shylock an area of comedy, however a more modern audience would be more inclined to feel sympathetic towards him. The Elizabethan audience would have relished in the story with the villain everyone loves to hate, lots of romance, a good old fashioned Christian hero and a happy ending, sounds just like an episode of Eastenders!

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The play examines justice in several ways by using two types of justice, firstly legal justice this is the type of justice played out in a courtroom, and secondly moral justice this is the type we expected to do itself, people comeuppance. Several characters are used as vessels for these types of justice, such as Antonio, Shylock and Portia. Having several storylines all on the theme of justice brings an air of uncertainty around who actually gets justice.

The story begins with Antonia and Bassanio discussing Bassanio’s need for money to woe Portia. Antonio suggests Bassanio borrowing money from ...

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