In some interpretations of ‘The Merchant of Venice’, the technique that the directors use is to cut a lot of Shylock’s original lines to make him seem less harsh and more undeserving of all the hatred that the people around him give him constantly. In most cases, the intensity of the performances, of the actors playing Shylock, go towards getting his character across to the audience.
In the play, religion seems to be inextricably connected with business
Shakespeare puts Shylock in a bad situation as soon as his character is introduced. As the play progresses, so does Shylock’s run of bad situations, which are sometimes self-inflicted.
Well, firstly, he is a Jew living and working in Venice. Venice was a hostile, highly materialistic, predominantly Christian society, in Shakespeare’s time; people were unlikely to have met a Jew that had not already converted to Christianity.
Secondly, he is a moneylender, who earned profit through usury. Usury was despised of by all other moneylenders (who all seem to be Christian). Money lending was a contentious issue and it was considered not fair or moral to loan money, expecting the initial amount to be repaid with a large interest on top of it.
Thirdly, he is nearly always contradicting himself. He is always talking of how the Christians all call him names and all around just spurn and dislike him, which is a way of asking for some sympathy or mercy (because of the way he keeps going on and on about it) from the audience, but in the end “How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendering none?” One instance for him going on about how the Christians all hated him is his speech, in Act III Scene I, which contains words of his bitterness and desire for revenge.
“To bait Fish withal: if it will feed
nothing else, it will feed my Revenge. He hath
disgrace’d me, and hinder’d me half a Million,
laugh’d at my Losses, mock’d my Gains,
scorned my Nation, thwarted my Bargains, cooled
my friends, heated mine Enemies. And what’s his
Reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew Eyes? Hath
not a Jew Hands, Organs, Dimensions, Senses,
Affections, Passions? Fed with the same Food,
hurt with the same Weapons, subject to the same
Diseases, healed by the same Means, warmed and
cooled by the same Winter and Summer as a
Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you
poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us,
shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the
rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew
wrong a Christian, what is his Humility?
Revenge! If a Christian wrong a Jew, what
should his Sufferance be by a Christian Example?
Why Revenge! The Villainy you teach me I will
execute; and it shall go hard, but I will
better the Instruction.”
He did, of course, make a very valid observation in that speech. He was trying to point out that humans are all the same, no matter what they believe in, we are all born, living and are eventually going to die in very much the same ways, so why can’t he have his revenge?
The desire of revenge is almost inseparable from the sense of wrong and we can hardly help sympathising with the Shylock, hidden beneath his "Jewish gabardine," his madness by repeated, undeserved name calling and labouring to get rid of the obstructions, from opportunities and freedom, heaped upon him and all his tribe by one desperate act of ‘lawful’ revenge. The ferociousness of the means by which he is to carry out his purpose, turn us against him. Even so, when disappointed of the revenge on which he built his hopes and the way he is punished for his actions, we pity him.
