Merchant of Venice - Say how the trial scene in
Merchant of Venice Say how the trial scene in "The Merchant of Venice" was made dramatically effective. Written between 1596 and 1598 "The Merchant of Venice" is not one of the most performed plays written by William Shakespeare and most productions often use modern times and dress. A modern day audience would be less sympathetic than the audience of that period towards the Jew, Shylock. The play is one of the sixteen comedy plays. The issues being raised in the play would have been understood by the audience who were not very well educated "The Merchant of Venice" has two main characters, Shylock, a Jew and Antonio, who is an extremely wealthy merchant, an investor who gets wealth using venture capitalism. In Venice, your word was like having an agreement in writing. The breaking of this bond would result in a serious penalty, as it would in today's society but in a different nature. Shylock is a moneylender who lends sums of money to others at a fixed rate but charges vast amounts of interest. However, Antonio also lends amounts of money, but without the interest. This is "Gratis". This is one of the main reasons why Shylock hates Antonio because Antonio is meant to be making Shylock's profits to drop. They both are 'bigots' because they also hate each other for their religion. Venice is the setting of the play; The city was the trading centre of the world but
Is Shylock A Victim Or a Villain
Is Shylock a victim or a villain? When Shakespeare wrote his play in the 16th century all Jewish people had been expelled from England 300 years before , and hence found new homes in various places across Europe namely Venice ,(a place which was ruled by Christians who hated the Jewish people for supposedly killing "Jesus Christ") where his play is set . Shakespeare had known that the Elizabethan audience were still very racist towards Jewish people and consequently he deliberately portrayed Shylock as a villainous and evil man .Yet in today's modern era people are far less racist towards Jews and as a result can perceive Shylock differently , as a victim of the times and circumstances he lived in. Firstly I would like to discuss the text which portrays Shylock as a villain , we first see Shylock in "Act 1 Scene 3" this is when Basanio who is already in debt is told by Antonio to seek money in his name. In the scene we learn of Shylock's hate for Antonio not just for the racial prejudice Antonio treats Shylock with but also for the fact that such Christians as Antonio take way Shylock's precious business and money "He lends out money gratis , and brings down the rate of usa nce here with us in Venice" Shylock as a Jew beholds an ancient grudge with the Christians and sees Antonio as the perfect way to repay the Christians for the prejudice that he and his people have
Is Shylock A Villain Or A Victim?
Is Shylock A Villain Or A Victim? The Merchant of Venice was written by William Shakespeare, towards the end of the 1500's. When it was written it was supposed to be a comedy but now it is often considered as one of his problem plays. It is set in the Italian trading city of Venice. The main story line is that Bassanio, good friend of Antonio and a Christian, needs some money to be able to woo a woman that he wishes to marry. However he had a very poor credit rating in Venice so he had to ask Antonio the merchant of Venice and a Christian, for help. Antonio goes to Shylock, a money lender and a Jew, to organise this. However Shylock decides that instead of wanting interest on the money, if Antonio cannot pay it back in time then Shylock would be able to take a pound of flesh from wherever he wanted on Antonio's body. There were many reasons for this such as Shylock wanted his revenge against Antonio for ruining some of his business deals, he wanted to fight back against the Christians for the way they treat the Jews and he was generally a very eccentric man. Antonio agreed to this thinking as he did that there was no way that he wouldn't be able to pay back Shylock, Bassanio didn't like this because he knew it would be his fault if Antonio couldn't pay him back. As in all of Shakespeare's problem plays there is always a small bit of comedy and a small bit of tragedy, not
Is the Merchant of venice a racist play?
IS "THE MERCHANT OF VENICE" A RACIST PLAY? It could be argued that "The Merchant of Venice" is a racist play. This is because Shylock, a Jewish money lender, is often presented as a stereotypical Jew. Nevertheless, Shylock has a human side. Shakespeare's Jew is a much more 'sympathetic' character than the Jew Barabas from Christopher Marlowe's play "The Jew of Malta" In this play Barabas boasts openly about his evil actions:- "I walk abroad o'nights And kill sick people groaning under the walls; Sometimes I go about and poison wells" We can also pick up on small forms of racism towards Shylock that would not have been noticed or have had any attention paid to them at the time the play was written. We are aware of racism towards, among others, Jews because of our recent history, i.e. the extreme racism of the Nazi's "final solution" towards the Jewish race. Shakespeare wanted the characters in his plays to seem obvious and recognisable to his audience from the start. So, from his point of view the money lender had to be Jewish and the borrowers had to be Christian. We must not forget that Christians were forbidden from usury (lending money on interest) and Jews filled this economic vacuum. Jews played a necessary role in society and there were also laws forbidding Jews from taking many other professions. Many Christians resented the fact that Jews were allowed to make
Shylock: Hero or villain?
Shylock: Hero or villain? The Jews ancestral home-land, where they had lived for hundreds of years was Palestine. However, they were exiled from this land in about the year 400 AD. They scattered out and formed a Diaspora, a community of exiled people. Once the Roman Empire had deteriorated, a lot of them began to make their way back to Palestine, which was then invaded by the Turks, and ruled by them for 800 years until the British came. The Jews came over to Britain with William the Conqueror in 1066, and in 1217 they had to wear yellow badges to distinguish them. They were heavily discriminated against and were blamed in murder cases often involving Christian children, leading to many Jews being executed. In 1269 their rights were restricted; they couldn't own land and they were made unable to inherit anything. In 1290 the Jews were expelled from Britain and were disallowed for 350 years. Many plays were written about evil Jews. The Merchant of Venice was written by William Shakespeare although he had never met a Jew in his life, he doesn't seem to portray Jews in his play as evil as a lot of them in plays in his time. I don't think Shylock can really be defined as either a hero or a villain, because this seems, to me, to immortalise him. A hero is someone who constantly strives, sometimes against everything else, for good, and a villain is someone who intentionally
Shylock in the merchant of venice.
Shylock in the merchant of venice by Will_Lewis I think that the role of Shylock remains a popular one with modern actors because Shylock´s character can be open to interpretation. He can be played as a greedy, merciless old miser or a persecuted, bitter old loner. The actor playing Shylock can add his own style and personality to the role. He could dress Shylock in different ways to change his image or he could change the way Shylock speaks to change the audience´s view of him. For example, when Shylock demands his bond from Antonio, "I´ll have my bond; speak not against my bond! I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond." Shylock could be played as a sadistic merciless killer or as a poor victim of persecution with a right to wreak his vengeance. Some actors choose to cut various scenes to change the audience´s understanding of Shylock. For example, in the 1993 production of the play, David Thacker chose to cut Shylock´s aside in Act 1 Scene 3. This made Shylock seem more of a victim that a villain. Lots of Jewish actors choose to do the role of Shylock, as he was a Jew. Jews at the point in time when the play was set were persecuted severely so modern Jews may want to find out what it was like to be a Jew persecuted as this time in history. I also think that Shylock is a very complicated character that can be played in many ways. So an actor looking for a
Shylock: Victim or Villain?
Shylock: Victim or Villain? The question frequently asked after reading The Merchant of Venice is: is Shylock a victim or a villain? The best way to investigate this question is to explore the text of the play to find out what Shakespeare wanted us to believe. Life for the Jews in the Elizabethan period was often very hard. In England Jews were viewed with distaste, suspected of a number of heinous crimes such as child murder. They were also distrusted by Christians for the rejection of Christ as the Messiah and because they did not lend money gratis. Many Christians were financially beholden to the Jews. Roderigo Lopez was a Jew of Portuguese decent, who fled to England in 1559 where he worked as a physician. His practice grew, and in time he was appointed physician to the Queen of England. But the Earl of Essex found what he believed to be evidence that Lopez had accepted a bribe from the King of Spain to poison Queen Elizabeth. It is true that Lopez had underhand dealings with Spanish spies, but it is to this day unproven if Lopez ever intended any harm towards the Queen. However, he was found guilty and in 1996 he was hung, drawn and quartered for a crime he probably was never going to commit. The Merchant of Venice was written two years later in 1596, and the treatment of Shylock is similar to that of Lopez. Shylock is shunned by the Christians and treated as an
Shylock: Victim or Villain?
Shylock: Victim or Villain? In Elizabethan England, it seems the Jewish race had been almost completely shunned and abolished. They were expected to be hated; considered a form of human far lower than that of a Christian. This wasn't questioned, and wouldn't be considered overly important anyway as the vast majority of the population would never have come across a living Jew. They knew about them only from the Bible, from old stories and hanDed down accounts, which would establish Jews as villains. For the most part of 'The Merchant of Venice', Shylock can be perceived in the same way but, there are many points in the play when it's debatable that Shakespeare intended him to be. Shylock isn't the Elizabethan stereotype of a Jew, although he's spiteful, materialistic and deceitful he's also intelligent and fair, and his deficiencies are often shared or have been motivated by the Christian characters mistreatment of him and his faith. The audiences of Shakespeare's time would expect Shylock to be a malicious character as soon as they're warned that he's Jewish, and the Christians on stage reciprocate this feeling by referring to him simply as 'the Jew' or 'the villain Jew'. They don't like to differentiate between the Jewish race by naming them - as though they share a single persona. The main reason that the Christians are thought to be so anti-Semitic in the first place is
Shylock: Victim or Villain?
English Coursework Shylock: Victim or Villain? "The Merchant of Venice was probably written in either 1596 or 1597, after such early plays such as Romeo & Juliet and Richard III but before the great tragedies of Shakespeare's later life. The Merchant of Venice is an intriguing drama of love greed, and in some aspects racism but most importantly revenge. The cross dressing heroine and the Italian location makes it similar to earlier comedies but the characters of Shylock and Portia Shakespeare's first great heroine, elevate it to the first rank of his plays. (Internet: www.shakespeare.com) Shylock is a Jewish moneylender in Venice; the Christians have abused him in his city, especially Antonio and his friends. I think that this is partly because Shylock is the only Jew in most of the city. "His quest for revenge consumes his cunning one-track mind." (Internet) This makes the audience think whether he is a victim? Or whether he is a villain? In my essay I will be looking for this and supporting my ideas with evidence from quotes from the text. Shylock is a very different character from the others because of his religion, beliefs, and the way he dresses and other characters like Antonio think that he is a target for them to pick on and be nasty and mean to him because of his creed, Shylock tells us some of the names Antonio has called him and also the way he has
Shylock - Victim or Villain?
Shylock - Victim or Villain? Who is Shylock? If you've heard of one of The Famous Shakespeare's plays "The Merchant of Venice" then surely you've heard of the character "Shylock the Jew", who is mostly well known for his meanness and his typical Jewish character. He is seen as both the victim and the villain in different parts of the play, but the question is, which of both is he really? I see Shylock as both victim and villain, and below I will explain how I have come to that conclusion. His villainy is driven mostly by revenge and jealousy towards Antonio (his opponent). We first encounter this in Act 1 Scene 3, where we are first introduced to Shylock and we learn of his usury when Bassanio asks to borrow money from him in Antonio's name. ' I hate him for he is a Christian; but more, for that in low simplicity he lends out money gratis, and brings down the rate of usance here with us in Venice.' In this line he complains that Antonio lending out money gratis is affecting his business but we also discover his hatred towards Christians in general. This hatred especially increases when his daughter Jessica runs off with Lorenzo (a Christian) and his ducats. 'My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter! Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats!' confused, he doesn't know whether to sob for his daughter or for his stolen ducats. I really have no sympathy for Shylock by the