Shylock, one of the plays main characters, works as a usurer in Venice. He loans out money to people, and they pay him back with interest. Venetian Christians treat him with utter disdain. Throughout the play he is insulted many times. “Is he yet possessed”, Antonio calls him. This reference is that the Christian’s believed that Jews were possessed by the devil. He calls him an “apple rotten at the heart”, and yet he is willing to borrow Shylock’s money.
Shylock cares more about money than anything else. When his daughter Jessica runs away, he seems as upset about the loss of his ducats as much as the loss of his daughter. “My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter! ... My ducats and my daughter!”. The play indicates to the audience that Shylock is a strict father. When he hears that there is to be a masque in the evening, he shuts the doors and locks Jessica in. He seems impatient and orders her around. She hates him, and calls him “devil”. When he hears of her elopement, however, he becomes furious. “I would my daughter were dead at my foot”. This anger seems heated by the fact that his daughter took away the ring his dead wife gave to him. When this is revealed to him, he cares more about the sentimental value of the ring than the money. “Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal: it was my turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor: I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.” This makes the audience feel for Shylock, as it is clear he used to be very sentimental and love his family, but at the death of his wife and the treatment he gets, has become cold and cares only for money now. The ring is the last remembrance he has of his wife and the Christian’s have taken it from him along with his daughter.
Shylock can be seen as a good or bad employer. He trusts his servant, Lancelot, and treats him fairly. However, Lancelot leaves without telling Shylock. Lancelot would rather run away to Bassanio, who is much poorer, than work for Shylock, who he thinks “is the very devil incarnate”. The fact that Lancelot will leave Shylock for the reason that he is a Jew makes a modern audience feel sympathy. However, an Elizabethan audience would have jeered when Lancelot deserted Shylock.
The law is a fundamental part of Venetian society. Shylock uses the law to exact his revenge on Antonio. Shylock hates Antonio for a number of reasons. He hates him for he is a Christian and his poor treatment of Jews. “I hate him for he is a Christian”. He hates him for historical reasons. There has always been strife between the two religions, “I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him”. Shylock also hates him because of how he lowers the interest rates on lending. “He lends out money gratis, and brings down the rate of usance here with us in Venice”. His reasons for wanting to kill Antonio come across as very arbitrary and obscure. He compares his reason to kill Antonio with – “Some men there are love not a gaping pig / Some that are mad if they behold a cat.” He follows this with “So can I give no reason, nor will I not / More than lodged hate and a certain loathing / I bear Antonio.” This inability to give a concrete answer as to why he wants to kill Antonio can be explained by how at the end of the play, the characters have essentially swapped positions. Antonio starts the play unable to make his money grow because he takes no interest. Furthermore he has no children and so therefore emerges as impotent. Shylock, on the other hand, starts the play on the opposite extreme, able to make his money breed through interest and his family through Jessica. It is Antonio who convinces Shylock not to take interest on the bond, and Shylock accuses Antonio of allowing Jessica to escape. Thus, for Shylock, Antonio represents the man who made him impotent as well. Furthermore, at the end of the play Antonio makes Shylock convert to Christianity, removing that distinction between the two characters. In essence, the destroyed Shylock at the end of the play is very similar to the melancholy Antonio at the beginning.
Everyone is against Shylock before the court scene. The Duke expects him to be merciful, and even the other Jews think he is being unjust. The audience would feel sympathy for Shylock at this point, as he is only upholding the law. “I would expect a rat to be destroyed”. Shylock is seen as the villain throughout the whole play, with no one paying him any respect or fairness. When he tries to be fair he is frowned up, everyone is on Antonio’s side.
Mercy and justice are major themes in the Merchant of Venice. Mercy is seen as an ideal, especially in Portia’s famous courtroom speech. “The quality of mercy is not strained, / It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven / Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest : / It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.”
Shylock, however, is determined for revenge on Antonio. Even when six times the money he lent is offered he refuses, his hatred is paramount. “My deed upon my head! / I crave the law, / The penalty and forfeit of my bond.” In Elizabethan times, Portia would have been seen as representing the Christian idea of mercy. Shylocks view of justice is completely the opposite, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. Shylock also believes Christian’s are hypocritical about their mercy, that in reality, they want revenge as much as he. “If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge”. When Shylock has the chance, he chooses not to give justice. However, the Duke and Antonio show mercy by letting Shylock keep his life. When Shylock tries to take justice, he is defeated and his goods taken away, showing how mercy is greater than justice. However, the Duke, officially in charge, is clearly on Antonio’s side. He calls Shylock a “inhuman wretch, / Incapable of pity, void and empty / From any dram of mercy”. It is clear that Shylock would not be given any justice anyway. The audience would fell sympathetic of Shylock at this time as he is not shown any mercy, only Christian justice.
Shylock leaves the play after he is punished in Act 4. In Act 5 where all the conflicts are resolved happily, and the comedy ends, there is no mention of Shylock. If Shakespeare had wanted the audience to feel sympathetic of Shylock, surely he would have been included in the final act of the play. However, a modern audience would feel more sympathy when Shylock leaves abruptly. He leaves when he has just been broken, everything taken from him. “I pray you give me leave to go from hence; / I am not well. Send the deed after me / And I will sign it.” He leaves a defeated man, no chance to redeem himself.
However, while modern audiences would feel sympathy for Shylock, Elizabethan audiences would feel the opposite. In England at the time, Jews had been banished for three hundred years. Shakespeare’s audiences would not have known any Jews; their knowledge would be solely based on prejudice. They would have enjoyed the verbal abuse Shylock receives, and would not have questioned the treatment he receives as modern audiences do today.
The sympathy modern audiences feel is a lot down to an incident that happened in 1945 – the holocaust. Since the holocaust people will feel sympathy for Jews, they have suffered resent and hate forever. In modern times Shylock is conceived as an interesting character, empathetic, even – yet still a villain. Yet in Elizabethan times people would feel he deserved what he got, and is let off lightly as he would be a murderer. They would also have believed that enforcing Christianity on him would be an enforced benefit. In Elizabethan times Shylock would be likened to Barabas in the Jew of Malta, written in 1589. His villainy would be exaggerated, and he would be depicted as evil, deceptive, and avaricious.
Elizabethan audiences would feel that the ending suits comedy formula. All the problems are resolved, so the fun can begin, Act 5. However, a modern audience would feel frustration at the dismissal of Shylock, it seems heartless.
To all audiences, Shylock represents an interesting, in-depth character. He is the character in the play that manages most to excite the interest and sympathy of the audience. However, the audience does not at all times feel sympathy for him. While the treatment he receives makes the audience feel sorry for him, at some times he reacts in a way that would make some people feel resent against him. He criticizes Christian’s while he has the same faults. They insult him, yet he feeds on this. While sympathy is felt, it is clear to all audiences that Shylock is the antagonist in this play.
