Read The Above extracts. In what way does this dialogue develop your understanding of Shylock and his role in the play?

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Read The Above extracts. In what way does this dialogue develop your understanding of Shylock and his role in the play?

In the above passage, you can see many traits that lead you to develop a more complex interpretation of Shylock and develop your understanding of him and his role in the play. In particular, you can see that Shylock is an alien character, who is also alienated from the other characters in the play, resentful and can be seen in two different ways.

        A good example of Shylock’s alien character would just be in his general pattern of speech and language he uses. Many times during the extract he uses the word ‘monies’, which is a Jewish stereotype, and no other character uses it. Shakespeare uses this in order to establish Shylock as an alien character who is very much alone in the play and very different to the rest of the characters. Shylock also speaks in a different way to the other characters. When he is discussing the borrowing of his money with Antonio, he often thinks aloud, unlike any other character.

Three thousand ducats, ‘tis a good round sum.

Three months from twelve, then let me see, the rate –

In this section, you can see Shylock is thinking aloud when talking to Antonio. This may partly be an attempt to patronise Antonio but it still makes him stand out as an alien character.

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        Shylock’s character can also be seen as resentful, particularly of the Christian community in Venice. When bargaining with Antonio you can see he is particularly patronising towards Antonio on several occasions. Shakespeare does this in order to establish a relationship of resentment towards the two characters where Antonio, the Christian hates the evil Jew, a view that would be shared by a large proportion of the audience at the time, and where Shylock is the Jew, angry at being isolated and discriminated against during his time in Venice. Shylock notably refers to Antonio as ‘signor’ in order to belittle him, ...

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