Shakespeare Essay - Shylock: Villain or Victim? In the Merchant of Venice.

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James Gant Shylock: Villain or Victim? Shakespeare essay February 2003

Shakespeare Essay - Shylock: Villain or Victim?

         

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon around 23rd April 1564 and died in Stratford fifty two years later.  He married once to a woman named Anne Hatheway with whom he had three children; the eldest, Susanna and twins, Hamnet and Judith.  The Globe theatre was where all of Shakespeares productions were staged, it was built in 1599.

“The Merchant of Venice” was one of many successful Shakespeare plays, it was written between 1594 – 1598. The title page of “The Merchant of Venice” describes, very vaguely, the story line,

The most excellent Historie of the Merchant of

Venice. With the extreame crueltie of Shylocke the

Iewe towards the sayd Merchant, in cutting a Iust

pound of his flesh: and the obtayning of Portia by the

choyce of three chests. As it hath been divers times

acted by the Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants.

Written by William Shakespeare.”

This describes the basic story line to all the audience members. As basically all of the audience would be Christian, it would please them to hear that the Jew in the play is portrayed as being evil. If Shylock were indeed the hero of the play, this would have caused a lot of disruption with the Christian audience.

The play is set in Venice because Venice is known as a wealthy and splendid city it is obviously know to be a mans world, with money lenders (eg Shylock) and Merchants (eg Antonio). I believe that Belmont was chosen for the place where Portia lives because of the definite contrast between it and Venice. Belmont is a very effeminate place where there is no money-lending etc.

Throughout the play there are various relationships between friends (such as Antonio and Bassanio), there are numerous love affairs (Jessica and Lorenzo and Portia and Bassanio) and finally one other relationship is that between Shylock and Jessica which is a father/daughter relationship.

Religion takes a huge role in this particular play, as the whole play is the discrimination of and against a Jew. Control and power are also very key topics in the play, this is shown in Act four Scene one. This particular scene also shows Portia on her way to becoming the heroine of the play.

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        The central debate of this essay is, Shylock: Villain or Victim?                        

 

The first Scene that Shylock is in is Act 1 Scene 3, which opens with him saying

“Ho, no, no, no” – this immediately shows repetition which is a sign of villainy, then he moves on to talking about money,

“three thousand ducats, well” this indicates to the audience what is important in Shylocks life, money.

When Shylock says “sacred ...

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