Shylock- Villain or Victim?

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A.D        The Merchant Of Venice        

Introduction         

One of the most interesting and dramatic characters in ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is the rich, despised money-lending Jew Shylock.

        It is impossible to judge Shylock’s character by our own modern Standards, simple because Shakespeare wrote this play for play goers in Elizabethan times. This was very different to modern times for two reasons.

Firstly, people watching the play would not find it strange to feel sorry for a character, then a few moments later, to be screaming for their blood!

Secondly, nearly everyone in Shakespeare’s time was racist, and it was common for people to dislike Jews and think of them of villainous.

        I think that Shylock is both a villain and a Victim. Shakespeare purposefully meant Shylock to be as villainous and victimised as possible, to make the play as dramatic as he could and the most emotion from the crowd.

        In the ‘Merchant of Venice’, Shylock’s character holds the key to a great tragedy. According to Aristotle’s theory of tragedy, there must be ‘the fall of the great man’. Shylock is greatly respected within his tribe, is very rich and looses all that he has at the end of the play.

   

Essay

        The audience’s knowledge of Jews would have been mostly from Marlowe’s play; Jew of Malta.  Also, they would have known about the trial and execution of Ruy Lopez, a Portuguese Jew.  Lopez was convicted of trying to poison the queen.  The audience would have been racially motivated by to hate Jews. Shylock would have been seen as a villain, because he was a Jew. Shylock was also a money-lender who prospered from his trade, which made the audience hate him even more.

Christianity was the main religion in England at the time, and all of Shakespeare’s audience would have been Christians. Christians were prohibited by their religion to lend money at interest. As a result, they despised a Jew making his fortune though usury. Shakespeare has made Shylock as villainous as possible. His reasons for this is clever and well thought out. Shakespeare once said that his ambition was to “Stop the groundies cracking their nuts.” This means that he wanted his plays to be so interesting that they would capture the ‘grounds’ (standing audience) attention and stir their emotions, so that they stop cracking their nuts, which happened at the most plays when grounds lost interest.

        Jews were looked down upon and treated pitifully, and in ‘The Merchant of Venice’, anti-Semitism is commonly spoke, even in front of Jews.

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“Suff ‘rance is the badge of our tribe.” This is spoken by Shylock to Antonio.

“You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,

And spit upon my Jewish gabardine.”  

This is also by Shylock to Antonio.

        Solanio, Antonio and Lancelot also speak offensively about Shylock.

        The audience feels sympathy for the victimized Shylock, and Shakespeare makes Shylock as victimized as possible in order for the audience to feel sorry for him. Shakespeare is remarkably non-prejudiced, and shows viewers a forceful statement of Jewish mistreatment through Shylock’s pleading speeches.

“If you prick us do we not bleed?

The villainy ...

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