The Merchant of Venice - Shylock, Victim or Villain?

In the middle of the play we see Shylock as a victim. This is because his only daughter runs away with Lorenzo and his money. He tells us how important Jessica is to him, but just as we start to think he is the victim in all of this, and we start to feel sorry for him, he changes and we change our opinion of him. We start to doubt whether he is upset because his daughter, Jessica, has gone and betrayed him or he isn’t as rich as he was. So do we still see him as the victim? Is he upset because of the loss of Jessica or the loss of his wealth?

Antonio’s ships get lost at sea and they think it might have sunk, so therefore Antonio doesn’t have any money to pay Shylock back within the three months so Antonio will have to follow the bond and half 1lb of his flesh given to Shylock.

When Shylock takes Antonio to court to make sure everyone sees Antonio die, it all goes horribly wrong for Shylock, (which the audience would have loved). As you know Shylock was determined to get the 1lb of flesh from Antonio, Antonio even offered to pay the money back but Shylock refused, he was getting that 1lb of flesh if it was the last thing he did. Portia came in to the court, disguised as Doctor Balthazar. And when she did she made Shylock say in front of the whole court that he didn’t want the money off Antonio, just the 1lb of flesh. She also asked for a surgeon, so he wont bleed to death, but Shylock will not allow it as there was no mention of any surgeon in the bond.

At this point in the play everyone absolutely hated Shylock. They would boo and his and just basically hated this man. As you can see Shylock is now the villain.

After all this Portia then says that he may have 1lb of flesh but if he touches so much as a hair on his chest or a drop of blood then he will get charged for attempted murder. So Shylock wanted his money back but no, he said in the courts that he didn’t want the money, just the 1lb of flesh so he wasn’t allowed so much as a penny of it back. Instead he was charged with attempted murder and Antonio got to keep his money.

Shylock was devastated and we almost felt sorry for him and yet again he was the victim. So is Shylock a victim or a villain? I see him more as a victim.