One of the reasons Act 4 Scene 1 is so dramatically effective is due to the tension created between Shylock and Antonio. At the very beginning of the scene, a slight sense of injustice is induced due to the fact that Antonio is seated and Shylock is standing before the Duke. In a Venetian court of justice, the accused is standing with the accuser seated, not the reverse. This gives the impression that Shylock is the one on trial when in fact it is Antonio, who is resigned to his seemingly inevitable fate “To suffer with a quietness of spirit”
Strong emotive language is used to show this point “Poor merchants flesh” to remind the jury that Antonio has suffered enough.
As well as the stress caused from the trial, Antonio’s greatest source of wealth, his ships, sank earlier on in the plot, causing him a great deal of anxiety and losing him a large amount of money. These reasons make the audiences sympathies lie with Antonio, even though Shylock is the defendant. Throughout the play, Shylock is perceived as inhuman and malevolent. However, in Act 3 Scene 1, the powerful and emotive speech “ Hath a Jew not eyes… if you prick us do we not bleed” This stresses the common core of humanity that lies beneath the exterior of Shylock’s complex character. Over Shylock is a bit hypocritical; twenty-three lines after this plea, he is ranting and raving over the theft of his money by his only daughter, Jessica. With very strong language, Shylock wishes that Jessica “Were dead at my foot”.
This wish for his daughter’s death revokes much of the sympathy created by the former plea for the recognition of his humanity. Shakespeare shows a picture of a malignant, murderous Jew who is willing to kill his only daughter for the sake of a few ducats. This greed for money is recognised by his repetition of his demands for his bond to be followed and the constant reminder of how much he has lent Antonio – three thousand ducats.
This gives the reader a powerful impression of who and what the character of Shylock is as a person. With these thoughts in the audience’s heads, it is easy to see why Shylock is doomed from the start of the trial even before it has begun. “The Merchant of Venice” is a comedy play so we know that the play is set to include a harmonious ending, common sense allows us to guess that Shylock will lose the trail.
Dramatic tension is induced when Portia, disguised as a young man, cross-examines Shylock in court. Luring him into a false sense of security, she allows him to believe she is on his side. Shylock is absolutely determined to have his bond and to have his pound of “carrion” flesh.
Before Portia presents her argument, Bassanio asks Shylock
“Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?”
And Shylock replies “To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there”
Shylock is getting ready in preparation to murder Antonio! His serious tone brings strange images, yet the crowd in the court are expecting to see blood, and this horrific suggestion by Shylock is possibly met with approval by the crowd. Images of blood and horror are continued when Gratiano portrays images of wolves “Governed a wolf…bloody, starved and ravenous”. This causes dramatic thoughts and images to be brought up in the minds of the audience, images of a bloodthirsty monster that will stop at nothing short of murder.
When Portia enters the courtroom, she asks “Which is the Jew and which is the merchant?”
Perhaps she is trying to create a sense of justice by not wanting to show any favourites, but on an Elizabethan stage set, she would immediately recognise the Jew from his distinctive dress.
Portia’s opening speech begins with “The quality of mercy is not strained”
She is trying to explain that mercy cannot be forced, you can’t compel someone to show mercy if they are not merciful. This statement is obviously aimed at Shylock as he has just proclaimed “On what compulsion must I?”
He is stating that he is going to show absolutely no mercy whatsoever.
This is an extremely powerful speech, full of references to Christianity and God. Portia, in effect, personifies mercy as being like the qualities of a king. In Elizabethan times, it was believed that God chose all kings.
Portia creates the impression she is agreeing with Shylock and his merciless bond “You must prepare your bosom for his knife”
Shylock is ecstatic that Portia is on his side he obviously admires her judgement “o excellent young man!”
The audience’s appetite for blood is whetted and it seems almost certain they are going to see it until Portia makes an important discovery. By now, the audience will be on the edge of their seats in anticipation of what is going to happen.
In the bond, not one drop of Christian blood may be spilt. Of course this would be an impossible task to perform and it is here that the dramatic turning point of the play occurs. Constant references to the weight of the flesh provokes images of scales and measuring units and this picture of scales ties in with the theme of justice and how it is unfairly balanced between the two religions.
The relationship between Bassanio and Antonio comes to the forefront in this section. Antonio can literally be seen as the lover of Bassanio, willing to die for him and to forgive him for it “Sacrifice them all…”
This creates the conflict between Portia and Antonio, a conflict she is willing to test by demanding that Bassanio give her his ring. The fact that Antonio does part with his ring for Antonio’s sake, as does Gratiano, implies that Bassanio chooses Antonio over Portia. This is of course unacceptable, as is seen in the next act where Portia severally chastises Bassanio for loving a man more than he loves her.
Portia not only frees Antonio at this point but also convicts Shylock of attempted murder. Shylock cannot go through with the bond and is forced to give up his fortune and to convert from a Jew to a Christian “To presently become a Christian”, becuase this is the ultimate punishment for a Jew.
Shylock is now a totally beaten and resigned man, a far cry from his confident and vengeful image and with his exit from the courtroom, harmony begins to leak into the play as the scene draws to a close.
Shakespeare successfully combines elements of comedy, irony, sadness, horror and justice in “The Merchant of Venice. Many aspects of the plot such as the discrimination of Jews are regretfully still in place in today’s society.
Todays society is very different to the society since this play was written many centuries ago. The ways in which our views are different are:
Today we live in a multi-cultural society, but in the Elizabethian times, Christians were against Jews, due to the deep history of these two religions.
The reactions to deceit and horror are a lot different today then they were in the time of Shakespeare. Today we are faced with horror and deceit everyday, we read it in the newspaper and we watch it on the television, and we have become, to some extent used to this type of thing. But in those days, this wasn’t a daily thing, so this sort of storyline would have been perhaps startling or shocking at how someone could want such a bad thing to happen to a fellow human being.
I enjoyed reading and reasearching “The Merchant of Venice” although I could see that the text is open to a lot interpretations: some it can directly contradict one another.
