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The Merchant of Venice: Study Guide
We have seen in the comedies various stereotypical attitudes (on the part of characters and of Shakespeare’s audience) towards women and towards male-female relationships. We will see in The Merchant of Venice a comedy that relies heavily on national and religious stereotypes, and should expect these stereotypes to be presented with Shakespeare’s characteristic ambiguity.
The Merchant of Venice presents special challenges to the modern world, which is more sensitive to anti-Semitism than was Shakespeare’s world. While Shylock is undeniably villainous, modern audiences are often uncomfortable with the ways in which the Venetians mock Shylock for his culture and beliefs.
It is important to realize that few of Shakespeare’s audience members would ever have knowingly met a Jew — England’s government and people were mildly tolerant of Christian faiths other than Anglicanism, but intolerant of any others. And while London was a haven for the Spanish conversos (Jews who converted to Christianity to escape the Inquisition and then fled to other parts of Europe where they often practiced their faith secretly), these refugees were forced to pass as Christians. Shakespeare’s audience, then, would have imagined observant Jews in terms of their stereotypical descriptions.
Your text’s introduction offers some valuable information on Renaissance misconceptions about Judaism, particularly in the section, “The English and Otherness” (pp. 21-25). Still, because we are still in the realm of social comedy, with its insistence on oversimplifying human relationships and systems into oppositional groups, we can imagine the typical Englishman’s assumptions about of the difference between Jews and Christians as follows:
|
Jews |
Christians |
|
responsible for the death of Christ |
followers of the resurrected Christ |
|
insistence on the Law (Old Testament) |
insistence on mercy, forgiveness, salvation (New Testament) |
|
women as chattel or possessions |
women as objects of desire or admiration |
|
acquisitiveness and sacrifice of others (material and spiritual) |
generosity and self-sacrifice (material and spiritual) |
|
competitiveness |
fellowship |
|
pleasure in others’ pain |
pleasure in others’ happiness |
|
animalistic, subhuman images |
angelic, godlike images |
These comparisons are, of course, inaccurate in any time and place. Still, Shakespeare relied on this polarization (as he did in Richard III) to create a dramatic structure and, perhaps, to cater to his audience’s prejudices. Such prejudices are also present in Portia’s stereotyping of her international cast of suitors (I.2.39-97).
Other themes/patterns to look for:
• The way in which Antonio’s joking bargain with Shylock (to offer a pound of his own flesh as collateral for a loan) goes predictably wrong
• The frequent comparisons (some direct, some implied) of Antonio to Christ
• The “fairytale” plot of the daughter (Portia) whose choice of husband rests on the solution to a riddle
• The “rescue” of Jessica and her conversion
• The gender-disguise strategy at the end of the play
QUESTIONS TO PONDER:
Examine Act 1, Scene 3. Both Shylock and Antonio give a number of reasons why they hate one another. Which of them are personal, and which are cultural? For each man, which reasons seem to be more powerful (personal or cultural)?
Of our cross-dressing comedic heroines (Viola, Portia, Jessica), who do you find most appealing? Why?
Is Shylock a villain or a victim? Is Portia wise or tyrannical? Are her suitors buffoons or are we meant to sympathize with the risk they take and the price they pay? Is Jessica an ungrateful daughter or a heroine? Is Antonio melancholic and noble or whiny and clinging? Is Bassanio a true friend or an opportunist? How does your answer to these questions affect the quality of the comedy presented — in other words, who’s the comic target? Is there only one, or is it the same one throughout the play?
