Shylock in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

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Shylock in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

Shylock is a Jew in the play "The merchant of Venice". He has a

daughter called Jessica and he is in many ways a victim of

anti-Semitism. Shakespeare brings across Shylock as a Jew using many

different devices. For example he uses anti-Semitism to show that

Shylock is meant to be portrayed as an isolated character.

Anti-Semitism was based on religious grounds back then, they held the

belief that Jews murdered Christ and were therefore in the league of

the devil, this is why the Christians in the play and the directors of

the play are vengeful towards Shylock.

I believe that Shakespeare deliberately isolates Shylock, which then

makes the play more effective, because putting all Christians in the

play wouldn't give the play such a strong plot, as it has now. There

would be no verbally abusive things said to both the Christians and

the Jew and no remarks or stage directions used to show Shylock as the

outsider, because the Christians would have treated him like one of

their own! From the occurrences at that time, there were no rumours

going around about the Jews which were mostly all made up, but it then

gave Shakespeare an incentive, which resulted in portraying Shylock as

the villain.

Firstly, what is definitely noticeable is that Shylock is presented as

an outsider. A way that this is proven is when you look at the

directors, entrance notes an exit notes, they stand out considerably

because Shakespeare writes Shylock "The Jew" this immediately denotes

a difference within the play.

Another way that Shakespeare is making the audience consider the fact

Shylock's an outsider, is his use of language. It's very repetitive

and it's conspicuous he's an outsider, he ends his sentences wit

"well" every time.

The sort of treatment that Shylock obtains from the other characters

is that of a more aggressive and rude nature, but Shylock returns

their vicious comments by a play on words and his hate for Christians,

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