Anti Semetic Themes in The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

Anti Semetic Themes in The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

In Shakespeare's The merchant of Venice there is a clear clash of opinions between Antonio and Shylock. Most of the characters in the play are definitely against Shylock because he is Jewish. But is the message that Shakespeare is putting across saying that all people should hate Jewish people? I think that it could well be for these reasons.

Firstly in the basic structure of the play, Shakespeare will always make subtle differences in the way he writes dialogue for each character. This being that if the character is quite important, then he will write their dialogue in verse, but if the character is deemed unimportant, then Shakespeare will write their dialogue in prose. Shylock is quite a major character in the play, he is in a majority of the scenes in the play, and has a big influence of the plot, however all his dialogue is written in prose, thus deeming him unimportant. There is no knowing that this was just because Shylock was Jewish, Shakespeare may have had many other good reasons for structuring the play. But the fact remains that during the time that Shakespeare wrote the play there was a lot of anti-Jewish feeling around and this seems like a feasible reason for this structure.

The way that Shylock is portrayed in the play is also a good indication of the feelings towards him. Shylock is portrayed as miserly and selfish. This is shown by his attitude towards his daughter Jessica especially when he finds out that has stolen his money.

I would my daughter be dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear: would she were hears'd at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin.

From this we can see that he is so concerned with his money, and so enraged at his daughter that he wishes her dead. This to the audience would be seen to be a very evil thing to be, and so they would believe that all Jewish people were like that. If the play were not anti-Semitic then the plot would be that Shylock would not care about the money, he would be angry no doubt but he would want to know what was wrong with his daughter to be like this, and he would want to talk to her. Shakespeare has clearly made the plot like this in order to show the audience that Shylock is evil and his being Jewish had clearly influenced this decision.