Defining Shylock in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

Defining Shylock in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

One of the factors that make Shakespeare plays famous is its

capability to appeal to wide range of audience. For example in The

Merchant of Venice Shakespeare brings up the question of religion,

racism and morality for the intellectuals amongst the Elizabethans but

for most off the groundlings and ill-educated it was a simply a battle

between Christians and Jews in which the Jew (e.g. Shylock) should end

up facing the heat of defeat in the climax.

England was a Christian country, where Christianity was followed and

taught from early ages. At this time Jews were perceived as "villains

of society" in fact in the Venetian community towards the centre of

Venice, you would find the homes of Christians and towards the

outskirts and suburbs you would find the homes of Jews which showed

that were hated, unwanted and excluded members of society. They were

far inferior and a marginalized community to that of the Christians

because of their religion. It was also at the time when the buzz was

going around about Jews being the killers of Christ for which they

were hated and secluded more.

Venice was a very desirable and rich place to live in being the

important trade route from the east to the west. Jews were often

banned from owning land or to participate in any trade. So effectively

the Jews ended up with a lot of spare cash to spend on investment.

Christians were banned to profit on lended money there fore they

borrowed money from the Jews and were hated by Christians for making

profit on money lending.

The first scene of the play is important because it introduces Anton...

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...The punishment given to shylock however was fair to 16th century

audience because of the racial prejudices between both the religions.

To the modern audience it is not the right climax because we know

about the bloodthirsty history of the holocaust, the mid-east battle

and the rise of political correction. They speak for themselves. Even

the Birth right of Shylock to believe in the Jewish religion is

snatched away from him which means unfair treatment towards the Jews.

Referring back to the question Shylock cannot be just a victim or a

villain; he has to be a composition of both. He is victim of abuses

some time and other times he is a villain in his actions and thoughts.

One thing to notice here is that Shylock is referred in the play more

as Jew, Wolf or devil. He is referred to as shylock very few times in

the play.