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Analysis of Merchant of Venice
The merchant of venice summary
Analysis of Merchant of Venice
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“It is a wise father that knows his own child,” said shakespeare in the sixteen hundreds. These words directly resemble both The Merchant of Venice and Night by Elie Weizel in their father son relationship. Portia and her late father, Jessica and Shylock as well as Elie and his father Shlomo. All of the fathers in the stories try hard to build up the person to be the best version of himself, but do not always succeed.
In the Merchant of Venice, Shylock a jewish money lender living in the city of Venice, has a daughter named Jessica. Shylock believes that he had raised Jessica in a manner that was just right for her. He had always thought that Jessica was the type of girl that just listens to what she is told to do and does not question or deny the request. But this was not so, Jessica somewhere growing up picked up the trait and thought that her father was not always correct and that he in fact was sometimes a bad person towards other people. She had as well noticed that being jewish was not the best thing for her. Jessica did not like the attacking of jews or the discriminated yelling by the anti semitic christians. She had decided it was time to leave her father's home, the home where she had been raised by a not so pleasant man. We see in the play that after she had ran away Shylock was very hurt, crying to himself.
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Portia’s Father had created a law that allowed her only to marry the man that chooses the correct casket. Her father had known what was right for her before he passed. He instituted a law that would guide her to be the person who she was meant to become. As well as to marry the man that she was destined to be with. The father-child relationship between Portia and her father, is one that cannot be beat. Even though her father was not actually with her, he had made it that she would become the best version of
The relationship between a father and son stems from an unspoken competition in many countries. Whether it is a physical or mental rivalry the superior role slowly transcends on to the son as he grows into a man. In Brad Manning’s short story “Arm Wrestling With My Father,” and Itabari Njeri’s “When Morpheus Held Him,” both contain admiring sons and impassive fathers. Despite both stories similarities in unspoken emotions they differ in the aspect of their physical relationships. This unrequited bond between a father and son in these stories portray various types of love.
Equally to Capulet in “Romeo and Juliet”, the father in “Her Father” is also a caring and loving character. He is “at hand” when his daughter meets her date. This indicates to the reader that the father is protective of ...
Portia: “You were to blame-I must be plain with you. To part so slightly with your wife’s first gift, a thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger, and so riveted with faith unto your flesh. I gave my love a ring, and made him swear never to part with it; and here he stands. I dare be sworn for him he would not leave it nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth that the world masters. Now in faith, Gratiano, you give your wife too unkind a cause of grief. And, ‘twere to me, I should be mad at it.” (Shakespeare, 1600, p.
The nature of the contract between Portia and her father is as follows, Portia’s father state’s that all suitors must first select on of three caskets in order to marry her. The caskets are made of gold, silver, and base lead, all containing different messages. Only one of the three caske...
Father-Daughter Relationships in Sidney’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta, and Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice
Throughout Marina Carr’s Portia Coughlan it is clear that Portia is a woman who is infatuated by the events and misfortunes of her past. When we first meet her in the opening scene it is clear that she is a distressed and deeply haunted woman “whose legacy is rich only in horror” (Dean, 1997). Her past is haunting her marriage, her relationship with her children and her day to day life. The continuing ghostly presence of her long departed brother immerses her back into the past rendering her present life unimportant and somewhat of a burden. Throughout the play events from the past rear their heads and it is clear that “Portia is fighting blind against a past kept hidden from her” (King, 1997).
Erik H. Erikson was born on June 15th, 1902, near Frankfurt, Germany. He never knew his mother’s first husband or his birth father (Engler, 153). His mother then married a pediatrician, who adopted Erik and gave him his last name. His parents concealed the fact of his adoption from him for many years, in which Erikson later called, “a loving deceit.” Ironically, the man who was famous for the term “identity crisis” was experiencing himself a significant identity crisis during his childhood. Erikson struggled with both the quest for his psychological identity and that of his biological identity. The fact that Erikson was raised in a Jewish home, but his genetic backg...
The earlier appraisals, dating to the 1970s and early 1980s, are typically more sympathetic to the fathers, finding the struggles between them and their daughters to be among the expected hurdles of normal family life. The later readings, however, find a tyrannical possessiveness in excess of normal parental affection in the father’s behaviour. Whilst some critics discern an incestuous desire for the daughter in the father’s motivation, others see the father’s possessiveness as a love corrupted by the power a patriarchal society confers on hi...
William Shakespeare is best known for writing tragedies, comedies, and romances, such as Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. Shakespeare usually wrote all his plays on his personal life experiences. In the year 1585 Shakespeare began to take control of his own life and get his work out to the world. One of his most famous books Merchant of Venice portrayed the way people lived in the 1500’s and how people were treated. Jessica, Shylock’s only daughter, is a perfect example of how people were treated when they revolted against their own family. Although Jessica is not a main character she is important for showing how mistreated she was by her own father and how she took matters into her own hands.
Shylock confronts Antonio for spitting on his gabardine, calling him a ‘dog’, and scolding him in the Rialto about his moneys. Antonio replies with, "I am like to call thee so again, To spet on thee again, to spurn thee, too"(1.3.140-141). Antonio does not deny his actions and instead of apologizing he says he will do them again. He does not hold back his feelings for Shylock and in a broad sense his feelings toward Jews. In the second act, Launcelot is debating whether or not he should seek a new employer. His problem is that he works for Shylock, who is Jewish. Launcelot thinks to himself, "Certainly the Jew is the very devil incarnation" (2.2.24). Eventually, he decides to run away from Shylock rather than continue working for a Jew. He then presents the argument, "I am a Jew if I serve the Jew any longer" (2.2.104) to his father. Before accepting the new job, Antonio discusses the matter with his father and reminds himself that Bassanio is much poorer than Shylock, but that he would much rather work for a Christian than a Jew. Lorenzo harshly insults Shylock when he tells Jessica that if her father ever makes it to heaven, it is only because Jessica converted to Christianity and that is portrayed through the line, "If e’er the Jew her father come to heaven, It will be for his gentle daughter’s sake" (2.4.36-7). Lorenzo describes Jessica using the word gentle. The word gentle in Shakespeare’s time can also be pronounced gentile which means against Judaism. In this quote and later on in the play through the line, "Our house is hell, and the, a merry devil"(2.3.2-3), Shakespeare is informing the reader that Jessica dislikes her father and that the house she has lived in with him is hell.
Just north of Paddington station lies Little Venice. This picturesque pool of water where the Grand Union and Regent’s Canals meet, is home to a number of waterside cafes, pubs and eateries. From here you can take a boat trip or follow the tow path on foot and see how the winding waterway snakes its way through the heart of London. You can head downstream past the charming regency streets of Madia Vale and on to Regent’s Park and Camden, or follow this peaceful corridor upstream to the west and enjoy the tranquillity of the waterways that feel like a million miles from the noisy streets nearby.
Discrimination is a resounding theme in The Merchant of Venice (Meyers). All of the characters are affected by inequality. This inequity is evidenced clearly in Shylock, the Jewish usurer. He is treated with scorn and derision by all the characters. Shylock’s misfortunes stem not from poor attributes or even a poor background; it stems from the fact he is Jewish, and what is more, he is impenitent of that distinction. If he had been more daunted by Christian influence, he might have been forgiven, as Jessica is subjectively exonerated. He is not contrite and it is believed that his appalling birth cannot be absolved (Bonnell).
Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice contains many themes and elements that are considered timeless or universal. Samuel Taylor Coleridge defines a timeless or universal element as a “representation of men in all ages and all times.” A universal element is relevant to the life of every human being – it is universal. The first major theme that plays an important role in the play is the Christians’ prejudice against the Jews. A second important theme is the attitude toward money. Perhaps the most important theme of the play is the love between people. This love can occur between the same sex, or the opposite sex, platonic or romantic. In Merchant of Venice, the three timeless elements are prejudice, money, and love.
Shylock also seems to show little or no love towards his daughter, Jessica. He may have been hurt by his daughter running away with a large amount of his wealth and with a Christian lover (Lorenzo); this is a point where Shylock can be viewed as a victim in the story. This still does n...
While the relationship between fathers and sons has been documented at length, the father/ daughter dynamic figures less prominently in literary tropes; in fact the last canonical piece I can recall reading was Euripedes’ Electra in high school. The tenuous relationship between Daddy and his little girl, however, harbors depths more personal and tangible than Greek tragedy and psychological analyses invoking the Electra complex. The emotionally void or aloof father in particular often burdens the female psyche, for his absence proves just as palpable as his sought after presence, shaping the landscape of a daughter’s future relationships and the construction of a self-image fragmented and disjointed by an early and intimate knowledge of rejection and abandonment. Transcending characterizations attached primarily to filial duty as experienced by the matriarch, the father figure remains the subject of mythologization, just as Sylvia Plath turned her father into a Colossus, a cold, inanimate stone edifice revealing none of his secrets or affection.