Comparing The Bond Of Pretense In Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice

In theatrical performance, the fictional realm of drama is aligned with the factual, or “real” world of the audience, and a set of actors feign re-creation of this factual world. At the same time the audience, by participating as spectators, feigns believability in the mimic world the actors create. It is in this bond of pretense between the on-stage and off-stage spheres of reality—the literal and the mock-literal—that the appeal of drama is engendered. The Merchant of Venice then, like any effective drama, ostensibly undermines realism by professing to portray it. The work contains no prologue to establish dramatic context; it offers no assertion of its status as imitation, a world separate from our own. And yet, the bond of pretense forged

In his will, Portia’s father entrusts Portia’s conjugal happiness to the fortuitous outcome of a game, so that she herself “cannot choose one, nor refuse none” (I.ii.26). In this way, Portia’s right of choice is transferred to a series of strangers. And yet, although she laments this loss of free will, she vows, “If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father’s will” (I.ii.106-108). While admittedly the scene also satires the various nationalities of her suitors, essentially the hallowed sacrament of marriage has deteriorated into a tragic circumstance of constraint.

But when this first predicament resolves itself happily, it is again a written document that prevents the characters’ full indulgence in celebration. Bassanio having rightfully won Portia’s hand in marriage, and Gratiano having sworn “oaths of love” (III.ii.209) to Nerissa, the couples receive a letter from the incarcerated Antonio. The presence of all three of the play’s romantic pairings during this scene, including the newly engaged Jessica and Lorenzo, is significant; it accentuates the dramatic change in mood from comedy to tragedy precipitated by the arrival of the

Not only does Venetian law bind both Antonio and Shylock to their contract, but we are frequently reminded of both the impact and limitations of religious law as well. The word “Christian” occurs twenty-seven times in The Merchant of Venice; “Jew,” appears seventy-two times. The frequency with which religious classification occurs in the play acts as a continual reminder of the role of scriptural dispute, and how the written division we see in the Bible has been transferred to the social realm. Shylock, for example, vocalizes the taboo of a Jewish-Christian wedding when he cries, “Would any of the stock of Barrabas / Had been [Jessica’s] husband / Rather than a Christian!” (IV.i.309-310). And while admittedly scripture has engendered social prejudice against him, it is Shylock who manipulates biblical texts to “make his interest good” (I.iii.102), concluding from the Genesis story of Jacob’s lambs that “thrift is blessing if men steal it not”