Shylock Case Study

The Case of Shylocks Appeal Classic literature, modern movies, the standardization of the English language, as well as the beautiful name Jessica are just a few things that result from the influences of William Shakespeare. Regarded as the greatest English writer of all time, the Bard has inspired much from his many playwrights. His success into breaking into our culture may be born from his singular ability to create settings in which his characters show off their complexity and become memorable. Shakespeare’s antagonists especially deviate from the flat generic standards villains are usually portrayed as. They are much more complicated because they are not considered pure evil; they are complex suffering characters with a just sense

Shylock is a Jew in a Christian dominated world, and because of this he is already a marginalized citizen of the Venetian community. Also, he further receives ridicule for having the stereotypical Jewish occupation as a money-grubbing loan shark which ensures both his peers and the audience dislike for him. He even is first introduced in the play as Shylock the Jew, which seems almost to distinctly label him as something different then the rest of the plays characters. Shylock is definitely considered a victim to society, and when he accused the Christian Antonio of Anti-Semitism and ruining his business, Antonio answers that he is "like to call thee so again, to spet on thee again, to spurn thee too. If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not as to thy friends, for when did friendship take a breed for barren metal of his friend? But lend it rather to thine enemy, who, if he break, thou mayst with better face exact the penalty." Antonio self-righteously feels that it is his role as a Christian to belittle Shylocks faith and treat him in the most inhumane way possible, and ironically he sets himself up into receiving Shylocks revenge. Shylock is also verbally abused from the majority of the other plays character with names like "villain with a smiling cheek, a misbeliever, bloody creditor, an inhuman wretch, damned inexecrable dog, cut-throat dog, a dog Jew, the most impenetrable cur that ever kept with men" yet he bears it all with a patient shrug accepting that "sufferance is the badge of all our tribe". However, in response to such blatant racism and prejudice, Shakespeare lets Shylock deliver one of the greatest written soliloquies about humaneness and tolerance with "hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the