ShakespearesPurposeofPortrayingShylockintheMerchantofVenice10

1、shakespeares purpose of portraying shylock in the merchant of venicei. introductionwilliam shakespeare (1564-1616) is one of the most remarkable playwrights and poets the world has ever known. with his 38 plays, 154 sonnets and 2 long poems, he has established his giant position in world literature.

2、 he has also been given the highest praises by various scholars and critics the world over. in the past four hundred years, books and essays on shakespeare and his works have kept coming out in large quantities. ben jonson once wrote a person once wrote a poem eulogizing shakespeare as being “not of

3、 an age, but for all time”.shakespeares greatness as a playwright and the success of his plays on the stage from elizabethan england up to the present-day world chiefly depend upon his penetrating exposition of human nature, his lively paintings of human life and his truthful reflections of human re

4、ality. his works provide us with a vivid and authentic panorama of his age. all this, for shakespeare, has been achieved through his unremitting endeavor in bringing about his lofty ideal of humanism and his painstaking efforts in mastering various techniques. he is not only a master of english lang

5、uage but also a genius of character portrayal and plot construction.the merchant of venice ranks with hamlet as one of shakespeare's most frequently performed dramas. written sometime between 1594 and 1598, the play is primarily based on a story in il peotone, a collection of tales and anecdotes

6、 by the fourteenth-century italian writer giovanni florentine. there is considerable debate concerning the dramatist's intent in the merchant of venice because, although it conforms to the structure of a comedy, the play contains many tragic elements. one school of critics maintains that the dra

7、ma is fundamentally allegorical, addressing such themes as the triumph of mercy over justice, new testament forgiveness over old testment law, and love over material wealth. another group of commentators, observing several ambiguities in the play's apparent endorsement of christian values, conte

8、nds that shakespeare actually censures antonio and the venetians who oppose shylock. in essence, these critics assert that the christians' discrimination against shylock, which ultimately results in his forced conversion from judaism, contradicts the new testament precepts of love and mercy. oth

9、er commentators suggest that shakespeare intentionally provided for both interpretations of the drama: although the playwright does not entirely support shylock, they contend, neither does he endorse the actions of antonio and the other venetians in their punishment of the jew.with its two outstandi

10、ng incidents, the winning of a break by undergoing a test , and the demanding of a pound of human flesh by the money-lender, which occur in a number of earlier narrative ,shakespeare built his play on a double plot. the first plot is about the winning of a bride by undergoing a test .am impoverished

11、 young venetian, bassanio, asks his good friend. antonio, for a loan so that he might gain in marriage the hand of portia, a rich and beautiful heiress of belmont. when bassanio and potia meet, they fall in love at the first signt, but before she can surrender herself , bassanio has to pass the test

12、 of the caskets, ordained by her dead father. the test is to choose among a good, a silver and a lead casket the right one that contains her portrait. partias joy is as great as that of bassanio when he has chosen correctly. but their rejoicing is interrupted by the arrival of a letter from antonio.

13、 the second plot is about the demanding of a pound of human flesh by the money-lender. antonios money is all invested in mercantile expeditions. in order to help bassanio he has to borrow from the jewish usurer, shylock. shylock has made a strange bond that requires antonio to surrender a pound of h

14、is flesh if he fails to repay him within a certain period of time. antonios letter now releases that his ships have all been lost, and he is penniless, and will have to pay the pound of flesh. the plots join in the trial scene of act iv.the bound issue has come before a court of law at which portia

15、appears disguised as a young lawyer instructed to judge the case. she first appeals to shylock to have mercy, but when he insists on the letter of the law she lets him have it; he may take his pound of flesh but there is no mention of blood in the bond; if he sheds a single drop of a christians bloo

16、d, his lands and goods will be confiscated by the state according to the law of venice. thus, antonio is saved, and shylock has to undergo certain severe penalties, including compulsory conversion to christianity, act v concludes the play with jubilant celebrations of the happy union of several pair

17、s of lovers.ii. shylocks natureof shakespeares earlier comedies, the merchant of venice is certainly the most outstanding one in which shakespeare creates tension, ambiguity, a self-conscious and self-delighting artifice that is at once intellectually exciting and emotionally engaging. the sophistic

18、ation derives in part from the play between high, outgoing romance and dark forces of negativity and hate. the traditional theme of the play is to praise the friendship between antonio and bassanio, to idealize portia as a heroine of great beauty, wit and loyalty, and to expose the insatiable greed

19、and brutality of the jew. but after centuries abusing of the jews, especially the holocaust committed by the nazy germany during the second world war, it is very difficult to see shylock as a conventional evil figure. and many people today tend to regard the play as a satire of the christian hypocti

20、c and their false standards of friendship and love, their cunning ways of pursuing worldliness and their unreasoning prejudice against jews.shylock-the jewish moneylender, is one of the most interesting and one of the most controversial of shakespeare characters. the discussion of the merchant of ve

21、nice generally centers on shylock. shylock is not onstage most of the time, and does not appear at all in the final act. why then do we feel that he is the center of the play? shylock is given the most passionate, most memorable speeches and actions in the play, and his character is etched in bold s

22、trokes across its entire surface, leaving an indelible human being as well as an outrageous villain and comic butt, and has become all things to all men. some readers view shylock as a proud and a passionate man who has long stored up in his heart the humiliation suffered at the hands of the hostile

23、 christian world and are now ready for revenge. shylock is the villain of the piece; there is no doubt about that. he hates antonio for hindering his business and for treating him with terrible contempt in public, and we must not doubt that from the very beginning shylock had hoped to get his reveng

24、e on antonio by arranging the flesh-bond. jessicas elopement and theft of his money and jewels increase shylocks resentment against the christian world, so that, although he might have had second thoughts about executing his revenge, they no longer trouble him after jessicas elopement. having found

25、him victimized by antonio, shylock wants as well as he gets. symbolizing the stern justice of old testament law, shylock is a passionate man thirsting for revenge and the ridiculous figure of stereotyped jewish obstinacy, hatred. and literalness. usually comic, he is at times grotesque, and at times

26、 even touching “hath not a jew eyes? hath not a jew lands.” (shakespeare 795). he is a villain of perseverance and restless energy, who is, nevertheless, foiled by good christians in the end.a. a schemer, hypocrite, baleful person in shakespeare's play the merchant of venice. shylock, a wealthy

27、jew is one of the main characters. during the play his merciless and uncompassionate nature is revealed. he seeks the life of another man because he is bent on revenge. one of the main themes of the play is anti-semitism. most of the main characters show some hostility towards shylock because of his

28、 religion, including antonio - the merchant of venice - his christian enemy. however this is balanced, to an extent, as shylock frequently and openly admits that he hates antonio, "for he is a christian'' (shakespeare 820). he will not rest until antonio is dead and in my opinion this i

29、s indefensible. it is shylock that speaks its most moving and soulful lines. shylock tells of his deep hurt at his daughter's betrayal, his own "flesh and blood" having turned against him. he is driven to such distraction that he knows not what he says, "my daughter, my ducats, my

30、 daughter" (shakespeare 797), the two scramble in his mind. shakespeare artfully conceals the full measure of shylock's hurt in his ranting by having it reported through the eyes of unfeeling enemies that laugh at it-the way audiences for hundreds of years have reacted to the sorrowful cala

31、mity that befalls the despised jew.the miser was a frequent comic villain in the drama and literature of the middle ages and early renaissance, and shylock belongs to this lineage. he represents the killjoy against whom pleasure-loving characters unite. he is a schemer whose icy shrewdness daunts. w

32、hen antonio enters in the same scene. shylock reveals in an aside his deep-seated hostility towards the merchant,he is a christian. for yet his first words to antonio are fawning compliments, and we immediately recognized the cruel usurer as a hypocrite as well. throughout the play he is repeatedly

33、associated with the devil. the famous speech in which he seemingly asserts his basic humanity-“hath not a jew eyes” (shakespeare 795). is actually a baleful and chilling assertion of his intention to murder antonio, shylock grows more and more malevolent until, in the trial scène. he melodramat

34、ically hones on his shoe the knife with which he hopes to kill the merchant while obstinately refusing to grant mercy, even for huge sums of money. b. a comical, humorous, clownish personas is true of all comic villains there is never any doubt that shylock will be defeated in the end, and he is the

35、re never truly threatening. further, shylock is broadly comical at times: in this respect him somewhat resembles the vice of the medieval morality play. his stinginess has a humorous quality of caricature to it, and he is depicted as a subject for ridicule in all but one of his scenes, even in the t

36、rial scene. in his first meeting with antonio he justifies his usury by citing instances from the bible, but he comically selects stories of crafty dealing that actually cast him in a bad light. in 2.5, lancelot mocks his dream, and his obsessive insistence on locking his house is humorously crotche

37、ty. in 3.1,following the renowned speech in which he asserts his thirst for revenge of tonepreparing the audience for a return to belmont in 3.2presents him as a farcical villain who becomes ludicrous he oscillates hysterically between rage and delight when tubal tells him of jessica s extravagance

38、and antonios misfortune. even at the trail, shylock repeatedly makes himself clownish, chortling over the absent of a surgeon naively exulting in the pretence of portia that he will win his case, and hastily trying to recover his money when he finds he has lost. c. a crabbed, greed old manas a villa

39、in, shylock embodies the negative element in several sets of opposing values whose conflicts provide the major themes of the play. first, he is the crabbed old man who opposes the expansive young lovers. his daughter flees him, saying that his “house is hell”, and his contrast to bassanio is carried

40、 forward to portias victory over him in the courtroom, the final scene rings with shylocks absence, as young love triumphs. further, he represents justice, as opposed to mercy, insisting on the letter of the law and refusing to accept any reduction of the terms of his contract with antonio. most sig

41、nificantly, he personifies greed, in contrast to the generosity of antonio and daughter portia, in comically crying, “my daughter! my ducats! my daughter! ” shylock reveals that he loves money as much as, if not more than, jessica. among the reasons he gives for hating antonio is a commercial one: t

42、he merchant, in making interest-free loans, has depressed the going rate. thus shylocks love of money generates acrimony and strife. d. a victimit is evidence of shakespeares creative empathy that even an evil stereotype is developed to the extent that shylock is. not content with a conventional sta

43、ge villain the playwright gives shylocks personality an extraordinary duality. many of his speeches, even the most humorous and malicious, can be construed as cries of anguish: the villain is also a victim, we sense. it is easy to deride the two-faced miser who comically equates his daughter and his

44、 ducats, but it is also easy to perceive an old man, enraged by betrayal who has begun to lose his mind. the usurer is given an opportunity to justice his practice in, and his solemn citations from the bible have dignity and not to be taken as only self-incriminating. he is finally subjected to a to

45、tal and humiliating defeat: his oaths on his religion are nullified, and he is forced to convert. shylock hates antonio not because he is christian, but because antonio hates him because he is jewish. shylock has suffered years of torment with antonio and others like him who persecutes shylock. he i

46、s in the right to despise antonio and for that matter, christians as a whole, because if you look at that time period, you felt sorry for a jew, you would be hated very much, jews were lower than peasants and beggars and thieves, maybe not in money, but definitely in social states. so shylock can ha

47、te whomever he wants to because i think he has earned that right after such tribulations.iii. shakespeares writing purposefor hundreds of years the jewish people have been persecuted by christians on the basis that the jews were responsible for the crucifixion of christ. because of this sin jews bec

48、ame known as traitors and murderers. this message was being delivered by christian leaders, coming straight from the pulpit during sermon. the anti-semitic attitude of medieval and elizabethan culture is reflected in the art of the times. there are drawings and paintings depicting jews as devils, th

49、ieves and murderers, and the same portrayal was present in the literature and theatre. the medieval miracle-plays overflowed with violence against the eucharist and the jews. the miracle-plays were held to send a religious message, but instead left the mark of blood and violence by staging christian

50、s as beating jews and dragging them through the streets and sometimes even beheading the so-called murderers. during the medieval drama there was rarely a true character, but rather stereotypes and characteristics, possibly due to a lack of self-identity by individuals in that time. the renaissance

51、drama brought more of a balance in the stereotypical players and the self. even some jewish characters, such as shylock in the merchant of venice, held redeemable qualities which helped balance the idea of jews as being bloodthirsty. interpretations of these jewish characters have included links to

52、lollardy and wyclifites, christian hypocrisy, and simple scapegoats used to show the downfall of the hierarchy. the debate in the nearly all of the research that follows revolves around the quest to find a certainty in the answer for how we are to interpret the portrayal of jewish characters in medi

53、eval and renaissance drama. critical commentary of the merchant of venice has centered on the character of shylock who has been interpreted in various ways, ranging from the comic stereotype of the villainous jewish moneylender to the tragic victim of age-persecution.what many critics and audiences

54、see in the merchant of venice as a demonic shylock, a man with a capacity for savage murder and boundless hate, is not in shakespeare's play. a sober and objective view of the text and story must conclude that there is a stark difference between the shylock character that shakespeare actually cr

55、eated and what audiences regularly see in their minds eye.from whence comes the demonic shylock? it comes from no where else than the imaginations of critics and audiences inflamed by highly prejudiced opinions of jews.there is no doubt that we do in fact find an angry and bitter shylock emerging fr

56、om shakespeare's text. but the heartless, obsessed man capable of an uncommon, extreme cruelty who will stop at nothing to wreak bloody revenge on the man he hates- the shylock that most think they see-is something else. this latter shylock is not actually in shakespeare's play and neither a

57、re the scenes often seen in some productions, in which shylock desecrates christian symbols. these are strictly the ideas of directors and their advisors.a. shakespeares true humanistic outlookromantic critics who could not accept shakespeares anti-semitism tended to argue that shylock is really a n

58、oble figure of a man or to emphasize the contumely heaped upon him by the christian world that preached but, on the whole, did not practice charity. they tended to concentrate on shylocks speech:i am a jew. hath not a jew eyes? hath not a jew lands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, fed with t

59、he same food, hurt with the same weapons. subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means. warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a christian is? if you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us do we not laugh? if you poison do we not die? and if you wrong us. shall we not revenge? if were like you in the rest. we will resemble you in that if a jew wrongs a chrition. what is his humility? revenge, if a christian wrongs a jew. what should his sufferance by christian example? why revenge? (shakespeare 795) that, they said, reveals shakesp