Essay On Shylock In The Merchant Of Venice. Words8 Pages. Of the many unforgettable characters who poured out of the vast breadth of Shakespeare 's imagination, one of the most fascinating is Shylock, the Jew. Though he appears in only five out of twenty scenes in The Merchant of Venice, Shylock has attracted the major share of interest in the drama 's long history on the stage and in Essay On The Character Of Shylock In 'The Merchant Of Venice'. Words4 Pages. Act 3 Scene 1. This scene shows the many sides to Shylock’s character, and the many factors which contributed to shaping his character and personality. Shylock is portrayed in this scene as a very calculative person who is full of hatred Nov 12, · Both Shylock and Barabas are driven by hate for all those who gloated over their misfortunes in civil society and always tried to have a dig at them and rob their treasures. Both swear by their industry and hard virtue and are adoring parents. Shylock is the archenemy of
Shylock Is The Most Upright Charachter In The Merchant Of Venice Essay Example | WOW Essays
We use cookies to enhance our website for you. Proceed if you agree to this policy or learn more about it. Type of paper: Essay. Topic: ShakespeareFamilyChristiansReligionJudaismessay on shylock, HumanWomenJew. The gentlemen of Venice who paraded themselves in gondolas in the romantic canals and waterways were instantly cut out for popular sympathy and affection, as the very opening seems to suggest.
The dolour of Antonio and the volley of indulgent comments and cajoling coming in response proves it beyond doubt. To add to it are the fancies of the wastrel Bassanio getting a fillip from the coterie of friends, essay on shylock, with the garrulous Gratiano ever ready to amuse with his verbal pranks.
Into this picture of complacent Venetian youthfulness comes the bugbear of an old man in the form of the Jew Shylock. And, to provide a hearty laugh at him, notwithstanding these cheerful bachelors, there is his clown of a servant Launcelot Gobbo with his ever increasing malapropisms. Shylock, like Barabas, essay on shylock, is faulted for defending his community. His chief flaw which is hailed a crime is his profit motive, essay on shylock. Both Shylock and Barabas are driven by hate for all those who gloated over their misfortunes in civil society and always tried to have a dig at them and rob their treasures.
Both swear by their industry and hard virtue and are adoring parents. Shylock is the archenemy of all the Christian men in Venice. They plot against him in devious ways to deprive him of his ducats and his daughter. Not content with outwitting him by the agency of Portia who assists her newly wedded husband Bassanio who traps him in with his own cleverness, he is forced to yield all his wealth to his disrespectful daughter and her Christian husband and is himself made to convert to Christianity on fear of death.
What is played out here on an aggrieved soul hated for no fault of his is patrician terrorism. Shylock had a stern system of values which he observed rigidly. He was against countering the Jewish canon and was a staunch practitioner of its morals. He never ate pork and was dead against dining with Christians who were libertines and irreligious by his definition.
He suffered slander and humiliation many a time, and as he tells Antonio who went a-begging to him for money, he was called a cur and his gabardine was spat on. With great pathos he recounts the insult and injury he suffered and makes no secret of the fact that he was biding his time for revenge. If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? There is complete human appeal in this catechism of Shylock, essay on shylock. Essay on shylock champions of virtue and moral conduct jeer at him but they are themselves thirsting for revenge on him, the germ of the motive lying in choosing him as their creditor.
They somehow wish to do him in and they know well indeed that the law is on their side and they would escape any penalty. The utter recklessness with which one wound after other is inflicted on an old man and the ease with which his transgressors escape blame and masquerade as paragons of virtue is indeed alarming, essay on shylock. Shylock had the reason of generations of his fellowmen to act to avenge his faith on those who made light of it and vilified it.
He would be less of a human if he did not do so. In the trial scene where Antonio, who is at the mercy of Shylock, essay on shylock, is keen to shape himself as a tragic hero, Shylock is unrepentant. He is cursed by every courtier and citizen as by the jury. Even there he is not spared the usual barrage of abuse.
It is as though he were the devil incarnate, irrespective of his agonised essay on shylock in life. He is little more than a bloodhound with dripping fangs to this assembly of religious and legal depravity.
Again, Venetian law is so partial that a debtor who was signatory to an unnatural and dubious bond is exonerated while the other party who set up the bond is alone held guilty. Shylock has every right to question the law.
He cannot readily accept the logic of the clever young lawyer and pleads for himself on human grounds, but he gets essay on shylock hearing. The tyranny of democracy is experienced. And being forced to undergo conversion when he finally pleads illness and asks essay on shylock go home, the court allows him the Christian charity of letting him sign at soonest leisure.
Christians go against the dictates of God embodied in merciful Christ but a Jew here seems to be more typical of his faith. According to the Bible the original true faith is the Essay on shylock one, and Shylock, essay on shylock follower of Jehovah, essay on shylock, demonstrates exceptional tolerance in the face of onslaught of name and fame.
He is a man in utterly reduced circumstances without the comfort of wife, child, home, and hoardings. He becomes the very nomad going in search of the Promised Land. The fall of Shylock is, in a sense, the shattering of essay on shylock of minority religion. Shakespeare essay on shylock does not seem to be an all out subscriber to the temporal interpretations of the Holy Writ.
Coming back to Barabas, essay on shylock, we find him to be an isomorph of the other Marlowean creation, Faustus. Both are reckless and extremely self-willed, essay on shylock.
Both are off at a tangent at the slightest desire and provocation. But in Shylock can be found a man of tremendous restraint and great patience who suffers long.
It was at the height of misfortune which perhaps demented him that he became bloodthirsty. Reflex actions cannot be used to state lasting character, and it is obvious that what the young men made out Shylock to be was their defensive creation, a pretext for ousting him. Shylock, as it reads, seems to have made enemies with the entire Christendom of Venice. But it is not to be pursued on a judgemental level.
The Christians were too short-sighted to know that one who professes a different culture and wears a different habit and eats different food is not a potential culprit or criminal. It is this stereotype that is at the root of all assumptions that framed the tragedy and floated the comedy that came when it fizzled out. The worst calamity of Shylock is in being father to an insensitive daughter who played traitor just because her father opposed her coquettishness.
For a man bred in tradition it is not easy to condone marriages that are not endogamous. On the other hand, the kind of suitors Portia got hints at the liberal conjugal policies of the larger Venetian society, essay on shylock. The price Shylock has to pay for being true to his faith is too great. A society that is professedly expansive cannot accommodate an aged man pointing towards his grave. This highlights the utter callousness of society wherever numbers rule the ethos.
The very speech of Portia demanding dropping his plea for justice is highly ironical. Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea, consider this: That in the course of justice none of us Should see salvation. Act IV, 1. What was meant to be a trial of Antonio turned out to be a trial of Essay on shylock, and he was lured there to this end.
Shakespeare has not missed to paint the humane picture of Shylock but it is an enigma why he gave moral victory to his opponents despite the wicked game played by them. He could have been pandering to the Elizabethan taste that revelled in seeing the Jew as a social monster.
But it is uncertain if he believed in the way he ended his plot. Was it a victory for Christianity essay on shylock paganism? It is very unlikely that Shakespeare, given the depth of vision and essay on shylock survey of life he demonstrated in Hamlet, could have done so.
The co-editor with Dover Wilson in the New Shakespeare, Arthur Quiller-Couch, in Shakespeare Review edited by E. Chambers pertaining to The Modern Language Review published by the Modern Humanities Association, stated the utter irresponsibility and self-centredness of Jessica in terms of high condemnation Quiller-Couch This triggered a defence of Jessica by Camille Slights in the Shakespeare Quarterly Autumn published by the Folger Shakespeare Library in association with George Washington University.
Essay on shylock is testimony to the lingering espousal of the rectitude of Shylock despite an age of unfettered individualism and championing of feminist self-actualization. The character of Shylock looms large in Renaissance literature as a devil who never got his due. Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice. Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead Books, Quiller-Couch, Arthur.
Chambers, Modern Language Review, essay on shylock, Vol. Shaheen, Najeeb. isbn Slights, Camille. Wilson, John Dover. New Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, We accept sample papers from students via the submission form. If this essay belongs to you and you no longer want us to display it, you can put a claim on it and we will remove it. Just fill out the removal request form with all necessary details, such as page location and some verification of you being a true owner.
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Essay On Shylock In The Merchant Of Venice. Words8 Pages. Of the many unforgettable characters who poured out of the vast breadth of Shakespeare 's imagination, one of the most fascinating is Shylock, the Jew. Though he appears in only five out of twenty scenes in The Merchant of Venice, Shylock has attracted the major share of interest in the drama 's long history on the stage and in Nov 12, · Both Shylock and Barabas are driven by hate for all those who gloated over their misfortunes in civil society and always tried to have a dig at them and rob their treasures. Both swear by their industry and hard virtue and are adoring parents. Shylock is the archenemy of Shylock Essay Essay On Shylock In The Merchant Of Venice. Shakespeare’s, The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is a devout jew who lives in Shylock as a Victim of Villain Essay. Shylock as a Victim of Villain Throughout the play ‘The Merchant of Venice’ there Merchant of Venice Shylock Analysis
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