| (This
is "Shylock After the Trial"
- a misnomer! - by Sir John Gilbert, in 1873. Click here for more Shakespeare art on Emory's postcard site.)
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"My daughter! O, my ducats! O, my daughter! Fled with a Christian! O, my Christian ducats! Justice! The law! My ducats, and my daughter!" (Solanio imitating Shylock, II.viii.15-17) |
hylock
is one of the most complex figures ever written by William
Shakespeare. He is, by all accounts, the villain of "The Merchant of
Venice," for he is relentlessly spiteful, greedy, and proud. He seems
to value the loss of his money over the loss of his daughter Jessica. Yet
there are definite human elements to this character (everyone picks on him!),
elements which can elicit great sympathy from an audience if the actor makes the
right choices.
But this is the key point with Shylock: much of the way he comes off to an audience depends on how the actor plays him. In turn, this can depend on the director's personal vision of the play. Different productions have emphasized Shylock's humanity, his monstrousness, and - usually the most effective choice - sometimes a deft mixture of both.
 |
"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? ...If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? |
Ah, the Jew issue. The glaring issue in question whenever people speak of "Merchant." There are so many views on the subject, it is difficult to address them all. Put simply, there are three basic ways to see it:
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1: Mr. Shakespeare was anti-Semitic. He thought all Jews were greedy, unreasonable moneylenders and wrote the play to get express hate for their race. |
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2: Mr. Shakespeare was a humanitarian. He wrote Shylock as a stereotype of the greedy Jew and then humanized him, to point the finger at the closed-minded people he saw around him. He tried to alter peoples' perspective on religious biases. |
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3: Mr. Shakespeare was simply a playwright who wanted to write a good play. He took the bond plot from an old Italian novella, Il Pecorone, and needed a usurer character. He picked a Jew because many Jews were known to be moneylenders in those days, and the Elizabethan audience would identify that vocation with being Jewish. |
So, which is right? ...Obviously, none of these is the absolute correct answer. They are all too black and white to pan out. Most likely it is a mixture of #3 and one of the others. But this debate has raged on for centuries, so I'm sure you don't really want this humble web-page-author's point of view. Click here to go to Shylock's links, where you'll find several websites by smart people who know what's what with the subject. And better yet, form your own opinion.
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Arthur Bouchier as Shylock, 1905, Garrick Theatre. |
"I'll have my bond. I will not hear thee speak. / I'll have my bond, and therefore speak no more. / I'll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool, / to shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield / to Christian intercessors. Follow not; / I'll have no speaking. I will have my bond. (III.iii.12-17) |
Portia / Bassanio / Antonio / Gratiano & Nerissa / Lorenzo & Jessica / Salerio & Solanio / The Gobbos / The Princes / The Duke / The Servants
