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Post by Ganymede on May 9, 2002 11:36:20 GMT -5
I thought I'd start a thread about one of Shakespeare's most controversial plays. The M of V is considered a problem comedy. How do you understand Shakespeare's characterization of Shylock? How do you understand the ending?
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Post by shaxper on May 14, 2002 22:05:18 GMT -5
I think there's more to Shylock than critics have traditionally been willing to accept, though I certainly do not see him as a tragic hero. I think he becomes the measuring stick for a very problematic society. After all, Antonio is built up to be the most good-natured, saintly citizens in all of Venice, yet there are some interesting problems with this ideal. First of all, Antonio is a merchant (in fact, he's The Merchant of Venice) and so his very livelihood is necessarily concerned with profit; something that only Shylock is accused of and for which only Shylock is chastised.
But far more telling is the passage in which Shylock claims that Antonio had previously "void your rheum upon my beard, And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur over your threshold" (1.3.116-8). We might assume that this is a wild accusation or that Shylock isn't telling the whole story, but surely, Antonio replies with "I am as like to...spit on thee again, to spurn thee too" (1.3.128-9). Regardless of how detestable a villain Shylock might have been, the idea of a virtuous character physically assaulting him without provocation seems troublesome. Compare Antonio's actions against Prospero's in The Tempest (to get back into another discussion). In the end, Prospero shows virtue by demonstrating forgiveness to all those who have wronged him, regardless of how base or monstrous they were, or that they sought to murder him. Yet here, in a play written by the same man for the same audience only a few years earlier, Antonio shows no such "Christian" sensibilities. On the one hand, I could see a crowd throwing fruit at the detestable Jew and cheering Antonio on each time he threatened or insulted Shylock, but on the other hand, it's difficult to ignore the morally problematic nature of this situation. Sure, Shakespeare might have been a hypocrite, but I choose not to accept that simple explanation. I've always loved Shakespeare's ability to write complex plays and characters for which words like "good" and "bad" rarely easily apply. He writes real life in all its complexity, and I see TMOV as no exception. Shylock is not right, regardless of the wrongs he may have unjustly faced in the past. Yet Antonio is not right either, nor is a society that bestows its laurels upon him. He allows himself to be morally lowered by a social inferior, and that does not go well with Elizabethan ideals and sensibilities on the social hierarchy.
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