The Shakespeare Book

130

Is this speech a plea for human
rights or a justification for revenge—
another stereotype of Jewish
villainy? Either way, Shakespeare’s
audiences may have been surprised
by how much they were moved by
the words he placed in the mouth
of the play’s stock villain.

The melancholic merchant
Shylock often draws so much
attention from critics that he is
sometimes assumed to be the

merchant in the play’s title. But of

course Shylock is a moneylender,

not a merchant. The merchant of

the title is Antonio. He plays a

comparatively peripheral role in

a play that is mainly a comedy

about the nature of love.

In the very first line of the play,

Antonio laments: “In sooth, I know

not why I am so sad.” His friends

try to find an explanation for his

sadness, but there is none. In a

telling parallel, Portia opens the

very next scene saying: “By my

troth, Nerissa, my little body is

aweary of this great world.”

There is something that has

cast a gloom over the world, and

the comic journey of the play

is to lift this gloom through the

redeeming power of love, just as it

is in Tw e l f t h N i g h t , in which it is

Viola’s task to lift the gloom into

which Orsino and Olivia have sunk.

In both plays, the heroines, Portia

and Viola, must dress as men to

win out, released by their disguise

to reveal their true brilliance. In

both plays, too, a misanthrope—

Malvolio in Twelfth Night and

Shylock in The Merchant of

Ven ice—is left out of the general

happiness at the play’s end.

So what is the reason for this

gloom? It may be no accident that

Shakespeare’s play is set in Venice,

the commercial capital of Europe

at the time, and the play focuses

on a merchant. It is perhaps the

restless quest for money and the

commodification of relationships

that has robbed the world of joy.

When his daughter Jessica leaves,

what is uppermost in Shylock’s

mind is the financial cost, and

the plot of the play hinges on

Bassanio’s need to borrow

money to even woo Portia.

The value of life

In the test of the three caskets,

Portia will not find true love in the

precious gold or silver caskets, but

only the poor lead casket. When

Bassanio makes the right choice of

the lead casket, Portia explains that

she has herself has little monetary

value: “the full sum of me / Is sum of

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

Tell me where is fancy bred,

Or in the heart, or in the head?

Singer

Act 3, Scene 2

Darko Tresnjak’s 2007 production

had a futuristic setting. At the end, it

hints that the marriages will not turn

out well, so it is not only Shylock

(F. Murray Abraham) who will suffer.

This night, methinks is but

the daylight sick.

Portia

Act 5, Scene 1