946 shakespeare, William
Christian civilization that is juxtaposed against the
traditions of Judaism and Jewish law. Compassion
and mercy are the fundamental characteristics of
Venetian Christians; the rigid application of law
and its requisite penalties are the fundamental
characteristics of the Jewish culture. Even at the
trial, where appealing to Shylock’s legal sensibili-
ties on their own terms might rescue Antonio (the
taking of a life is, after all, against the Torah),
the official representative of Christian civilization
chooses to lecture Shylock on “the quality of mercy”
which “droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven”
(4.1.181–182). The project of nationalism in the
play is one of contrast. Though it has the vague
flavor of distinguishing the ancient legal code from
the new promise of compassion, it represents that
contrast in its least humanistic, most exclusionist
manifestation. In Merchant, Christian charity is not
the warm hand of grace but the dominating hand of
national oppression.
The contrast between Christian and Jewish soci-
ety is loosely woven throughout the play. Already
unable to embrace divine compassion, Shylock also
appears incapable of finding joy in life. He lectures
against the music, masques, and face painting that
Gobbo reports are imminent. He orders his ser-
vant to “stop [their] house’s ears [and] let not the
sound of shallow foppery enter my sober house”
(2.5.34–35). Jessica claims that she is not a daugh-
ter to her father’s “manners” (2.3.18), but even she
appears damaged by the joylessness of a house she
calls “hell” (2.3.2). Her final line in the play is “I
am never merry when I hear sweet music” (5.1.68).
It is possible that her later mood is bitterness
toward the husband whose friends have crippled
her father’s livelihood, evidenced by her references
to Medea, the legendary ancient Greek murderer of
her estranged husband’s new wife and her own two
children. Yet, given her own betrayals of her father
(she steals from her home while he is at dinner and
later trades his prized turquoise ring for a pet mon-
key), it would be a stretch to interpret the scene as
bitterness toward her husband. More probably, she
is, as Antonio notes, burdened by the insufferable
propriety of her familial background. In his words:
“[Y ]our spirits are attentive. For do but note a wild
and wanton herd” (5.1.69–70). Even in the union of
Christian and converted Jewish bride, the contrast
appears so distinct between the cold rigidity of Jew-
ish tradition and the warm embrace of Christian
civilization as to border on a rejection of the Jew’s
strange outsider ways.
Playing out more aggressively in some discreet
scenes, this contrast reveals both the condescending
paternalism and the unmerciful behavior of some
Christians. Lorenzo provides the first glimpse into
these two sides of the Christian attitude toward
Jewish persons, romanticizing as he reflects on his
love for Jessica; “If ’er the Jew her father come to
Heaven, it will be for his gentle daughter’s sake”
(2.4.34–35). It is Shylock who articulates the other,
in the speech that is often viewed as proclaiming his
plans for revenge. He speaks the lengthy diatribe
that is most famous for the lines “I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes?” It seems to be designed to proclaim
his humanity and his right to revenge. Yet viewed in
the context of the play’s clear distinctions between
Jews and Christians, the final lines seem to indict
uncompassionate Christians for encouraging ven-
geance. “If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his
sufferance be, by Christian example? Why, revenge!
The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall
go hard but I will better the instruction” (3.1.58–62).
Shylock, therefore, suggests that Christians who
ignore the “quality of mercy” encourage the Jew in
his drive toward vengeance.
Ben Fislerrace in The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice has little to do with race in
the modern sense of ethnic identity. Nor does race in
the play refer to the distorted faux science of eugen-
ics, since the notion of a genetically differentiated
human species postdates the play by 280 years. Nor
should one ahistorically project back on the play
the notion of race derived from 100 years of U.S.
segregation. Shakespeare was writing in a country
populated, at the most, by a few small communities
of Jews who had ostensibly converted to Christian-
ity. Merchant is no more a play about racial conflict
in the modern sense than Othello is a play about rac-
ism in the modern sense.
As it manifests in Shakespeare’s play, race must
be explained as an external label for national “other.”