Essay On Shylock In The Merchant Of Venice

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 critical literature. One 's first association with The Merchant of Venice is invariably Shylock. "Shylock" has become a term of disapproval, a link in the history of anti-Jewish stereotype, just as Shylock 's "pound of flesh" has become a metaphor for cruel and relentless greed.

The experience of this stereotype still makes many uncomfortable with The Merchant of Venice. As a result, the trend has developed of reversing the apparent tendency of the drama: Shylock is portrayed not as a hateful character, but as one who commands our sympathies. Many critics and scholars have devoted themselves earnestly and voluminously to proving that Shakespeare did not create a Jewish villain.

All who love the work of Shakespeare would wish that Shylock was not a villain, that Shakespeare had not drawn an anti-Jewish portrait. But if we are to read the play honestly, we must

It is the apparent struggle between fate and free will as throughout the play, it becomes increasingly obvious to the audience that the characters have acted out of free will, not influenced by some kind of predetermined fate. The audience is clearly able to see how the actions of one character have an effect on the others demonstrating this notion. By the end of the play the notion that a predetermined fate played a role in the tragedy is eradicated when Lodovico says ' This is thy work. The object poisons sight ' acknowledging that the murders where indeed the work of man, not God and furthers this idea but saying ' To you [Cassio], lord governor, remains the censure of this hellish villain: the time, the place, the