The Merchant Of Venice Summary

Venice was an exciting centre of business in Shakespeare’s time. The rich merchants of Venice bought and sold things from all the countries around the Mediterranean. The Merchant of Venice tells the story of Antonio, a generosity merchant; his dearest friend Bassanio; the beautiful and intelligent Portia; and their friends and also the greedy moneylender Shylock.
There was a wealthy, respected merchant, Antonio, who lived in Venice. Being a merchant, he had many ships which travelled to other countries and he sold things to people in these other countries, and bought things from them. In addition, he sometimes lent money, but never charged interest and that’s why everybody liked him. Although he had many friends, he loved Bassanio, his dearest

Although Bassanio’s father left him a lot of money when he died, he spent it all and became poor and very unhappy. Bassanio was in love with Portia, a lady from Belmont, near Venice. Portia’s father left her all his money. Portia was famous for her beauty and her wealth so many young rich men including Bassanio went to Belmont and wanted to marry her. One day, Bassanio told Antonio, there was a beautiful and wealthy heiress in Belmont but he did not have money so he asked Antonio to lend him 3,000 gold pieces for the journey. Antonio told his friend that he wanted to lend him whatever amount of money he needed, but at that time he had not any money because his money was invested in his business. Bassanio went to a money-lender whose name was Shylock. Although shylock had money to burn, he loved it too much. He lent money to merchants, but they had to pay him back large interest. Different from Shylock, when Antonio lent money to everyone, people only had to pay back the amount they borrowed. Antonio and Shylock had different opinions in their ways of doing business. But Shylock agreed to lend Bassanio 3,000 gold pieces