Is Shylock a Villain or a Victim? In the Merchant of Venice Shylock is a Jewish man that has constantly been teased and discarded because of his religion by the christian men around him. He has been looked at as an underclass man because of his religion. In the Merchant of Venice Antonio, a highly respected christian businessman has made a deal with Shylock and Shylock has taken the opportunity of Antonio being in his need of a loan to use it to his advantage. Shylock made a deal to where if the money that he loans Antonio didnt get back to his possession in time that instead of paying a higher interest he has proposed the idea that antonio would have to pay him with a pound of Antonio’s own flesh. Antonio, confident in his money being back in time makes the deal. This proposed idea by Shylock is nothing but his own grief towards Antonio and seeing the advantage of the deal to harm him and possibly take his life outweighs his need for money. This oddly particular deal shows that shylock is stubborn and has no mercy for Antonio and will do what he needs to do to get revenge on antonio for treating him so poorly for his whole life. Shylock can be seen as the villian in this situation …show more content…
While the christian man is the one who has taunted him and treated him extremely poorly his whole life. Shylock had villianis characteristics but when it comes to who is truly the victim in the play shylock has too many unfortunate and desperate events happen to him throughout the play to not be considered a
Grace Nixon Dr. Brian Lewis English 2012 22 November 2015 Blanche DuBois: Hero or Villain? What came first, the chicken or the egg? With so many answers and different reasoning for each, this question can be extremely difficult to answer. While reading A Streetcar Named Desire, a play by Tennessee Williams dealing with the struggle of Blanche DuBois to fit in with an ever-changing society after losing her family home of Belle Reve, the reader may be left with a similarly challenging question to answer: is Williams sympathetic towards the character of Blanche, or does he condemn her character and behavior to make a statement to the larger audience about the effects of promiscuous actions?
This character will normally enter the story first. At that point enters the adversary. This character is ordinarily portrayed as the "awful fellow" or the "scoundrel. " Enemies are indeed captivating and convey an ethical clash to light, which subsequently puts our saint at a fork in an ethical street. These characters serve to show viewers wrong from right.
The first dishonest character mentioned in the play is Reverend Parris, a man who has worked to be a reputable, trustworthy church leader. After he saw his niece, Abigail, and daughter, Betty, dance in the woods, he suspects that they were involved in witchcraft. Angry with
He knew that the men killed Lupito for murdering the sheriff, but he also knew that killing a person was a major immoral act according to his religion: “Now the men on the bridge walked the earth with the terrible burden of dark mortal sin on their souls, and hell was the only reward.” (page 28) The men on the bridge killed Lupito because they are doing a good thing by avenging the sheriff. Antonio on the other hand, thinks that the men will go to hell because it was a mortal sin which was evil. This shows that people have their own beliefs, therefore good and evil cannot be distinguished.
A villain- a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot. Macbeth’s greed for power is what shaped him to be the villain in the play. In Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, despite the good Macbeth had done in the very beginning his actions throughout make him the villain.
Who is the True Villain in Macbeth Historian Lord Acton once cautioned, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. " In Shakespeare's Macbeth, the three witches use their supernatural powers to lead Macbeth astray from his destiny, which ultimately leads to many murders and the corruption of Scotland.
Lots of people know about Lady Macbeth, but is she as evil as people think? In the play, Macbeth by William Shakespeare, a very controversial topic is Lady Macbeth being evil or not. In the play, she starts off being a manipulative wife to her husband, as far as to kill the king. But later she kills herself out of guilt when Scotland is in shambles. Lady Macbeth, after much investigating is truly an evil character, as well as manipulative.
William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, the main character; Macbeth, is seen as an evil character. The play is based off of Macbeth’s decisions and his actions to become King. In the beginning Macbeth starts out as a hero in Scotland’s war with Ireland and towards the end he is transformed into a murderer. Macbeth is not wholly evil because of is heroism in the war, his love for Scotland, and because he didn’t want to kill King Duncan initially. Macbeth was brain washed by his wife and tricked into killing the King.
Villain, a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot. Just like the definition of villain states, they show traits just like macbeth. In Shakespeare 's “ The Tragedy of Macbeth”, the character Macbeth is displayed as the villain throughout the play. Macbeth shows the readers that his amiton gets in the way and makes him do things that are considered “evil” until the end of the play. Macbeth is thinking to himself that it is not fair that Duncan 's kids will become king so he kills Duncan and has his sons flee.
The concept of justice varies depending on the country, their cultures, and on individual people. Justice and mercy are important themes in The Merchant of Venice and are supported by quotes in the play; it is clearly seen that these two virtues cannot be achieved simultaneously. Justice calls for “an eye for an eye” and mercy asks for forgiveness and compassion towards the one who did wrong. Using examples from The Merchant of Venice, it can clearly be seen that these two human virtues can not be pursued at the same time. There are various definitions as to what justice truly is.
Hamlet is a very diverse character that goes through several different emotional stages throughout the novel. Some think that he is depressed because of his father’s death, and some think that his breakup with Ophelia has made him go mad. Though Hamlet does seem out of control at times, it is because he is keeping a secret about his father’s death. The average person does not usually deal with the death of their parent well, and knowing that it was intentional makes Hamlet even more emotionally unstable. From the beginning of the novel, Hamlet proves to be very melancholy, and upset with his life.
The bond between Shylock and Antonio is a concern because Shylock is asking for a pound of human flesh off of Antonio’s body which most likely would kill Antonio. Shylock undoubtedly knows that taking a pound of human flesh off of a person will kill them so essentially Shylock wants Antonio’s life at the cost of three thousand ducats, which is about half a million in US dollars today. If someone today was to pay half a million dollars in other to kill another person, you could assume that the target was wealth or politically powerful. Antonio does not fit those description because he is a typical christian who is in love.
Williams Shakespeare is recognized as the greatest English writer. One of his best works ever written is “Hamlet”, which is the most complex, confusing, and frequently performed play. The extreme complexity of the main character – prince Hamlet in this play contributes to its popularity until today. “Hamlet is supposedly the most quoted figure in Western culture after Jesus, maybe the most charismatic too” (Bloom 384). In the most famous revenge tragedy, his biggest weakness that he procrastinates completing his revenge for his father’s death by killing the murderer.
When we were little we were taught the Merchant of Venice in school. What I could grasp from the Christian version imparted to us was ' a cruel Jew wanted to harm a Christian gentleman and his subjugation to justice by Portia 's wits. ' Thus for me justice was served. However now reading it again my previous presumptions have been replaced with questions. The 'Jew ' is the question; why did the Jew did what he did?, what made him the spited Jew, Shylock?.
In Merchant of Venice, a romantic comedy written by Shakespeare, Shylock, a man of Jewish faith, is portrayed as the villain and obstacle of the tale. Many have argued that the play was written as an anti-Semitic piece of work because of the portrayal of Shylock. Anti-Semitism is the hatred, prejudice or discrimination of Jews in all aspects of their lives, and this treatment is clearly seen being thrown onto Shylock by one of the main protagonists, Antonio. One must ask the question now, if the role of Shylock is simply to be the villain. I say this because there is a reason as to why Shylock is a villain in the first place; the treatment of Shylock by our good hearted Christian, Antonio.