How Far Is Shylock

’s Jewishness Shown By Shakespeare To Be Responsible For His Actions And Attitudes Essay, Research Paper

One of the reasons Shakespeare’s plays have always been popular is because of their appeal to different audiences. In the Merchant of Venice Shakespeare produces a quite intricate play bringing up the question of racism and morality for some of the more educated members of Elizabethan audience, whereas for others, mainly the ill-educated groundlings, it is simply a tale of an evil Jew who eventually receives his comeuppance. It is important first to establish that views on Jews and usury at the time were very different from what they are now. Anti-Semitism had been present in England ever since Jews first arrived. Stories had been contrived of them stealing babies, drinking sacrificial blood and forcing adult circumcisions. They were the scapegoats for everything. Jews had been banished from England since 1290 and only around 1000 converts to Christianity remained in London around the time Shakespeare was writing. In 1591, Marlowe produced ‘The Jew of Malta’ in which the main character, Barabus, the Jew, was portrayed as very evil and was responsible for the murder of his daughter and a convent of Christian nuns. Then in 1594 extreme anti-Semitic feelings were aroused when Queen Elizabeth I was visited by the Portuguese pretender to the throne, Don Antonio. A Portuguese physician, Lopez, was tried and convicted (almost certainly wrongly) of attempted poison of both the queen and Don Antonio. He was hanged, drawn and quartered. This prompted a huge surge in anti-Jewish attitudes in the public and ‘the Jew of Malta’ was revived a year after the incident. It was on this wave of anti-Semitism that Shakespeare wrote the Merchant of Venice in 1597 and it is clear from the very beginning that he takes full advantage of this to enliven his Elizabethan audience. At a first glance therefore, the play would appear to be anti-Semitic with Shylock traditionally being played by a big nosed actor with a bright orange wig. He is the stereotypical Jew through and through. He hoards money, isolates himself from Christians and most importantly, is a usurer. This was still looked upon badly in the 1590s even though the primitive form of Capitalism already established relied heavily on credit. It had been forbidden in the old testament of the Bible but Jews had translated this to mean they were prohibited to charge interest from other Jews only. This is where another root of hatred of the Jews stems from as Christians would have seen the Jews as supercilious in that respect. Shylock is also unnecessarily vengeful and malicious however, and this is not connected with the fact he is a Jew. A Muslim or even a puritanical Christian could have taken the role of the evil usurer but due to current Elizabethan affairs; a Jew was far more appropriate. There can be no question that Shylock is presented as an evil character that we are intended to hate. In his first scene he states his hatred of Antonio and unfurls his scheme to try and murder him and as the play progresses, we see more and more of his personality. We learn that he is puritanical in that we never see him jest and seems to take no pleasure from the usual past-times (he hates music for example). He is so driven by profit that he would rather kill his own daughter than lose his wealth and he goes to extraordinary lengths to kill Antonio simply because he undermines his business practices. In all five of his scenes, he is bitter to the last. The question is this, are these traits derived from his Jewishness or from the Christians’ mockery of his Jewishness, or is he simply an evil individual. It is certain that Antonio and the other Christians constantly mock Shylock’s religion and isolate him from their social group. In the entire play, Shylock is only called by his name directly five times, and these are nearly all in his first scene as Shakespeare introduces his character. At all other times he is referred to and called ‘Jew’. This immediately introduces the religious barrier and separates him from the Christians. Solanio calls him ‘dog Jew’ and in III:3, he calls him ‘most impenetrable cur.’ The fact that people refuse to call him Shylock strips him of his humanity and distances him from the Christians. He is even frequently compared to as the devil by Solerio and Solanio, and Gratiano makes a blatant reference to the Lopez case in the court scene (IV:1) O, be thou damned, inexorable dog!<sum> <sum>thy currish spirit Governed a wolf, who, hanged for the human slaughter, Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet, Lopez means wolf in Portuguese (from the Latin, lupus) and so here Gratiano is comparing Shylock to the attempted murderer of Queen Elizabeth and Don Antonio. Solerio and Solanio are the characters that are most anti-Semitic in the way that they treat Shylock in public. In III:1, they both mock him, twisting his words and insulting him. They pick up on his use of the words ‘daughter’s flight’ and make fun of him by continuing the bird theme. They then once again call him a devil, this time to his face. They have no sympathy for Shylock’s daughter’s desertion and theft of his wealth and admit to knowing of her planned escape. These characters are included to incite the audience, particularly the groundlings, to laugh at Shylock. They are also there however, to promote sympathy for Shylock. None more so than in this scene wh