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analysis of the merchant of venice
analysis of the merchant of venice
the merchant of venice characters and their roles
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The Role of Jessica in Merchant of Venice
The character of Jessica, in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice serves an important function in respect to her father, Shylock. By deserting him for a Christian husband, Shylock loses the last person with whom he has any kind of tie. Shylock’s isolation becomes a vital part of his character, and drives his merciless actions against Antonio.
Throughout the play, everyone who could claim any type of social or familial tie to Shylock leaves him. Launcelot the Clown, moves to a Christian master, who has the,"grace of God..." (II,ii L.139) His own daughter Jessica forsakes him, and his entire Jewish culture, to marry Lorenzo, and become a Christian. Thus Shylock has no one from whom he can receive solace. Shylock, therefore, becomes a character motived by isolation, and a feeling of desertion. His emphasis on the binding values of money and law are the only thing he can claim as his own. When Shylock finds out about his daughter’s trickery, he begins to forsake the bonds of family, in sake of temporal laws defining right ...
According to A.N. Kaul in his Introduction to Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays, the themes of isolation and alienation were ones which Hawthorne was “deeply preoccupied with” in his writings (2).
When the news came of his father’s death, Hawthorne’s mother withdrew into her upstairs bedroom, coming out only rarely during the remaining forty years of her life. The boy and his two sisters lived in almost complete isolation from her and from each other (29).
Lang, H.J.. “How Ambiguous Is Hawthorne.” In Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in the year 1804 in the heart of Salem, Massachusetts, where to Salem witch trials were conducted. Hawthorne was born in an unforgiving time period, where life revolved around religion and family. Hawthorne’s father died of Yellow Fever in the year 1808. Nathaniel grew up fatherless, which had a lasting effect on who he later became to be. Education at the time was centered on reading and writing, with a heavy religious influence. “The education of the next generation was important to further "purify" the church and perfect social living” (Kizer). However, since his father passed away, there was no other man to instill the Puritan beliefs into young Nathaniel. Hawthorne later on was able to see the culture through a different lens than the people surrounding him, which made him slightly opposed to the Puritan way of life. He became intellectually rebellious; not thinking in the same way that his peers or family was.
Before the novel actually starts, there is a section of the book entitled "The Custom House". While this is not an integral part of the novel, it provides insight into Nathaniel Hawthrone, the man. Here it is learned that Hawthrone’s ancestors were strict Puritans (he was born in Salem). One of his ancestors was considered a "hanging judge" and was actually a judge in the Salem Witch Trails. This is why Hawthrone has an interest in the Puritan period.
Lang, H.J. “How Ambiguous is Hawthorne?” In Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
In the first Chapter of The Scarlet Letter, "The Prison-Door", the reader is immediately introduced to the people of Puritan Boston. Hawthorne begins to develop the character of the common people in order to build the mood of the story. The first sentence begins, "A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes" (Hawthorne 45). Hawthorne's use of vivid visual images and his Aaccumulation of emotionally weighted details" (Baym xii) creates sympathy for the not yet introduced character, Hester Prynne, and creates an immediate understanding of the harshness of the Puritanic code in the people. The images created give the freedom to imagine whatever entails sadness and morbidity of character for the reader; Hawthorne does not, however, allow the reader to imagine lenient or cheerful people.
The man Nathaniel Hawthorne, an author of the nineteenth century, was born in 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts. It was there that he lived a poverty-stricken childhood without the financial support of a father, because he had passed away in 1808. Hawthorne was raised strictly Puritan, his great-grandfather had even been one of the judges in the Puritan witchcraft trials during the 1600s. This and Hawthorne’s destitute upbringing advanced his understanding of human nature and distress felt by social, religious, and economic inequities. Hawthorne was a private individual who fancied solitude with family friends. He was also very devoted to his craft of writing. Hawthorne observed the decay of Puritanism with opposition; believing that is was a man’s responsibility to pursue the highest truth and possessed a strong moral sense. These aspects of Hawthorne’s philosophy are what drove him to write about and even become a part of an experiment in social reform, in a utopian colony at Brook Farm. He believed that the Puritans’ obsession with original sin and their ironhandedness undermined instead of reinforced virtue. As a technician, Hawthorne’s style in literature was abundantly allegorical, using the characters and plot to acquire a connection and to show a moral lesson. His definition of romanticism was writing to show truths, which need not relate to history or reality. Human frailty and sorrow were the romantic topics, which Hawthorne focused on most, using them to finesse his characters and setting to exalt good and illustrate the horrors of immorality. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s experiences as a man, incite as a philosopher and skill as a technician can be seen when reading The Scarlet Letter.
As stated earlier, Hawthorne’s goal is to show the discovery of evil can lead one to utter desperation and cynicism. Brown is the medium through which he is able to achieve this goal. He is successful in teaching his audience a moral lesson; which is that in denying the idea that good exists and is capable of overpowering evil, Brown has committed the worst sin of all. Bereft of spiritual faith, “his dying hour was gloom” (2216).
Nathanial Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, provoked many emotions throughout his entire novel. The emotions ranged from grief to anticipation. Each character played an important role in the novel and I believe that each character evoked a different emotion in the reader. Three of the characters in which Nathanial Hawthorne demonstrates this are Hester Prynne, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale and their daughter Pearl.
... like Hester. He is implying that she is the victim and that the Puritans are actually at fault for this sin. Hawthorne's main goal is to convey the Puritans as sinful and unholy. He does not approve of the sin they hide and he thinks there should be punishment for their actions.
Committing deceptive deeds not only hurt others, but also the ones who deceive. The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare, is a romantic-comedy play about a Christian merchant named Antonio who agrees to a bond that a Jewish moneylender named Shylock, his enemy, creates to help his best friend Bassanio see Portia, an heiress whom he is in love with. Shylock warns Antonio that if he forfeits the bond, by not repaying him three thousand ducats, he must allow him to remove a pound of his flesh. Throughout the play, deceptive behaviour causes the moral values of individuals to decline. First, this is seen through wealth as it pertains to the desire to have what is valuable. Second, moral values decline when people deceive the family members that they encounter. Finally, deceiving others through love leads to a decline of moral values. In the play, The Merchant of Venice, deception, as seen through wealth, family encounters, and love, causes the moral
In this essay I will try to discover is Shylock a villain or a victim, in the William Shakespeare play “A Merchant of Venice”
Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice contains many themes and elements that are considered timeless or universal. Samuel Taylor Coleridge defines a timeless or universal element as a “representation of men in all ages and all times.” A universal element is relevant to the life of every human being – it is universal. The first major theme that plays an important role in the play is the Christians’ prejudice against the Jews. A second important theme is the attitude toward money. Perhaps the most important theme of the play is the love between people. This love can occur between the same sex, or the opposite sex, platonic or romantic. In Merchant of Venice, the three timeless elements are prejudice, money, and love.
William Shakespeare shows how two tradesmen can have completely different lives when others view them differently in the play The Merchant of Venice. In the play, Bassanio, Antonio’s friend, needs money to pursue his love. They seek a loan from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender in Antonio’s name. The contract is for three times the value of the bond in three months or else Shylock cuts off a pound of flesh from Antonio. While all this is happening, there are love plots going on. One of which is for Shylock’s daughter to elope with Lorenzo, a Christian. Later on, Antonio’s source of money, his ship, is reported sunken in the English Channel, dooming him to the loss of one pound of his flesh. There is a trial on the bond, and when it seems sure that Antonio will die, Portia, disguised as a doctor of laws legally gets Antonio out of the situation and Shylock recieves harsh penalties. Antonio and Shylock, two similar businessmen of Venice, are viewed differently and are treated oppositely to heighten the drama of the play and mold a more interesting plot.