The Merchant of Venice is a romantic and funny play that has a lot of characters. In Shakespear times people found different things funny like insulting foreigners. There is always some form of drama in plays this makes the audience more excited and more into the play.One of the most dramatic plots in the play was when a wealthy heiress named Portia had to find a husband.
Portia was a wealthy woman that inherited all her fathers money and her father left three caskets if someone wanted to marry her they would have to pick a casket if they pick the wrong casket they are never allowed to marry again but if they pick the right casket all of Portia wealth goes to her husband. Several men came to woo her in Act 1 Sc 2 Portia spent time talking about these men. Portia and Nerissa make fun of the Neapolitan Prince because they liked to insult foreigners and saying he only talk about he's horse and that he's mother had sex with a blacksmith.
The county Palatine does not smile and he never laughs Portia ''rather marry deaths-head with a bone in he's mouth''. Portia does not like people that are boring and full of sadness. The French lord is the worst out of all of them he copy other peoples bad habits Portia says "if I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands''.This means instead of marrying one men with lots of bad habits she would marry twenty husbands.
The Falconbridge was next Portia couldn't understand who he is and he can only speak one language and he cant even speak English properly and has no sense of fashion. The Scotch lord don't have enough money and she don't like him. Portia is very picky about who she chooses and she's happy stereotyping about the European and it builds up excitement and get the audience t...
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...t she forswore to her father.
Portia gives Bassanio a hint by singing a song and all the end letters rhyming with lead. The lead casket says that people that choose not by looks have a fair chance. You got the fortune, you don't need to look anywhere else. Bassanio uses his common scenes and says that lead looks the most threatening. Bassanio opens the lead casket and finds a counter feit of a Demi-god. All of Portia's wealth is going to Bassanio. As Bassanio reads the scroll the audience will be excited to know what's on the scroll.
On the scroll all the end letters rhyme. Portia uses exaggeration when she says for you i would be trebled twenty times myself. This shows that she wants him to be the worlds happiest man. Feather on she says that she wants him to teach her everything. She also gives him a ring as a promise that everything she got goes to him.
Critique Of The Constancy Upon Women At The Time in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice
Marriages everywhere have their troubles, yet everyone is able to relate to other couples problems. By looking at A Delicate Balance and The Merchant of Venice we will see their perspective on how marriages have changed over time of the martial relationship. After getting an overview of these books we will then apply it to present day and see if anything really has changed. The marriages I’ll be analyzing is Bessanio and Portia from The Merchant of Venice and Tobia ad Agnes from A Delicate Balance. By examining Bessanio’s behavior towards Portia and Tobia’s toward Agnes, we can see how the role of the husband has changed from emotional support and conversations to the development of the wives having bigger roles.
...ivisive agent, actually been voided, or only cast aside? Is Shylock and Antonio’s code of honor truly obsolete? A sense of false sincerity permeates the final scene. The temporal ambiguity between night and day with which the play ends suggests that a complete resolution has not been achieved. In being neither night nor day, it ends in a kind of dramatic unreality. Metatheatrical in its elevation of words and language, The Merchant of Venice is consciously distinct from the realism of the off-stage world. And yet in the course of its five acts, the play fails to define a solid dramatic “otherworld,” in which new values and authorities are introduced and made permanent. Rather, it seems to end ambiguously, and fragmented. It falls short of true resolution, and concludes with a statement of shortcoming, informing us that there are still “two hours to day” (V.i.325).
In the play The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, there is a concept of otherness throughout the play. Many characters had roles in which they were examples of the outsiders, that occurred during the time the play was written. If not all but in most plays by William Shakespeare, there is always a character who is categorized as the outsider. However, The Merchant of Venice took the concept into a deeper level, instead of depicting differences in social class as otherness, the play included race and religion, instead of social class. These beliefs shaped not only the way the play was written, but how the characters treated certain individuals in the play and how the personality of each character
Shakespearean works are well known for their depth, symbolism and philosophical view upon different aspects of life. Mirroring is one of Shakespeare’s favorite tools. Mirroring is used to emphasize the contrast and show differences between the sides of the society and ways of living of the characters. The Merchant of Venice is no exception. Just like all other plays of Shakespeare it has many of antagonisms and it portrays the most important and hot conflicts that used to be popular at that time just as much as they are now. Exploring this multi dimensional play is exciting, because the more you think about it, the more hints and tints you discover. The play takes place in two main locations – Venice and Belmont. These two places portray two different lifestyles. One of the most important and essential themes of the Merchant of Venice is wealth. Shakespeare has a special view of this subject; he sees love as a form of wealth (Milton 34). Venice represents earning of money, accumulating it, protecting it, fighting for it; and at the same time Belmont demonstrates having money an all other life’s pleasures, this is why life in Belmont is so happy, slow and peaceful, and the whole location is so dreamlike. Being rich and having nothing to worry about is a dream of most people. To my mind, Belmont and Venice present two different sides of wealth.
...criticism. Thence, the Opera achieves an immense degree of complexity and artistry, which helps to explain why the play was so popular for so long. The Opera is entertaining for the masses, complex enough to engage the critic, and it was (in its own way) peculiarly patriotic during an age of immense English pride for native culture.
The Theme of Prejudice in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. In The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, there are two main characters. themes, prejudice, and loyalty. Prejudice is the more evident theme.
more alive and the love that is in the story line more prevalent. Portia hooks in Bassanio with the gift she bestows upon him. For example, “In “The Merchant of Venice” spotlights shiny displays of sacrifice and gift giving. At the same time he (Shakespeare) lets the shadows of darker motives encroach on the glitter of those displays”(Berger 1). The darker motives show that Portia is a little bit conniving in her way the she bestows the ring onto Bassanio. She uses the ring to self-protect, setting herself into a win-win situation. For example, “Portia’s gift to Bassanio is an act of self-protection “in a naughty world”(Shakespeare 5.1.91), a something for nothing that she can transform
are still in place in today's society. The play is a comedy but to a
With two drastically different relationships with their spouses, analysis of Portia and Calpurnia’s relationships and care for their husbands leads one to see that Portia is the more admirable and redeeming character. Although both couples equally loved each other, the ways in which they reacted and influenced each other differed greatly.
The nature of the contract between Portia and her father is as follows, Portia’s father state’s that all suitors must first select on of three caskets in order to marry her. The caskets are made of gold, silver, and base lead, all containing different messages. Only one of the three caske...
Women of the late 16th century were subjected to patriarchal ways and not granted the same rights and privileges as males. Yet, Shakespeare gives women in The Merchant of Venice significant roles in controlling the fates of all of the other characters. Portia and Nerissa cleverly disguise themselves as an esteemed lawyer and clerk, respectively, and interpret the law in such a way that Antonio and Bassanio are saved from Shylock’s bond, while Shylock is forced into a position of utter humiliation. The William’s Center for the Arts takes The Merchant of Venice and amplifies the play’s feminist qualities, not only through context of the play and performance, but also through gender-blind casting.
The play, The Merchant of Venice drastically altered the perception of women during the time as Shakespeare makes women during the Italian Renaissance appear independent and intellectual, such as the beautiful Portia and the young Jessica. This play shows that women are not only beautiful people to look at but also powerful and intelligent individuals. The characteristics of the women in this play show the possibilities of equality between men and
The Merchant of Venice explores the theme of Appearance versus Reality. The theme is supported with many examples in the form of characters, events and objects.
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.