Sympathizing with Shylock in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

Sympathizing with Shylock in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

In the Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare creates an atmosphere

throughout the play, which causes the audience to sympathize with

Shylock. Shakespeare uses key events, and dialogue to influence the

audience.

At the time Shakespeare wrote his plays, and they were performed, the

contemporary audience would have mainly consisted of Christians. Jews

were often persecuted, as they were the minority. The Christian

audience would have been quite arrogant, and Shakespeare would have

had to pander to this audience, to make the play appeal to them. He

did this through Shylock. In Act 3 Scene 3, Shylock tells of how he is

abused by the Christians, they call him a misbeliever a cutthroat dog,

they spit on his Jewish gabardine, phlegm on his beard, and they also

kick him "as you spurn a stranger cur". This causes the audience to

sympathize with him, as it shows, just because he is a Jew, he still

has feelings, he is not just a religion, he is a human with feelings

and emotions.

The play appeals to a modern audience, which would be multi-racial,

eliminating the effectiveness of Shakespeare's efforts to appeal to a

contemporary audience, leaving the modern audience with a play that

they can watch and enjoy. The modern audience would be more tolerant,

and so therefore would be able to enjoy the play more. A contemporary

audience would probably have not cared about Shylock, and the things

which have happened to him, as they were very arrogant.

In Act 1 Scene 2, Shakespeare has Portia, Shylock's daughter describe

her feelings towards a young British Baron named Falconbridg...

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... Shylock is the

play's antagonist, and he is menacing enough to imperil seriously the

happiness of Venice's businessmen and young lovers alike. Shylock is

also, however, a creation of circumstance, and even in his

single-minded pursuit of a pound of flesh, his frequent mentions of

the cruelty he has endured at Christian hands make it hard for us to

label him a natural born monster. In one of Shakespeare's most famous

monologues, Shylock argues that Jews are humans and calls his quest

for vengeance the product of lessons taught to him by the cruelty of

Venetian citizens. On the other hand, Shylock's coldly calculated

attempt to revenge the wrongs done to him by murdering his persecutor,

Antonio, prevents us from viewing him in a positive light. Shakespeare

is therefore, intending the audience to sympathize with Shylock.