The Merchant Of Venice Feminist Analysis

Oprah Winfrey, Diane Sawyer, and J.K. Rowling are some of the most influential and powerful people in America. These women are known for how they exude their confidence and independence. This is contradictory to how women were perceived during the Renaissance. The women of this time period were given no rights and had no power to do anything. In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, the female characters are presented as strong women, who are not confined to the ideal woman position of the Renaissance and serve as independent characters.

Jessica displays her strong-minded characteristic through her ability to make her own decision, despite the ideals of the male figures around her. Shylock is Jessica’s Jewish father, who has greatly conflicting ideas compared to the ideas of Jessica. Jessica is “ashamed to be [her] father’s child” (II.iii.16) and she plans to run off with her love, Lorenzo, and

“become a Christian and [his] loving wife” (II.iii.20). Jessica begins to develop her own beliefs and values. She does not strictly follow what her father preaches simply because he is a high figure in her life. She allows herself to do what she believes is best for herself. Jessica makes her own decision on this situation. She does this similarly with Lorenzo, her eventual husband. Jessica is boasting of Portia, one of the leading characters of the play. Lorenzo becomes jealous and believes that Jessica must feel the same way about him. Jessica has her “opinion too of that” (III.v.73). Jessica doesn’t immediately begin to praise her husband as she did with Portia. Although she loves her husband and looks to him as the new male figure in her life, her independence continues to peak through as she doesn’t succumb to him being the head of the household and being molded by that position. Jessica defies the common role of the woman as she begins to become her own person.
Portia and Nerissa both identify as these strong women through the positions of power that they hold. When Bassanio describes Antonio of Portia, he describes of a woman “in Belmont is a lady richly left, and is fair” (I.i.160-1). Portia is of high class in Belmont. Since her father is not present, she is holding the position of her father that he had left with his passing. She has to be the guiding force for this island. Portia displays leadership similarly with her lady-in-waiting, Nerissa. When Antonio, Bassanio, Portia’s husband, goes to court to see what the outcome of his bond is, Portia and Nerissa disguise themselves as men and act as the officiators of the court. Portia goes on to make the main decision of the court, what Shylock should do with Antonio (IV.i). Portia and Nerissa go against the ideas of the Renaissance. They prove that women can uphold to the standards of males as they solve the predicaments that the males fail to know how to fix. Although women are in par with the positions of the men in the play, women are also conveyed as weaker characters.
Many people argue that women within this play are not viewed as these progressive characters, who challenge the ideas of the Renaissance.

It is true that when Bassanio and Portia become engaged she says that “what is mine to you and yours is now converted” (III.ii.167-8). It is true that she is quick to give up all her possessions to Bassanio. However, at the beginning of the scene, when Portia reunites with Bassanio, she says “I pray you tarry, pause a day or two before you hazard, for in choosing wrong I lose your company” (III.ii.1-3). Portia seems to want to be with Bassanio, not for her lack of independence but, because she truly cares for Bassanio. Portia even goes on to be nervous and flustered, as she continued to talk to Bassanio. This shows how some sort of love has come over her, making her unknowledgeable of what to do in this situation. Portia does not want to leave Bassanio’s side and with that, she shares her livelihood not because of a lack of strength and power but because she wants a form of union with Bassanio, as a result of Portia’s love for

him.
As Shakespeare presents these strong women, his point of view on women seems to be positive. He shows that even in times in which women are limited by the boundaries set by the society, Shakespeare still believes in the power that women have. He believes that women are not a part of the stereotypes of the Renaissance but instead, similar to the strong powerful figures that are apparent in our world today.