Merchant of Venice

735 Words2 Pages

Merchant of Venice

In this coursework I will be answering the question “Shylock gets what

he deserves” by taking into account how William Shakespeare makes the

audience despise of Shylock or sympathise Shylock.

Shylock is a Jew, and he is not welcome in Venice, he has especially

got hatred for Antonio. He wanted revenge so Shylock put on a bond

with Antonio; the punishment being for Antonio is that if he doesn’t

pay back the money, which Shylock lent him, in 3 months time Shylock

has the right to cut off a pound of his flesh.

The ridicule and mistreatment that Shylock gets makes the audience

sympathise with him because he can’t do anything about it. Shakespeare

has made the audience sympathise with Shylock by making the Christians

such as Antonio call him a “dog” and refer to him as a “Jew” giving

the audience a sense that Shylock didn’t get what he deserves from the

courtroom scene. This would only apply to modern audiences though,

when Shakespeare wrote his plays Jews were hated by the people that

lived then and therefore didn’t have the same opinion as modern day

audiences would.

The running away of Shylock’s daughter (with some of his wealth as

well) makes the audience sympathise with him because by doing this

Shakespeare makes the audience think that everyone is turning on

Shylock and he is lonely. By including lines like “my own flesh and

blood to rebel” and “I say my daughter is my own flesh and blood”

Shakespeare shows the audience how much he loved his daughter and how

much he wants her back, this also makes the audience sympathise with

him and it gives them a sense of injustice that he didn’t get what he

disserved from the courtroom scene.

The fact that Antonio has stolen Shylock’s customer’s by producing

unfair competition. That makes the audience sympathise with Shylock

because what Antonio was doing was unfair and cruel. By including

lines like “I am as like to call thee so again” and “I spit on thee

Open Document