Shylock The Jew example essay topic

Anti-Semitism and the desecration of the Jewish population have been in existence for nearly five thousand years. In the Elizabethan era, a question of anti-Semitism invariably arises. In William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, we find that one of the characters is the embodiment and expression of anti-Semitic attitude that is pervasive in Elizabethan society. 'Anti-Semitism was an intricate part in Shakespeare's years. Jews were considered vile and scorned upon.

Shakespeare presents Judaism as an 'unchangeable trait' (Bloom 37). Shakespeare's age based their anti-Semitism on religious grounds because the Elizabethans inherited the fiction, fabricated by the early Church, that the Jews murdered Christ and were therefore in league with the devil and were actively working to subvert spread of Christianity. The religious grounds of this anti-Semitism means that if a Jew converted to Christianity, as Shylock is forced to do in The Merchant of Venice, then all will be forgiven as the repentant Jew is embraced by the arms of the all merciful Christian God of love. In fact, some Christian believed -- as do some fundamentalist sects today -- that the coming of the Kingdom of God was aided by converting the Jews to Christianity. Anti-Semitism in Shakespeare's time is portrayed in his masterpiece The Merchant of Venice. 'Shylock the Jew, one of William Shakespeare's profoundly ambivalent villains, is strangely isolated' (Bloom 24).

He is portrayed as a usurer: A leader of money on interest rather than a receiver of stolen goods. This concept will prove to the audience that the Jews are in fact 'cheap' and have a frugal sense for possessions. It is an intriguing idea to think that even in Shakespeare's time, stereotyping was a mundane part of their lives. Shakespeare's anti-Semitism seems harsh, but shows that not all Jews are vile like most people believed in his time.

Shylock is shown to be hard working (Goddard 5). Believe it or not, there is some compassion for the desecration of the Jews in Shakespeare's play. Antonio recognizes the futility of opposing Shylock's passion with reason. 'He seems the depository of the vengeance of his race' (Goddard 11).

Antonio consequently appears as a charitable Christian who lends money freely, in contrast to the miserly and extortionist Shylock, who preys upon the hardship of others in order to further, increase his own material wealth. Antonio positions the Christian virtue of lending money without interest; at the basis of Shylock's hatred of Antonio. But what is significant about Antonio's argument is how it undermines the justice of Shylock's hatred; because Shylock hates Antonio for what is an essentially Christian virtue, Shylock attacks not only a good Christian man of good Christian virtue but also, by extension, Christianity in general. Shylock's hatred thus has no ground in the Christian social and religious context of the play, not to mention wider Elizabethan society.

The perception created by Antonio's argument is that Shylock hates someone for their following a Christian virtue, which implies that Shylock, is against Christianity, and by extension, of the devil's party. Throughout the entirety of The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is referred to by name only three times; in the trial scene, the Duke twice identifies Shylock by name, and Portia does so once. In the course of the rest of the play, Shylock is most often referred to simply as 'the Jew'. In many cases, even the simple title 'Jew' is stripped away, and Shylock is no longer a man, but an animal: Gratia no curses Shylock with 'O, be thou damned, inexorable dog!' (IV, i, 128) whose 'currish spirit govern'd a wolf' (IV, i, 133-34) and whose 'desires are wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous' (Bloom 89). These labels that are applied to Shylock effectively strip him of his humanity, and his religious identity.

He becomes reduced to something less than human: something other than human. Given this tendency to see Shylock as something not human, it should come as no surprise that he is also explicitly demonized in the rhetoric of the play. In act two, scene two, lines twenty-four through twenty-eight, Lancelot Gobo identifies Shylock as 'a kind of devil', 'the devil himself', and 'the very devil incarnation'. Shylock's daughter, Jessica, identifies Shylock's house as hell. Solano identifies Shylock as 'the devil... in the likeness of a Jew' ( , i, 19-21) and Bassanio echoes this sentiment by identifying Shylock as a 'cruel devil' (IV, i, 217).

Antonio further cements the association between Shylock and the devil by noting how Shylock's arguments remind him how 'The devil can cite scripture for his purpose' (I, , 97-100). This explicit demeaning of Shylock cannot but be significant in light of the historical outline that has been observed through the desecration of Jews for many years. The images of Jews as blood-thirsty murderers of Jesus who snatch innocent Christian children for slaughter in bizarre Passover rituals seems to provide a potent back-drop for the demonic appellations that are heaped upon Shylock in The Merchant of Venice (Fiedler 63). The progressive abuse of Shylock as a usurer, which leads to the reduction of his humanity to a demonic form, should fully prepares us for the revelation in The Merchant of Venice that Shylock's motive for the entire bond with Antonio is murder. By murdering Antonio, Shylock will be rid of a bothersome business of rival.

The play appears to suggest that Bassanio was right to caution Antonio to suspect 'fair terms and a villain's mind' (I, , 179) because the end of Act Three, Scene One reveals Shylock's true motive: I will have the heart of him if he forfeit, for were He out of Venice I can make what merchandise IWill. ( , i, 127-29) The play suggests that Shylock is bent on murder from the outset of his bond with Antonio. The potential for further financial profit that murdering his business rival would provide is the obvious motivation that underlies the deceptive terms of the bond. In short, Shylock is provided with murderous motivation and the guile to deceptively mask that motivation until Antonio is apparently trapped within the terms of his contract with the murderous Shylock. This image of the murderous Jew is supported by the vibrant blood lust that Shylock exhibits through numerous places in the play-text. Jessica relates how When I was with him I have heard him swear To Tubal and to Ch us, his countrymen, That he would rather have Antonio's flesh Than twenty times the value of the sum That he did owe him. ( , ii, 284-88) Upon learning of Antonio's financial ruin, Shylock declaresI'm very glad of it. I'll plague him, I'llTorture him, I am glad of it. ( , i, 116-17) As trial scene progresses, Shylock clearly relishes forfeit that is due him: he whets his knife, rejoicing at the prospect of cutting Antonio's chest: Ay, his breast, So says the bond, doth it not noble judge?' Nearest the heart,' those are the very words (IV, i, 252-3) So once again the image of the malignant murderous Jew is vividly portrayed by the obvious malicious blood lust of Shylock in the play.

It does seem foolish to argue that Shakespeare's Shylock is the same kind of exaggerated monster that populates earlier drama, such as the Medieval morality plays or The Jew of Malta. Clearly, Shakespeare has invested Shylock with a degree of depth and realism that contributes to Shylock's status as one the great villains of the stage: a villain who is far more human than something like Marlowe's Bar abas. But at the same time, it seems clear (to me, at least) that Shakespeare creates Shylock against an historical and cultural backdrop that was intensely hostile to Jews. Given this social context and historical tradition, it should come as no surprise if some of this hostility against Jews should infiltrate Shakespeare's work. Shakespeare was, after all, a commercial dramatist and many commercial dramatists make their livings by pandering to, rather than working against, conventional social mores. To make the claim that Shakespeare creates Shylock within an anti-Semitic culture, and therefore invests Shylock with biased anti-Semitic attributes, does not impugn the artistry of the drama.

Nor does such a claim implicate Shakespeare himself as a monstrous anti-Semite. All this claim suggests is that Shakespeare, like most of the rest of his society, was hostile toward Jewry for religious and cultural reasons, and that hostility is revealed most clearly in Shylock. What these pages have tried to trace is the possible, or perhaps the probable, relationship between what was happening in Shakespeare's day and what is happening in Shakespeare's play.