The Merchant of Venice: Does Shylock Get What He Deserves

Shylock gets what he deserves. Discuss:

The city of Venice acts as the main backdrop for William Shakespeare’s play ‘The Merchant of Venice’. Conflict, love and revenge are all intertwining themes that are constant throughout the tale. The conflict between the Jewish and Christian religions sets the play’s basic outline. A Jewish money lender named Shylock, who has suffered at the hands of the Christian majority for following the Jewish faith, is called upon by Bassanio, a Christian, for a loan using the life of his best friend, Antonio, as security if the loan is not repaid by the due date. Both of these men, Bassanio and Antonio, more so Antonio, have been responsible for much of the abuse to which Shylock has been subjected. This, along with the fact that Antonio lends out money “gratis”, adversely affecting Shylock’s business, has led the Jew to harbour a substantial hatred of Antonio, a hatred that lusts for revenge. Now this legally binding agreement, if broken, could offer Shylock the prospect of long awaited revenge.

The roots of Jewish and Christian conflict are long and varied, beginning in the first century AD, with the birth of Christianity. The two faiths are similar in many ways, however, the Jews did not accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah and considered his claim to be God’s son as blasphemous. The treatment to which Shylock was subjected could only be described, in my opinion, as inhuman, as he was publicly mocked and spat upon by the Christians and called “misbeliever” and “cutthroat dog”. In today’s society racial hatred can be observed in many aspects of social interaction and people can openly express it through the media, music and other expressive arts. In Shakespeare’s day, however, the persecution of the Jews was much more direct. The people of that time were accustomed to seeing those in minority faiths fall victim to those who followed the dominant religion, so the mistreatment of Shylock would have been comical to a 16th...