Skip to main content

Shylock: Character Born out of Anti-Semitism, or a Character with Meaning?

The Merchant of Venice has garnered a lot of criticism over the years for its blatant portrayal of the Jewish characters as antagonistic money-hungry slobs. In fact, it was a staple of Nazi Germany literature. However, is it possible that we have all been internalizing it wrong?

In Act 3, Scene 1, Shylock (the Jewish antagonist of the story) delivers quite a heartwarming speech to Salarino:

"To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."

 A lot of detractors of the anti-semitism theory point this out as proof that Shakespeare wrote this play as a comment on anti-semitic views plaguing Europe at the time (a view that I share). However, since we only really know basic details of Shakespeare's life, it is hard to say whether he was anti-semitic or not. But if he really was, why would we he have included this? As someone living in a post-Holocaust world, I already felt sympathy for Shylock at the mention of his very character, and this only reinforces my thinking that the antagonist-protagonist roles are somewhat twisted here.

Comments

  1. Kim HarrisonFebruary 9, 2017 at 7:34 AM

    A thoughtful post - this speech is certainly mysterious and deserves attention.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hieronymus Bosch, Saint Christopher, and the Renaissance

  Saint Christopher Carrying the Christ Child Through a Sinful World (c. 1520) One huge component of Renaissance era painting and culture was religion (in most of Europe, Christianity in particular). And while I didn't manage to get any pieces pertaining to the English Renaissance per se , I did manage to find a painting by a follower of celebrated 14th-15th century Dutch painter, Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450 - 1516), whose themes exhibited in his and his follower's works transcend many nations of the European Renaissance, including England. The European Renaissance is known for its Christian symbolism, certainly exhibited in many of Bosch and his follower's works, including arguably Bosch's most famous work, The Garden of Earthly Delights . These paintings, however, typically take the form of Christ's crucifixion or Saint Mary with the infant Christ, and are rarely so abstract as that with Bosch and his followers, with this particular painting showing Saint C...
15 comments
Read more

Role of God in Persepolis

In Persepolis , I believe that the author is actually discussing her own personal relationships with God in a very meaningful in honest way; she doesn't show that she has the perfect relationship with Him. In reality, she is frustrated by His inability to simply explain things; I think as a child, we all want the answers. Her not getting the answers, whether it's about new developing feelings for boys, for example, or the nature of religion and His role in society in an Islamic takeover is a really frustrating for her. So frustrating, that she yells and screams at him. To her, he is not an all-powerful, all-knowing benevolent being; he is simply another person that she doesn't get. And I really like this aspect to Marjane's character, because as a child, I think God is one of the most frightening things to us. And her describing their relationship this personally really gives more insight into her character.
Post a Comment
Read more

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: Why Were Slaves Separated from their Families?

Frederick Douglass, as mentioned at the very beginning of Chapter I, was separated from his mother at a very young age. In fact, really the only thing he remembers of her is the fact that she talked to him at nights when he was a very young boy - but when he woke up in the morning, she was gone. Unfortunately, such an event was not uncommon with slaves. Because slaves were treated as property rather than people, slave families were often separated to prevent a human bond between them, which would likely interfere with the ordering of harsh, strenuous work and even harsher punishments. Additionally, Douglass mentions the fact that slaves were to know as little of themselves as possible, in order to preserve them as property, born not to think or feel but to work. In the masters' eyes, this would have likely had slaves see the world as one to work on, and so that is exactly what they would do. Of course, slaves eventually did rebel against their masters and go to every length to de...
Post a Comment
Read more