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William ShakespeareThe Merchant of Venice
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1596A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Cyclical Nature of Dehumanization
Shylock’s vengeful efforts to procure a pound of Antonio’s flesh do not exist in a vacuum. From the earliest scenes featuring the moneylender, mitigating factors are introduced that help explain—if not quite justify—Shylock’s attitude and behavior. As a Jew, he is repeatedly antagonized and treated as less than human by the Venetian Christian elite, especially Antonio. Regardless of how contemporary anti-Semitic Englanders read Shylock’s character, his thirst for revenge is not framed as something that’s inherent to his personality or his ethno-religious group. At the end of his famous “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” speech, Shylock explicitly points this out, telling Salarino, “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” (3.1.67).
The workings of this cycle of dehumanization are laid bare during the court proceeding in an exchange between Bassanio and Shylock. Unable to understand why Shylock lashes out so dramatically and gruesomely at Antonio, Bassanio asks him, “Do all men kill the things they do not love?” (4.1.67). The exchange continues:
SHYLOCK: Hates any man the thing he would not kill?
BASSANIO: Every offense is not a hate at first.
SHYLOCK: What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice? (4.1.68-70).
That Shylock hates Antonio out of revenge over personal and professional affronts is only part of this equation. His draconian insistence on a pound of Antonio’s flesh can also be seen through the lens of self-defense, a preemptive strike against a man who has attacked Shylock with his serpent’s sting one too many times. A huge reason why Shylock is in such a vulnerable and defensive stance is due to his social position as a Jew in Venetian society. He must work twice as hard as his Christian countrymen to build and protect his livelihood. Thus, the audience sees how structural inequities trigger and exacerbate a personal war of dehumanization between Shylock and Antonio.
All of this is consistent with a dynamic in which stigmatized oppressed groups embrace the stigmas and stereotypes that are foisted upon them. One of the most elegant expressions of this dynamic comes when Shylock tells Antonio, “Thou call’dst me a dog before thou hadst a cause, / But since I am a dog, beware my fangs” (3.3.7-8). In Shylock’s mind, if he is treated as a beast, then there is little lost by engaging in bestial behavior for his own self-interest.
One could argue that Antonio breaks the cycle of dehumanization by exercising what he believes is mercy at the end of the court proceeding. Rather than insist on half of Shylock’s estate, which he is entitled to by law, Antonio allows the moneylender to keep his assets until his death, whereupon they will be bequeathed to Jessica and Lorenzo. Defeated yet relieved that he need not give up his fortune immediately, Shylock assents without further barbs or violence. Yet given Antonio’s added condition that Shylock convert to Christianity, the cycle of dehumanization will likely continue. Shylock will be forced out of his community, and he is unlikely to receive a warm welcome from Venice’s Christian community. He will be a man without a tribe, without an identity, and probably without a way to make a living. Furthermore, Antonio’s insistence that Jessica and Lorenzo inherit his fortune will deprive the Jewish community in Venice of the kind of generational wealth and capital necessary for oppressed groups to advance in society.
Mercy as a Privilege of an In-Group
On the surface, Shakespeare frames the conflict between Shylock and Antonio as one between Jewish wrath and Christian mercy. This is based in overgeneralizations of the Bible that cast the God of the Old Testament as terrifyingly vengeful and the God of the New Testament as merciful, as exhibited through the qualities of Jesus Christ. While there is scriptural evidence to support this interpretation, theologians tend to consider it a facile dichotomy—God is unchanging, and in any case, the Old Testament God is as capable of mercy as the New Testament God is of wrath.
Nevertheless, this wrath-mercy divide comes to define the argument that plays out during the court proceeding. Before debating the merits of the case, Portia asks that Shylock abandon his claim on Antonio’s pound of flesh in her famed “quality of mercy” speech. It is a startlingly eloquent expression of the divine nature of mercy which Shakespeare, based on his body of work, seems to genuinely endorse. Yet when Portia’s lofty ideals of mercy come crashing into the realities of 16th-century Venice, her words ring more hollow. For oppressed groups like Renaissance-era Jews, the margins for survival are slim. In the face of rampant anti-Semitism, Shylock cannot as readily afford to engage in merciful behavior as Antonio. Consider, for example, that as Portia makes her seemingly artless speech about mercy, her true intent is to throw the book at Shylock, charging him with attempted murder as an “alien.” Shylock’s status as an “alien” or second-class citizen puts him at risk of losing everything, and therefore he must fight tooth and nail to protect what is his under the law. Moreover, showing mercy to Antonio would threaten Shylock’s livelihood by undermining future lawful claims in a system that already discriminates against Jews.
Just as Shylock’s refusal to show mercy is more reasonable than it first appears, Antonio’s act of mercy is less benevolent than it appears. There is nothing to suggest that Antonio’s had some epiphany about his anti-Semitism—he is no less bigoted than he was at the beginning of the play. Thus, his mercy is contingent on a set of self-serving conditions. Most important is the condition that Shylock convert to Christianity. Shy of taking his life or his fortune, this forced conversion is one of the worst things Antonio could do his enemy. Aside from the humiliation it causes, this conversion to Christianity will alienate Shylock from the Jewish community. Although Shakespeare doesn’t depict this, numerous adaptations—including Michael Radford’s 2004 film—end with Shylock being cast out of the Jewish neighborhood. Thus, even though Shylock can technically keep his home for the rest of his life, he cannot live there, nor can he sell it because it is reserved for Jessica and Lorenzo upon his death. Antonio’s act of mercy utterly ruins him. Rather, this is a false mercy that dishonors the divine qualities Portia so eloquently described earlier.
How Appearances Deceive with Shiny Surfaces and Vice Versa
Throughout the play gleaming surfaces or rhetoric hide ill intentions or outcomes. This is seen most explicitly in the three caskets suitors must choose between to win Portia’s hand in marriage. He who succeeds in this endeavor must look past the dull ugliness of the lead casket. Conversely, when the prince of Morocco opens the gold casket, he finds a skull and a poem that opens with the eternal and widely adapted line, “All that glisters is not gold” (2.7.73).
Yet despite Bassanio’s ability to look past surface-level beauty with respect to the caskets, the Christian characters lack the self-awareness to see the rot at the heart of their lofty rhetoric. Nor can they see that the humanity coursing through the blood of non-Christian characters like Shylock and the prince of Morocco is no different than their own. The prince references this when he tells Portia that if she were to cut open the veins of the Whitest European suitor, his blood would run no redder than the prince’s. This notion is also central to Shylock’s “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” speech.
In turn, the Christian characters cannot penetrate their own lofty rhetoric to see the malevolence—or at the very least self-interest—beneath. Bassanio’s efforts to woo Portia appear to her as a good-faith show of love and affection. Yet from Bassanio’s perspective, his marriage to Portia is as much a business transaction as anything else. Early in the play, Antonio remarks that “[t]he Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose” (1.3.107). He lacks the self-awareness, however, to realize that this is precisely what he and Portia do at the court proceeding when they ruin Shylock’s life and career under the guise of Christian mercy. The hypocrisy of the court’s calls for mercy are further exposed when Shylock attacks the duke and his magistrates for owning and abusing enslaved people.
Again and again, the Christian characters see through appearances only when it suits their self-interest. Although Bassanio refuses to acknowledge the basic humanity that courses through Shylock’s veins, he tells Portia not to judge his present state of impecuniousness because the wealth that runs through his own veins makes him a gentleman, no matter his bank account balance. Only Portia briefly acknowledges the extent to which appearances may deceive her when, at the end of the play, she points out that objects take on qualities based on relative comparisons. The commoner, she says, may shine as brightly as a king until a real king appears to outshine him. So too may Portia later realize that Bassanio only appears worthy of her hand in marriage when compared to the low-grade quality of her other suitors.
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By William Shakespeare
