merchant of venice portia essay

Portia Merchant Of Venice Essay

The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays. The story revolves around the character of Portia, a wealthy heiress who is forced to marry a man she does not love. The play is full of suspense and drama, and has been adapted for stage and screen many times. Portia is one of Shakespeare’s most iconic characters, and her story continues to captivate audiences centuries after the play was first written.

Is Portia the finest female Shakespearean part? Portia is one of Shakespeares greatest roles for a actress, and she displays great wits and intellect in this play. Those are characteristics that no other female character has previously displayed. The Merchant of Venice was written by Shakespeare between 1595 and 1598, and some of the important characters include Antonio, Portia, Shylock, Bassanio, Lorenzo, Jessica Gratiano ,Nerissa Launcelot Gobbo ,and County Palatine.

The play is set in the city of Venice and the surrounding areas. The Merchant Of Venice is a story about Antonio, a Christian merchant who borrows money from his Jewish friend Shylock, to help his friend Bassanio woo Portia. The loan comes with a condition: if Antonio cannot repay the debt within three months, Shylock can take a pound of Antonios flesh.

When the time comes, Shylock demands his payment, but Antonio has lost all his ships at sea and cannot repay the debt. The Duke of Venice orders that Shylocks claim be heard in court, where Portia serves as judge. She disguises herself as a lawyer and uses her wit and intelligence to save Antonios life and defeat Shylock.

Portia is one of the most intelligent and well-spoken characters in all of Shakespeares plays. She is able to think on her feet and come up with a creative solution to the problem at hand. Portia is also a very strong woman who isnt afraid to stand up for what she believes in. Shes a true feminist heroine.

Portia is one of the best female Shakespearean parts because she is such a strong, intelligent and well-spoken character. The role presents a great challenge for any actress, but it is also an incredibly rewarding experience to play such a complex and multi-faceted character. If youre looking for a challenging and rewarding role, then consider auditioning for The Merchant Of Venice and playing the part of Portia. You wont regret it!

In The Merchant of Venice, Portia has a number of lengthy speeches in which she demonstrates her intellect by making fun of her suitors or expressing her love for Bassanio and affection for law. When Bassanio tells Portia about the bond, the sequence begins with In Belmont there is a lady richly endowed. This is demonstrated when Bassanio informs her about the outstanding quantity of money owed. She adds What, no more? after learning about the amount owing and instructs him to pay off six thousand dollars and deface the bond; then double it again.

Shakespeare also makes it clear that she is very beautiful by the way Bassanio and the other suitors talk about her. In The Merchant Of Venice, Shakespeare presents Portia as a strong and intelligent woman who is able to hold her own in a male-dominated society.

As Portia became aware that Bassanio was not as rich as the other suitors, she noticed something new about him. Portia had enough money to live on; she did not need a wealthy suitor, so she fell in love with the guy whom she thought might really care for her rather than just want to get richer.

When Bassanio informed her of the contract, however, Portia immediately agreed to assist Antonio with the cash and Shylock’s defeat. In the courtroom scene, when Portia pretends to be The Doctor Of Law and demands to help out, she gets a chance to demonstrate her wit and legal knowledge.

She easily defeats Shylock with her knowledge and rhetoric, and in the end, she gets Bassanio back, as well as a fair amount of money. Portia is one of Shakespeare’s strongest and most intelligent female characters.

When The Merchant Of Venice was first written, women’s roles were very different than they are now. Women were not allowed to participate in any form of business or economy, and their main purpose was to get married and have children. Shakespeare subverted these norms by writing Portia as a strong female character who is not only intelligent and well-educated, but also capable of besting men in court. This would have been shocking and controversial to audiences at the time, but it is one of the things that makes The Merchant Of Venice so timeless.

Portia is a great example of Shakespeare’s skill as a playwright. She is a fully developed character with her own motivations and desires. She is not simply there to help the men or to be a love interest; she is an active participant in the plot, and her scenes are some of the most memorable in the play. If you are interested in seeing a strong female character on stage, then you should definitely check out The Merchant Of Venice. You won’t be disappointed.

Shylock bargained for a pound of Antonio’s flesh, which Portia accepted. However, because she states that she is a trainee and well-versed in the law, she is permitted to do so. If Portia had no knowledge of the law, she would not have been able to help Antonio win his case against Shylock.

During her case, Portia appeared to side with Shylock by agreeing with his right to the bond. She stated, Why this bond should be forfeited; and lawfully by this phrasing, the Jew may claim a pound of flesh at any time during the year In this scene’s opening segment, it appears as if she will side with Shylock and assist him.

However, as the scene goes on, it becomes clear that she is siding with Antonio and trying to help him. The way she does this is by using her knowledge of the law to find a loophole that will save Antonio’s life. The loophole she finds is that the bond says that Shylock can take a pound of flesh, but it does not say anything about taking blood.

She tells the court that if Shylock takes any blood from Antonio, then he will be breaking the law and will be immediately put to death. This saves Antonio’s life and leads to Shylock’s downfall. Portia is therefore able to use her knowledge of the law to help someone in need and defeat someone who was trying to harm them. This makes her a very admirable character.

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A Modern Perspective: The Merchant of Venice

By Alexander Leggatt

The Merchant of Venice is a comedy. Comedies traditionally end in marriage, and on the way they examine the social networks in which marriage is involved: the relations among families, among friends, among parents and children, and what in Shakespeare’s society were the all-important ties of money and property. Comedies also create onstage images of closed communities of right-thinking people, from which outsiders are excluded by being laughed at. If The Merchant of Venice has always seemed one of Shakespeare’s more problematic and disturbing comedies, this may be because it examines the networks of society more closely than usual, and treats outsiders—one in particular—with a severity that seems to go beyond the comic.

In the interweaving of the play’s stories we see a chain of obligations based on money. Bassanio needs money to pay his debts, and plans to get it by marrying the rich heiress Portia. To make money he needs to borrow money—from his friend Antonio, who borrows it from Shylock, who borrows it, according to the patter of his trade, from Tubal. Once Bassanio has won Portia she becomes part of the network, and the obligations become more than financial. She imposes on herself the condition that before her marriage is consummated, Antonio must be freed from his bond to Shylock; as she tells Bassanio, “never shall you lie by Portia’s side / With an unquiet soul” ( 3.2.318 –19). She takes on herself the task of freeing Antonio. As Bassanio must journey to Belmont and answer the riddle of the caskets, Portia must journey to Venice and answer the riddle of Shylock’s bond. Antonio thus becomes “bound” ( 4.1.425 ) to the young doctor (Portia) who saved him, and the only payment the doctor will take is Bassanio’s ring. Antonio now, in effect, has to borrow from Bassanio to pay Portia: it is at Antonio’s insistence that Bassanio reluctantly gives away the ring. Yet the ring represents Bassanio’s tie of loyalty to Portia, the husband’s obligation to be bound exclusively to his wife; she gives the ring, as Shylock gives money, with conditions attached:

Which, when you part from, lose, or give away,

Let it presage the ruin of your love,

And be my vantage to exclaim on you.

( 3.2.176 –78)

The line of obligation runs, like the play itself, from Venice to Belmont, then from Belmont to Venice, and back to Belmont again. The ring exemplifies the paradox of marriage: it binds two people exclusively to each other, yet it does so within a social network in which they have inevitable ties with other people, ties on which the marriage itself depends. Portia and Bassanio depend on Antonio, who is Portia’s chief rival for Bassanio’s affection. The story of the ring is based on paradoxes: Bassanio, in giving it to the young “doctor,” is betraying Portia at her own request, and giving her back her own. In the final scene Portia gives the ring to Antonio, who returns it to Bassanio, thus participating in a symbolic exchange that cements the marriage relationship from which he is excluded. As Portia’s ring comes back to Portia, then back to Bassanio, the line of obligation becomes at last a circle, the symbol at once of perfection and exclusion.

Portia is also bound to her father. When we first see her she is chafing at the way her father has denied her freedom of choice in marriage: “So is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father” ( 1.2.24 –25). But by the end of that scene she is reconciled to her father’s will when she hears that her unwanted suitors have departed rather than face the test; and of course Bassanio, the man she wants—the man who visited Belmont in her father’s time ( 1.2.112 –21)—is the winner. The will of the dead father and the will of the living daughter are one. Portia sees the value of the test from her own point of view when she tells Bassanio, “If you do love me, you will find me out” ( 3.2.43 ), and in the moment of victory he insists that to have satisfied her father’s condition is not enough “Until confirmed, signed, ratified by you” ( 3.2.152 ). The dead father is satisfied, but theatrically the emphasis falls on the satisfaction of the living daughter.

In the story of Shylock and Jessica all these emphases are reversed. Jessica’s loyalties are divided. She recognizes a real obligation to her father—“Alack, what heinous sin is it in me / To be ashamed to be my father’s child?” ( 2.3.16 –17)—and she hopes her elopement will “end this strife” ( 2.3.20 ). For her it does (with reservations we will come to later); but Shakespeare puts the focus on the pain and humiliation it causes Shylock. The vicious taunts he endures from the Venetians identify him as an old man who has lost his potency, “two stones, two rich and precious stones” ( 2.8.20 –21), and his cry, “My own flesh and blood to rebel!” draws Solanio’s cruel retort, “Out upon it, old carrion! Rebels it at these years?” ( 3.1.34 –36). While Portia’s father retains his power beyond the grave, Shylock is mocked as an impotent old man. We may find Lancelet Gobbo’s teasing of his blind father cruel; while Shakespeare’s contemporaries had stronger stomachs for this sort of thing than we do, Shakespeare’s own humor is not usually so heartless. With the taunting of Shylock he goes further: the jokes of Salarino and Solanio, like those of Iago, leave us feeling no impulse to laugh.

This brings us to the problem of the way comedy treats outsiders, and to the cruelty that so often lies at the heart of laughter. Portia begins her dissection of her unwanted suitors “I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but . . .” ( 1.2.57 –58) and goes on to indulge that sin with real gusto. The unwanted suitors are all foreigners, and are mocked as such; only the Englishman, we notice, gets off lightly. (His fault, interestingly, is his inability to speak foreign languages; in one of the play’s more complicated jokes, the insularity of the English audience, which the rest of the scene plays up to, becomes itself the target of laughter.) Morocco and Arragon lose the casket game for good reasons. Morocco chooses the gold casket because he thinks the phrase “what many men desire” is a sign of Portia’s market value. This is a tribute, but not the tribute of love. Arragon thinks not of Portia’s worth but of his own. Besides, Morocco and Arragon are foreign princes, and Morocco’s foreignness is compounded by his dark skin, which Shakespeare emphasizes in a rare stage direction specifying the actor’s costume: “a tawny Moor all in white” ( 2.1.0 SD). Portia’s dismissal of him, “Let all of his complexion choose me so” ( 2.7.87 ), is for us an ugly moment. The prejudice that is, if not overturned, at least challenged and debated in Titus Andronicus and Othello is casually accepted here.

The most conspicuous problem, of course, is Shylock, and here we need to pause. The Merchant of Venice was written within a culture in which prejudice against Jews was pervasive and endemic. It can be argued that this goes back to the earliest days of Christianity, when the tradition began of making the Jews bear the guilt of the Crucifixion. Throughout medieval and early Renaissance Europe the prejudice bred dark fantasies: Jews were accused, for example, of conducting grotesque rituals in which they murdered Christian children and drank their blood. The story of a Jew who wants a pound of Christian flesh may have its roots in these fantasies of Jews violating Christian bodies. Shylock’s profession of usury is also bound up with his race: barred from other occupations, the Jews of Europe took to moneylending. Antonio’s disapproval of lending money at interest echoes traditional Christian teaching (Christian practice was another matter). Shylock’s boast that he makes his gold and silver breed like ewes and rams would remind his audience of the familiar argument that usury was against the law of God because metal was sterile and could not breed. Not just in his threat to Antonio, but in his day-to-day business, Shylock would appear unnatural.

Prejudice feeds on ignorance; since the Jews had been expelled from England in 1290, Shakespeare may never have met one. (There were a few in London in his time, but they could not practice their religion openly.) Given that the villainy of Shylock is one of the mainsprings of the story, it would have been far more natural for Shakespeare to exploit this prejudice than resist it. Many critics and performers, however, have insisted that he did resist it. His imagination, so the argument runs, worked on the figure of Shylock until it had created sympathy for him, seeing him as the victim of persecution. The great Victorian actor Henry Irving played him as a wronged and dignified victim, representative of a suffering race. Shylock’s famous self-defense, “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands . . .?” ( 3.1.57 –58), has been taken out of context and presented as a plea for the recognition of our common humanity. In context, however, its effect is less benevolent. Shylock’s plea is compelling and eloquent, but he himself uses it not to argue for tolerance but to defend his cruelty: “The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction” ( 3.1.70 –72). Gratiano’s taunt, “A Daniel still, say I! A second Daniel!— / I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word” ( 4.1.354 –55), shows that Gratiano, along with the word “Daniel,” has also picked up from Shylock, without knowing it, the word “teach,” and the echo is a terrible demonstration of the ways we teach each other hate so that prejudice moves in a vicious circle.

Does the play itself break out of this circle? There is little encouragement in the text to think so. In other plays Shakespeare casually uses the word “Jew” as a term of abuse, and this usage is intensified here. The kindest thing Lorenzo’s friends can find to say about Jessica is that she is “a gentle and no Jew” ( 2.6.53 ). We are aware of the pain Shylock feels in defeat; but the play emphasizes that he has brought it on himself, and no one in the play expresses sympathy for him, just as no one—except Shylock—ever questions Antonio’s right to spit on him. Given the latitude of interpretation, there are ways around the problem. Critics and performers alike have found sympathy for Shylock in his suffering, and have attacked the Christians’ treatment of him. But these readings are allowed rather than compelled by the text, and to a great extent they go against its surface impression.

It has to be said that many people who normally love Shakespeare find The Merchant of Venice painful. It even has power to do harm: it has provoked racial incidents in schools, and school boards have sometimes banned it. One may reply that the way to deal with a work one finds offensive is not censorship but criticism; in any case, everyone who teaches or performs the play needs to be aware of the problems it may create for their students and audiences, and to confront those problems as honestly as they can. At best, there are legitimate interpretations that control or resist the anti-Semitism in the text. At worst, it can be an object lesson showing that even a great writer can be bound by the prejudices of his time. To raise this kind of question is of course to go beyond the text as such and to make the problem of Shylock loom larger than it would have done for Shakespeare. In discussions of this kind, the objection “Why can’t we just take it as a play?” is often heard. But we cannot place Shakespeare in a sealed container. He belonged to his time, and, as the most widely studied and performed playwright in the world, he belongs to ours. He exerts great power within our culture, and we cannot take it for granted that this power is always benevolent.

To return to the text, and to explore the ramifications of the figure of Shylock a bit further: Shylock, Morocco, and Arragon are not the play’s only losers. The group, paradoxically, includes Antonio, who is the center of so much friendship and concern. In the final scene he is a loner in a world of couples, and the sadness he expressed at the beginning of the play does not really seem to have lifted. He resists attempts to make him reveal his secret; but when to Solanio’s “Why then you are in love” he replies “Fie, fie!” ( 1.1.48 ), we notice it is not a direct denial. Solanio himself later makes clear the depth of Antonio’s feeling for Bassanio: “I think he only loves the world for him” ( 2.8.52 ). In the trial scene Antonio tells Bassanio to report his sacrifice and bid Portia “be judge / Whether Bassanio had not once a love” ( 4.1.288 –89). Antonio has not only accepted Bassanio’s marriage, he has helped make it possible—yet there is a touch of rivalry here. In the trial his courageous acceptance of death shades into an actual yearning for it, and in the final restoration of his wealth there is something restrained and cryptic. Portia will not tell him how she came by the news that his ships have been recovered; his own response, “I am dumb” ( 5.1.299 ), has the same curtness as Shylock’s “I am content” ( 4.1.410 ), and the same effect of closing off conversation. Whether we should call Antonio’s love for Bassanio “homosexual” is debatable; the term did not exist until fairly recently, and some social historians argue that the concept did not exist either. Our own language of desire and love does not necessarily apply in other cultures. What matters to our understanding of the play is that Antonio’s feeling for Bassanio is not only intense but leaves him excluded from the sort of happiness the other characters find as they pair off into couples. This gives Antonio an ironic affinity with his enemy Shylock: both are outsiders. Many current productions end with Antonio conspicuously alone as the couples go off to bed.

Another character who is in low spirits at the end of some productions of The Merchant of Venice is Jessica. There is less warrant for this in the text, apart from her line “I am never merry when I hear sweet music” ( 5.1.77 ). Jessica is a significant case of a character who has broken the barrier between outsider and insider, joining a group (the Christians) to which she did not originally belong. She is welcomed, and seems at ease in her new world, but Lancelet Gobbo, the plainspoken and sometimes anarchic clown of the play, raises doubts about the efficacy of her conversion—she is damned if she is her father’s daughter, and damned if she isn’t ( 3.5.1 –25)—and about its economic consequences: “This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs” ( 3.5.22 –23). In a play in which money counts for so much, this is a very pointed joke. Lancelet uses his clown’s license to raise the question of whether Jessica will ever be fully accepted in Christian society. (His own contribution to race relations has been to get a Moor pregnant, and his reference to her does not sound affectionate.) Jessica’s uneasiness at going into male disguise could suggest a worry about the deeper change she is making in her nature.

Her uneasiness also makes a revealing contrast with Portia’s attitude to her disguise, and suggests there may be a parallel between the two women. Given her easy dominance of every scene in which she appears, it may seem odd to think of Portia as an outsider. But she is a woman in a society whose structures are male-centered and patriarchal. She greets her marriage with a surrender of herself and her property to a man who, like her father, will have full legal control over her:

Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours

Is now converted. But now I was the lord

Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,

Queen o’er myself; and even now, but now,

This house, these servants, and this same myself

Are yours, my lord’s.

( 3.2.170 –75)

Yet she continues to dominate Bassanio, and more than that: like Jessica, she uses male disguise to enter another world, the exclusive male club (as it then was) of the legal profession. Unlike Jessica, she moves into this new world with confidence. Her mockery of swaggering young men as she plans her disguise is irrelevant to the story but seems to answer a need in the character to poke fun at the sex whose rules she is about to subvert. Not for the only time in Shakespeare, we see a stage full of men who need a woman to sort out their problems.

Portia may also be seen as bringing fresh air from Belmont into the sea-level miasma of Venice, and readings of the play have often been constructed around a sharp opposition between the two locations, between the values of Portia and the values of Shylock. Shakespeare, however, will not leave it at that; there are constant echoes back and forth between the play’s apparently disparate worlds. Portia gives a ring to Bassanio, who gives it away; Leah gave a ring to Shylock, and Jessica steals it. Keys lock Shylock’s house and unlock the caskets of Belmont. Portia calls Bassanio “dear bought” ( 3.2.326 ) and Shylock uses almost the same words for his pound of flesh, which is “dearly bought” ( 4.1.101 ). Shylock’s proverb, “Fast bind, fast find” ( 2.5.55 ), could be a comment on the way the women use the rings to bind the men to them. His claim on Antonio’s body is grotesque, but the adultery jokes of the final scene remind us that married couples also claim exclusive rights in each other’s bodies. Marriage is mutual ownership, and Shylock’s recurring cry of “mine!” echoes throughout the play.

The final images of harmony are a bit precarious. The moonlight reminds Lorenzo and Jessica of stories of tragic, betrayed love, in which they teasingly include their own. These stories are stylized and distanced, but not just laughed off as the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe is in A Midsummer Night’s Dream . The problem of the rings is laughed off, but there is some pain and anxiety behind the laughter. The stars are “patens of bright gold” ( 5.1.67 )—that is, plates used in the Eucharist which are also rich material objects. The play’s materialism touches even the spiritual realm, and Lorenzo’s eloquent account of the music of the spheres ends with a reminder that “we cannot hear it” ( 5.1.73 ). When Portia describes the beauty of the night, she creates a paradox: “This night methinks is but the daylight sick; / It looks a little paler” ( 5.1.137 –38). So, as we watch the lovers go off to bed, we may think of their happiness, or of the human cost to those who have been excluded; we may wonder how much it matters that this happiness was bought in part with Shylock’s money. A brilliant night, or a sickly day? We may feel that this is another harmony whose music eludes us. Or we may conclude that the happiness is all the more precious for being hard-won, and all the more believable for the play’s acknowledgment that love is part of the traffic of the world.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Merchant of Venice — Portia and Bassanio Relationship in ‘The Merchant of Venice’

Portia and Bassanio Relationship in 'The Merchant of Venice'

• Categories: Character Merchant of Venice William Shakespeare

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Published: Aug 14, 2023

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Portia’s selfishness in her relationship with bassanio.

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The Merchant of Venice

William shakespeare.

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

The Merchant of Venice: Introduction

The merchant of venice: plot summary, the merchant of venice: detailed summary & analysis, the merchant of venice: themes, the merchant of venice: quotes, the merchant of venice: characters, the merchant of venice: symbols, the merchant of venice: literary devices, the merchant of venice: quizzes, the merchant of venice: theme wheel, brief biography of william shakespeare.

Historical Context of The Merchant of Venice

Other books related to the merchant of venice.

• Full Title: The Merchant of Venice
• When Written: 1596–8
• Where Written: England
• When Published: 1623
• Literary Period: The Renaissance
• Genre: Comedy/tragicomedy; Revenge tragedy
• Setting: Venice, and the nearby country estate of Belmont
• Climax: The trial of Antonio, the merchant, and Shylock, the Jewish moneylender
• Antagonist: Shylock

Extra Credit for The Merchant of Venice

"Which is the merchant here? And which the Jew?" Modern audiences of Merchant of Venice often mistake Shylock for the "merchant" of the title—which actually refers to Antonio.

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1. Shakespeare ( AQA GCSE English Literature )

Revision note.

The Merchant of Venice question is part of Paper 1, Section A of your GCSE. For this, you are required to write one essay-length answer to one set question. This can seem daunting at first, but this page contains some helpful information, and links to more detailed revision note pages, that will enable you to aim for the highest grade. This page includes:

• A summary of The Merchant of Venice
• A brief overview of what is required in the exam

The Merchant of Venice characters

The Merchant of Venice context

The Merchant of Venice themes

The Merchant of Venice quotes

Top tips for the highest grade

The Merchant of Venice summary

The Merchant of Venice was written by William Shakespeare during the late 16th century. It depicts the story of Antonio, a merchant from Venice, who fails to repay a substantial loan borrowed from a Jewish moneylender named Shylock.

It is classified as a comedy and is similar to other romantic comedies by Shakespeare. The play is largely known for its dramatic scenes and for the character of Shylock. Shylock is renowned for demanding a "pound of flesh" as retribution. The play also includes two famous speeches: one from Shylock about the nature of humanity and Portia's speech on mercy. It contains many of the typical conventions of comedy such as marriage, misconception, and disguise and gender. For more on the conventions of tragedy, see The Merchant of Venice: Writer’s Methods and Techniques page. 

The play is about Antonio, a merchant, who owes money to Shylock, a vindictive moneylender. Antonio borrows the sum on behalf of his friend, Bassanio, to woo and marry a woman named Portia. After Antonio's trading ships sink, he cannot repay the debt, prompting Shylock to demand a pound of flesh as per their agreement. However, Portia, disguised as a man, intervenes during the trial and saves Antonio. As a result, Shylock is instructed to convert to Christianity and Antonio recovers his wealth from his sunken ships. For a more detailed summary, please see The Merchant of Venice: Plot Summary page . 

How is The Merchant of Venice assessed in the exam?

• Your GCSE Paper 1 requires you to answer two questions in 1hr 45min. That means you have approximately 52 minutes to plan, write and check your Merchant of Venice essay
• Paper 1 is worth 64 marks and accounts for 40% of your overall GCSE grade
• The Merchant of Venice essay is worth 34 marks in total, because it also includes 4 marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar
• Section A of Paper 1 contains The Merchant of Venice question and you are required to answer the one available question on the play
• Your question will also include a printed extract of about 25 lines from the play
• It is a closed-book exam, which means you will not have access to a copy of the text (other than the printed extract) in your exam
• The question will require you to analyse and write in detail about an aspect of The Merchant of Venice
• Your answer will need to address both the extract from the play that you will be given, and the play as a whole

For a much more detailed guide on answering The Merchant of Venice question, please see our revision notes on How to Answer the Shakespeare Essay Question .

The characters you should focus on when revising The Merchant of Venice are:

When considering a Shakespeare play or any other text, it is crucial to remember that characters are intentionally crafted by the writer to serve a specific purpose. In many cases, these characters embody certain concepts or beliefs, and the writer, such as Shakespeare, uses them to reflect on and examine these ideas. For more details on how Shakespeare uses his characters in The Merchant of Venice, please see The Merchant of Venice: Characters revision notes page. 

Understanding what context actually is can be tricky at GCSE. Examiners understand context not as historical information, or biographical facts about a writer, but as the ideas and perspectives explored by a writer through their text. Therefore, The Merchant of Venice context you should explore in your essay response is not information about medieval Italy, or facts about William Shakespeare, but ideas about:

• Prejudice and intolerance
• Love and friendship in the Elizabethan era
• Wealth and power

Lots of these ideas and perspectives are universal, so your own opinions of them are valid and will be rewarded in an exam. For a detailed breakdown of the contextual topics listed above, see The Merchant of Venice: Context page. 

Understanding the themes that Shakespeare explores in The Merchant of Venice is one of the best approaches any student can take when revising the play. This is because to get the highest mark on your exam, you need to take what examiners call a “conceptualised approach”: a detailed and perceptive exploration of Shakespeare’s ideas and intentions. The main themes explored by Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice are:

• Justice and mercy
• Love and friendship

Shakespeare explores numerous other themes in The Merchant of Venice beyond those mentioned above and you are encouraged to examine these themes too. However, the above list makes a great place to start and detailed breakdowns of each of these themes can be found on The Merchant of Venice: Themes page.  

Although you are given credit for including quotations from The Merchant of Venice in your answer, it is not a requirement of the exam. In fact, examiners say that “references” to the rest of the play are just as valid as direct quotations: this is when students pinpoint individual moments in the play, rather than quoting what the characters say. In order to select references really successfully, it is extremely important that you know the play itself very well, including the order of the events that take place in the play. This detailed act-by-act breakdown of the plot will help you to revise the chronology of The Merchant of Venice.

However, it can also be useful to revise a few – very well selected –  quotations from the play that can be used in a variety of essays on different themes and characters. Luckily, we have made that selection for you! For a ‘translation’ and detailed analysis of each of these quotations, see The Merchant of Venice: Key Quotations page.

Please see our revision pages on the Shakespeare exam for guides on:

• Structuring The Merchant of Venice essay
• The Merchant of Venice methods and techniques
• How to include context in The Merchant of Venice essay
• Understanding The Merchant of Venice mark scheme
• A Shakespeare model answer

Merchant of Venice

By william shakespeare, merchant of venice essay questions.

In what ways does The Merchant of Venice defy the comedic genre?

While The Merchant of Venice is firmly placed in the genre of comedy, it is a unique comedy in that it features many tropes of early modern tragedy – namely, the gruesome predilections and rhetorical skill of its central antagonist, the long-winded soliloquies interrogating major philosophical concepts, and the bleak, anxious tone that characterizes most of the play before its "twist" of a conclusion. As such, many interpret the play as an ambiguous take on the nature of prejudice and the tragic consequences it can have (though they do materialize in this play in particular).

To what extent is Shylock a true antagonist?

A major contributing factor to the play's ambiguous tone is its antagonist, Shylock. Shylock is both a selfish, money-hungry, vengeful schemer and a victim of prejudice at the hands of the Christian characters. As such, the play encourages its audience to question wether Shylock can be considered a pure villain or pure victim throughout. While he is inarguably the play's central antagonist, his character development over the course of the play asks the audience to reflect on where that antagonism may have been generated.

What, or who, triumphs at the end of the play?

Generally speaking, it is the Christian characters who triumph at the end of the play, specifically Antonio as he is freed from his contract with Shylock. However, Portia's speech during the trial (when she is disguised as Balthazar) suggests that the real victor in the play is mercy, or qualities of the righteous Christian soul. Mercy was and continues to be associated with Jesus Christ, and in speaking about the importance of mercy between Shylock and Antonio, Portia suggests that the teachings of Christianity will triumph in the end.

Why does Shylock demand a pound of Antonio's flesh instead of money?

During the trial, Shylock refuses to accept 6,000 ducats from Antonio (double the amount of the original loan). While Shylock is portrayed as a money-hungry miser throughout the play, he rejects this offer and continues to demand the pound of flesh from the original contract. This moment suggests that Shylock is not motivated entirely by money or financial gain. On the contrary, it seems his dedication to receiving the pound of flesh stems from his deep desire for revenge on a member of the Christian community, after he has suffered years of abuse at their hands for being Jewish.

How does the play comment on gender?

In one of the play's more lighthearted plots, Portia and Nerissa disguise themselves as male officials of the Venetian court in order to intervene on Antonio's behalf. While cross-dressing was always entertaining on the early modern stage, Portia's confidence that she can sway the court serves as commentary on the relationship between gender and power. Portia suggests that masculinity – and the power associated with it – is itself performative, and that it only takes a male disguise for a woman to be taken seriously among men.

Merchant of Venice Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Merchant of Venice is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Explain Portias tactics. Why does she appear to support Shylock at first?

When Portia arrives in court, she asks, "Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?" (4.1.169). Indeed, given the confusion so many people have with the title, it is often this very question which is asked. Scholars have tried to attribute her...

Describe merchant of venice as romantic comedy

While the story hits upon the tragic element of despair, The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, is a comedy because lovers are separated, characters are in disguise, and the story has a happy ending.

ACT III SCENE 3: What do you think Shylock means when he says, “it is my humour”?

This could be defined as "this is what I feel like doing".

Study Guide for Merchant of Venice

Merchant of Venice study guide contains a biography of William Shakespeare, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Merchant of Venice
• Merchant of Venice Summary
• Merchant of Venice Video
• Character List

Essays for Merchant of Venice

Merchant of Venice literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Merchant of Venice.

• The Victorious Woman in Measure for Measure and The Merchant of Venice
• Father-Daughter Relationships in The Merchant of Venice
• Mercy and the Masquerade: Trial and Performance in The Merchant of Venice
• Christianity and Judaism in The Merchant of Venice: Imperfect Faith
• The Anti-Semitic Question in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

Lesson Plan for Merchant of Venice

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Merchant of Venice
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Merchant of Venice Bibliography

E-Text of Merchant of Venice

Merchant of Venice E-Text contains the full text of Merchant of Venice

• List of Characters

Wikipedia Entries for Merchant of Venice

• Introduction

Common – The Merchant Of Venice – Essay

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Resource Description

Essay that compares and contrasts the characters of Shylock & Portia (Shakespeare’s The Merchant Of Venice.)

William Shakespeare’s masterful storytelling in his play The Merchant Of Venice (MOV) allows audiences to introspect and gain insight into the anomalies which epitomise the human experience. Accordingly, the Bard’s treatment of Shylock and Portia’s individual experiences is unique because as the plot progresses, these seemingly dichotomous become increasingly alike due their paradoxes. Ultimately, this story has impacted audiences across time by providing a perspective which authentically reflects the human condition.

Shakespeare contrasts Shylock and Portia’s individual experiences through the audience’s surface level perception of their characters, as a bloodthirsty Jew and an empowering Heroine, respectively.  The Jew’s antagonistic tendencies are established whilst creating the bond with Antonio, “In merry sport, if you repay me not … let the forfeit be nominated for an equal pound of your fair flesh.” Although Shylock maintains the comic genre of MOV by stating that the agreement is “a merry sport,” it is highly inconsistent because when he later uses the phrase “merry bond,” he incorporates an oxymoron, as a bond which legalises murder is hardly merry. Ultimately, the bond is a symbol which encompasses Shylock’s revenge and disregard for Antonio’s life, which coincides with the Elizabethan myth of Jews being barbaric enough to practice ritual murder. Shylock’s jest is virtually absent later in the play, as he demands, “I’ll have my bond. I will not hear thee speak … I’ll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool… I will have my bond.” Through pairing anaphora with the imperative mood of the verb “I will,” the playwright utilises Shylock’s ire-filled monologue to solidify him as a bloodthirsty Machiavellian adamant to receive justice and witness Antonio suffer. Comparatively, Shakespeare contrasts Shylock against Portia, who is indirectly introduced at the start of the play through Bassanio as, “a lady richly left, and she is fair, and fairer than that word, of wondrous virtues.” In this line, Bassanio’s hyperbolic language exalts Portia as a paragon of Renaissance womanhood in whom the classical graces of beauty, chastity and passion are perfectly balanced and combined. However, the fact is she “left” implies that Portia is abandoned and vulnerable in the patriarchal society, with a fortune coveted by many suitors. By the climax, however, Portia subverts such assumptions by crossdressing as a lawyer to save Antonio, in which the dramatist juxtaposes Portia against the men she is subservient to, but less capable. Portia exercises her intelligence in the monologue, “The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven… it is enthroned in the hearts of kings, it is an attribute of God.” Portia instills her argument with ethos and religious imagery to prove that “mercy is above” the law of common men as it is “in the hearts of kings” who have a Divine Right to rule; hence, “it is an attribute to God himself” which even a Jew must respect. Evidently, the dramatist skillfully depicts the disparities in these opposing individual experiences before revealing their similarities.

By exposing the dualities of these multifaceted characters, Shakespeare is able to establish their collective human experience. Throughout MOV, casual abuse is shown towards Shylock by constantly referring to him by the vocative “the Jew,” which completely dehumanises and alienates him from Venetian society. Furthermore, a large array of deprecatory nouns and adjectives are added before this, to augment how uncivilised and subhuman Shylock is from a Christian perspective, including, “dog,” “villain,” “faithless,” “currish,” and “harsh.” Moreover, Antonio expresses the highly discriminatory line, “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness is like a villain with a smiling cheek, a goodly apple rotten at the heart.” By religiously alluding to “the devil,” Antonio  explicitly personifies Shylock as the figure of true evil. Moreover, the juxtaposition of light and dark imagery, shown through “holy witness” and “evil soul,” makes the rigid hierarchy between Christianity and Judaism in Renaissance Italy apparent to modern audiences. However, these acts of prejudice are paradoxical to this group’s collective human experience, as they do not agree with the quality of mercy, which is inherent to Christianity. Shylock’s situation particularly appeals to modern responders due to minimal tolerance towards racism, yet, perhaps the dramatist intends to mock his contemporary audience’s values through this irony.  Although Shylock is solely accused of conspiring to trap “good Antonio,” his villainous actions can be equated with Portia’s in the climactic trial scene, which illustrates their shared human experience. Portia carefully plots her attack against the Jew by waiting until the final moment before revealing the flaw in the bond, “Take thou thy pound of flesh, but in the cutting it, if thou dost shed one drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods are … confiscate.” Rather than employing the imperative, Portia issues this line with conditional language and an ironic politeness to mark a poignant moment of peripeteia. Moreover, by deliberately prolonging the trial and repeatedly giving Shylock the chance to forfeit beforehand, the Bard’s nuanced storytelling highlights Portia’s cruelty as she intentionally exacerbates his humiliation. Despite appealing to audiences across time as a heroine by saving Antonio and challenging Tudor gender roles, the playwright evokes a strong sense of irony by exposing Portia’s paradoxical actions, as Shylock is shown little mercy despite it previously being so earnestly endorsed. His punishment is ruthless as it thieves him of everything he cares for; his family and his religious identity, and has worked tirelessly for; his wealth and status. Ultimately, Shakespeare deliberately creates a sense of ambiguity at the play’s conclusion, allowing audiences for four-hundred years to dispute whether the Jew is a villain or a victim of his context, and whether Portia really is an empowering heroine or a hypocritical racist.

Through challenging perceptions of Portia and Shylock’s individual experiences, Shakespeare’s efficacious storytelling in MOV allows audiences to realise that it is these inconsistencies which connects all humans to forge a universal human experience.

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