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    A Character Sketch of Shylock

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    TANBIR RAHAMAN
    Shylock is a complex character in The Merchant of Venice who is driven by two main passions: money and revenge. He is a miser who values money above all else, even his own daughter. He also deeply hates Antonio for persecuting Jews and seeks bloody revenge against him by demanding a pound of flesh as payment. However, Shakespeare also shows Shylock's humanity and patriotism for his Jewish identity, eliciting some sympathy from audiences.

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    A Character Sketch of Shylock

    Uploaded by

    TANBIR RAHAMAN
    21K views2 pages
    Shylock is a complex character in The Merchant of Venice who is driven by two main passions: money and revenge. He is a miser who values money above all else, even his own daughter. He also deeply hates Antonio for persecuting Jews and seeks bloody revenge against him by demanding a pound of flesh as payment. However, Shakespeare also shows Shylock's humanity and patriotism for his Jewish identity, eliciting some sympathy from audiences.

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    Shylock is a complex character in The Merchant of Venice who is driven by two main passions: money and revenge. He is a miser who values money above all else, even his own daughter. He also deeply hates Antonio for persecuting Jews and seeks bloody revenge against him by demanding a pound of flesh as payment. However, Shakespeare also shows Shylock's humanity and patriotism for his Jewish identity, eliciting some sympathy from audiences.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    21K views2 pages

    A Character Sketch of Shylock

    Uploaded by

    TANBIR RAHAMAN
    Shylock is a complex character in The Merchant of Venice who is driven by two main passions: money and revenge. He is a miser who values money above all else, even his own daughter. He also deeply hates Antonio for persecuting Jews and seeks bloody revenge against him by demanding a pound of flesh as payment. However, Shakespeare also shows Shylock's humanity and patriotism for his Jewish identity, eliciting some sympathy from audiences.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
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    A Character Sketch of Shylock

    Shylock is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of


    Venice. Because of the character's notable request of a "pound of flesh" for security
    interest, individuals considered to charge excessive interest on loans are sometimes
    called "Shylock." The creation of Shylock is one of the triumphs of Shakespeares art
    of characterization. He is highly complex nature, and hence most varied and
    contradictory estimates of his character have been given. Shakespeare has shown
    the Jew as cruel, savage, relentless, vindictive and greedy, with all the atrocity
    traditionally associated with the Jewish character; and yet he has succeeded in
    enlisting our sympathies for him.

    His Passion For Money

    Passion for revenge and passion for money are the two leading traits of his
    character. He is a miser who hoards, and for him even to spend a single penny is a
    torture. He lives for money; money is his life and soul. Money is the standard by
    which he judges others. His greed has destroyed in him even his affection for his
    daughter, since his solicitude at his daughters loss is as nothing compared with his
    rage at the loss of his money:

    My daughter!O my ducats!O my daughter!


    Fled with a Christian!O my Christian ducats.

    His Vindictiveness

    Perhaps even stronger than his love of money is his hatred of Antonio as one
    of the Christians who had persecuted his tribe so cruelly. And one cannot help feeling
    a natural sympathy with the Jew, a sympathy which Shakespeare evidently felt
    himself and presumably intended his audience to share. How pathetic these lines of
    Shylock are:

    Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, sense, affections,
    passions? . 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 also.

    Here Shylock is not speaking in his own person, but as the representative of
    an oppressed people. He feels for the suffering of his race. He is both a type and an
    individual.

    Passion For Revenge


    2

    Shylock insists that his debt be paid; he wants revenge on Antonio, as the
    latter loans money without charging interest (thus making Shylock lose business). He
    had spat on Shylock, verbally and physically abused him, turned his friends against
    him, and inflamed his enemies toward him.

    If I can catch him once upon the hip,


    I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him
    He hates our sacred nation

    His Essential Humanity And Patriotism

    Shylock has often been represented on the stage as a perfectly unnatural


    monster, with no passions save those of hate and avarice, and, indeed, there is some
    cause for such a view. Despite all these unattractive characteristics we cannot say
    that there are no elements of grandeur about this Jew. He always speaks with a true
    patriotic fervor about his sacred nation. He has the true Jewish exclusiveness. There
    is one passage where even he seems to exhibit a trace of affection and essentially
    human feelings. When the Tubal has been giving him an account of Jessicas
    extravagance in Genoa, that among other things she has exchanged his ring for a
    monkey, he cries:

    Out upon her; thou torturest me; Tubal; it


    Was my turquoise: I had it of Leah when
    I was bachelor: I would not have given it for
    A wilderness of monkeys.

    Nevertheless, it must be confessed that, as far as the play goes, we do not


    hear much of the human side of his nature.

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