The Merchant of Venice

by William Shakespeare
Themes, Motifs, and Symbols
Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

On the surface, it appears that the main difference between the Christian characters
and Shylock is that the Christian characters value human relationships over business ones,
whereas Shylock is only interested in money. The Christian characters certainly view the
matter this way. Merchants like Antonio lend money free of interest, and put themselves at risk
for those they love, whereas Shylock agonizes over the loss of his money and is reported to
run through the streets crying, “O, my ducats! O, my daughter!” (II.viii.15). With these words,
he apparently values his money at least as much as his daughter, suggesting that his greed
outweighs his love. However, upon closer inspection, this supposed difference between
Christian and Jew breaks down. When we see Shylock in Act III, scene i, he seems more hurt
by the fact that his daughter sold a ring that was given to him by his dead wife before they
were married than he is by the loss of the ring's monetary value. Some human relationships
do indeed matter to Shylock more than money. Moreover, his insistence that he have a
pound of flesh rather than any amount of money shows that his resentment is much stronger
than his greed.
Just as Shylock's character seems hard to pin down, the Christian characters also
present an inconsistent picture. Though Portia and Bassanio come to love one another,
Bassanio seeks her hand in the first place because he is monstrously in debt and needs her
money. Bassanio even asks Antonio to look at the money he lends Bassanio as an
investment, though Antonio insists that he lends him the money solely out of love. In other
words, Bassanio is anxious to view his relationship with Antonio as a matter of business rather
than of love. Finally, Shylock eloquently argues that Jews are human beings just as Christians
are, but Christians such as Antonio hate Jews simply because they are Jews. Thus, while the
Christian characters may talk more about mercy, love, and charity, they are not always
consistent in how they display these qualities.
 The conflict between Shylock and the Christian characters comes to a head over the
issue of mercy. The other characters acknowledge that the law is on Shylock's side, but they
all expect him to show mercy, which he refuses to do. When, during the trial, Shylock asks
Portia what could possibly compel him to be merciful, Portia's long reply, beginning with the
words, “The quality of mercy is not strained,” clarifies what is at stake in the argument
(IV.i.179). Human beings should be merciful because God is merciful: mercy is an attribute
of God himself, and therefore it is greater than power or majesty or law. Portia's
understanding of mercy is based in the way Christians in Shakespeare's time understood the
difference between the Old and New Testaments. According to the writings of St. Paul in the
New Testament, the Old Testament depicts God as requiring strict adherence to rules and
exacting harsh punishments for those who stray. The New Testament, in contrast, emphasizes
adherence to the spirit rather than the letter of the law, portraying a God who forgives rather
than punishes and offers salvation to those followers who forgive others. Thus, when Portia
warns Shylock against pursuing the law without regard for mercy, she is promoting what
Elizabethan Christians would have seen as a pro-Christian, anti-Jewish agenda.
The strictures of Renaissance drama demanded that Shylock be a villain, and as such,
patently unable to show even a drop of compassion for his enemy.
A sixteenth-century audience would not expect Shylock to exercise mercy—therefore, it
is up to the Christians to do so. Once she has turned Shylock's greatest weapon—the
law—against him, Portia has the opportunity to give freely of the mercy for which she so
beautifully advocates. Instead, she backs Shylock into a corner, where she strips him of his
bond, his estate, and his dignity, forcing him to kneel and beg for mercy. Given that Antonio
decides not to seize Shylock's goods as punishment for conspiring against him, we might
consider Antonio to be merciful. But we may also question whether it is merciful to return to
Shylock half of his goods, only to take away his religion and his profession. By forcing
Shylock to convert, Antonio disables him from practicing usury, which, according to Shylock's
reports, was Antonio's primary reason for berating and spitting on him in public. Antonio's
compassion, then, seems to stem as much from self-interest as from concern for his fellow
man. Mercy, as delivered in The Merchant of Venice, never manages to be as sweet, selfless,
or full of grace as Portia presents it.
 Throughout the play, Shylock claims that he is simply applying the lessons taught to
him by his Christian neighbors, and this claim becomes an integral part of both his character
and his argument in court. In Shylock's very first appearance, as he conspires to harm
Antonio, his entire plan seems to be born of the insults and injuries Antonio has inflicted upon
him in the past. As the play continues, and Shylock unveils more of his reasoning, the same
idea rears its head over and over—he is simply applying what years of abuse have taught
him. Responding to Salerio's query of what good the pound of flesh will do him, Shylock
responds, “The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the
instruction” (III.i.60–61). Not all of Shylock's actions can be blamed on poor teachings, and
one could argue that Antonio understands his own culpability in his near execution. With the
trial's conclusion, Antonio demands that Shylock convert to Christianity, but inflicts no other
punishment, despite the threats of fellow Christians like Graziano. Antonio does not, as he
has in the past, kick or spit on Shylock. Antonio, as well as the duke, effectively ends the
conflict by starving it of the injustices it needs to continue.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and
inform the text's major themes.

The Merchant of Venice

depends heavily upon
laws and rules—the laws
of the state of Venice and
the rules stipulated in
contracts and wills. Laws
and rules can be
manipulated for cruel or wanton purposes, but they are also capable of producing good
when wielded by the right hands. Portia's virtual imprisonment by the game of caskets seems,
at first, like a questionable rule at best, but her likening of the game to a lottery system is
belied by the fact that, in the end, it works perfectly. It keeps a host of suitors of bay, and of
the three who try to choose the correct casket and win Portia's hand, only the man of Portia's
desires succeeds. By the time Bassanio picks the correct chest, the choice has come to seem
like a more efficient indicator of human nature than any person could ever provide. A similar
phenomenon occurs with Venetian law. Until Portia's arrival, Shylock is the law's strictest
adherent, and it seems as if the city's adherence to contracts will result in tragedy. However,
when Portia arrives and manipulates the law most skillfully of all, it results in the happiest
ending of all, at least to an Elizabethan audience: Antonio is rescued and Shylock forced to
abandon his religion. The fact that the trial is such a close call does, however, raise the
fearful specter of how the law can be misused. Without the proper guidance, the law can be
wielded to do horrible things.
 Twice in the play, daring
escapes are executed with
the help of cross-dressing.
Jessica escapes the tedium
of Shylock's house by
dressing as a page, while
Portia and Nerissa rescue
Antonio by posing as
officers of the Venetian court. This device was not only familiar to Renaissance drama, but
essential to its performance: women were banned from the stage and their parts were
performed by prepubescent boys. Shakespeare was a great fan of the potentials of
cross-dressing and used the device often, especially in his comedies. But Portia reveals that
the donning of men's clothes is more than mere comedy. She says that she has studied a
“thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks,” implying that male authority is a kind of
performance that can be imitated successfully (III.iv.77). She feels confident that she can
outwit any male competitor, declaring, “I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two, / And wear my
dagger with the braver grace” (III.iv.64–65). In short, by assuming the clothes of the opposite
sex, Portia enables herself to assume the power and position denied to her as a woman.

Like Shakespeare's other

comedies, The Merchant
of Venice seems to
endorse the behavior of
characters who treat filial
piety lightly, even though
the heroine, Portia, sets
the opposite example by
obeying her father's will. Lancelot greets his blind, long lost father by giving the old man
confusing directions and telling the old man that his beloved son Lancelot is dead. This
moment of impertinence can be excused as essential to the comedy of the play, but it sets the
stage for Jessica's far more complex hatred of her father. Jessica can list no specific
complaints when she explains her desire to leave Shylock's house, and in the one scene in
which she appears with Shylock, he fusses over her in a way that some might see as tender.
Jessica's desire to leave is made clearer when the other characters note how separate she has
become from her father, but her behavior after departing seems questionable at best. Most
notably, she trades her father's ring, given to him by her dead mother, for a monkey. The
frivolity of this exchange, in which an heirloom is tossed away for the silliest of objects, makes
for quite a disturbing image of the esteem in which The Merchant of Venice's children hold
their parents, and puts us, at least temporarily, in Shylock's corner.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or
concepts.

The contest for Portia's hand, in which suitors from various countries choose between
a gold, a silver, and a lead casket, resembles the culture and legal system of Venice in some
respects. Like the Venice of the play, the casket contest presents the same opportunities and
the same rules to men of various nations, ethnicities, and religions. Also like Venice, the
hidden bias of the casket test is fundamentally Christian. To win Portia, Bassanio must ignore
the gold casket, which bears the inscription, “Who chooseth me shall gain what many men
desire” (II.vii.5), and the silver casket, which says, “Who chooseth me shall get as much as he
deserves” (II.vii.7). The correct casket is lead, and warns that the person who chooses it must
give and risk everything he has. The contest combines a number of Christian teachings, such
as the idea that desire is an unreliable guide and should be resisted, and the idea that
human beings do not deserve God's grace but receive it in spite of themselves. Christianity
teaches that appearances are often deceiving, and that people should not trust the evidence
provided by the senses—hence the humble appearance of the lead casket. Faith and charity
are the central values of Christianity, and these values are evoked by the lead casket's
injunction to give all and risk all, as one does in making a leap of faith. Portia's father has
presented marriage as a similar leap of faith, in which the proper suitor risks and gives
everything for the spouse, in the hope of a divine recompense he can never truly deserve. The
contest certainly suits Bassanio, who knows he does not deserve his good fortune but is
willing to risk everything on a gamble.
 The pound of flesh that Shylock seeks lends itself to multiple interpretations, but
emerges most clearly as a metaphor for two of the play's closest relationships, and also calls
attention to Shylock's inflexible adherence to the law. The fact that Bassanio's debt is to be
paid with Antonio's flesh is significant, showing how their friendship is so binding it has made
them almost one. Shylock's determination is strengthened by Jessica's departure, as if he were
seeking recompense for the loss of his own flesh and blood by collecting it from his enemy.
Lastly, the pound of flesh is a constant reminder of the rigidity of Shylock's world, where
numerical calculations are used to evaluate even the most serious of situations. Shylock never
explicitly demands that Antonio die, but asks instead, in his numerical mind, for a pound in
exchange for his three thousand ducats. Where the other characters measure their emotions
with long metaphors and words, Shylock measures everything in far more prosaic and
numerical quantities.

The ring given to Shylock in his bachelor days by a woman named Leah, who is most
likely Shylock's wife and Jessica's mother, gets only a brief mention in the play, but is still an
object of great importance. When told that Jessica has stolen it and traded it for a monkey,
Shylock very poignantly laments its loss: “I would not have given it for a wilderness of
monkeys” (III.i.101–102). The lost ring allows us to see Shylock in an uncharacteristically
vulnerable position, and to view him as a human being capable of feeling something more
than anger. Although Shylock and Tubal discuss the ring for no more than five lines, the ring
stands as an important symbol of Shylock's humanity, his ability to love, and his ability to
grieve.