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Welcome to Rialto. This is a blog where I hope you will find something of interest to you. I work in Further Education and my hope is to supplement my work in the classroom with extras and advice. I also like to dabble in creative writing and you will find bits and pieces along the way. Feel free to subscribe or pass by again and you may find something of interest.
John.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Dennis Potter and Rupert Murdoch

The Tragedy of Shylock

W. Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice comes to a gripping climax in the first scene of the penultimate act where the main protagonists are gathered in a Venetian Court of Justice.


Shylock, the much maligned Jewish moneylender stands ready to claim his ‘pound of flesh’, as his bond with the merchant Antonio has been forfeited.


I find that I am sympathetic to Shylock’s plight. Here we have a loathed Jew, ostracised, and a mere utility in Bassanio’s frivolous endeavours to become the victorious suitor for Portia’s hand. Antonio has stupidly and arrogantly played into Shylock’s hands by agreeing to such a foolish bond in his efforts to support Bassanio’s desires.


Yes, Shylock is certainly avaricious, a grotesque character, a caricature of the Jewish race that finds itself removed from mainstream society. Is it any wonder they resort to usury in an attempt to survive, economically ghettoised as they are?


The Merchant, declares Shylock Act 3 Scene 1 has ...'mocked at my gains, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies, - and what’s his reason? I am a Jew...'

Why, Shylock even appeals to the Christians about their common humanity... ‘If you prick me do I not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die'? ... But all this falls on deaf ears.


Shylock along with fellow Jews are essentially pariahs and to this end, despite Shylocks almost irrational rage, my sympathies lie with him.




Shylock has been further humiliated earlier in the play when his daughter Jessica not only elopes with his wealth and his betrothal ring, but with the Christian, Lorenzo.


Now with Antonio’s shipping ventures gone awry, Shylock is in a vengeful mood. He has rationalised such a desire... ‘If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrongs a Jew what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why revenge,’ the villainy you teach me I will execute...’ (Act 3, Scene 1).


In a curious and somewhat humorous turn of events, Portia, disguised as the male lawyer Balthazar, has replaced Bellario. She has read her brief and what follows, for me, is a gripping courtroom exchange between herself and Shylock.


Despite pleadings to Shylock to show mercy at the last hour he holds up the lawfulness of his case and upon adherence to the law stands the reputation of Venice.


Shylock’s case is,it seems, watertight.




Portia agrees with Shylock that his ‘suit’ while of a ‘strange nature’, the ‘Venetian law cannot impugn you as you do proceed...’


However, in what has to be one of the most beautiful and profound passages in the play, Portia appeals to Shylock to show mercy ... ‘It is an attribute to God himself. And earthly power doth then show likest God’s When mercy seasons justice’.


Shylock seized by a desire for retribution is having none of it... ‘I crave the law.’


The exchanges between them continue until finally Portia ensnares Shylock. He may have his bond but dare he draw a morsel of Christian blood he is ruined. Shylock relents, but by dint of his mere desire to seek Antonio’s life he finds himself hoist upon his own petard.
‘For as thou urgest justice, be assured, thou shalt have justice more than thou desirest,’ Portia triumphantly states.


Mercy may drop as gently as the rain from heaven, but there is none accorded to Shylock from the Christian quarter. His end is ignominious. With his wealth confiscated and forced to convert to Christianity, Shylock is as good as a dead man.


Any twentieth or twenty-first century reading of this play, in my opinion, cannot avoid the influence of the Holocaust and that inspires compassion towards the plight of this complex and flawed Jewish caricature.