Shakespearean Drama in Historical Context - Essay Example

 This play reveals both the typical Elizabethan anti-Semitic view or what I would call the view of ignorance as there were so few Jews in England in the 16th century as well as revealing them as human beings. Shakespeare takes both sides but one has to take Shylock in context of the terrible losses by the time of the trial and after the trial. Portia tries to make sure that everyone comes out with something but Shylock looses the most. Jews were banished from Elizabethan England until approximately 1655. No one really knew what a Jew did; what he looked like ;and what he had as a job. Jews were only allowed to be money lenders or peddlers. It was common that they didn't charge interest but only took property if the debt was not honored. Jews were stereotyped as very few people actually met a Jew in his life time. It was humorous to say that Shylock wanted a pound of flesh as payment, knowing that it would never be done. This is ironic symbolism of being circumcised which is one of the steps of conversion towards Judaism. At the end of the play he is being forced to convert to Christianity. Secondly, murder would never be accepted. Antonio had been rude and nasty. Why should Shylock have ever done anything nice for him as giving him the 3000 Ducats. They had a love hate relationship. This is something which one only does for a friend. Something else was making him furious and had changed in their relationship. Perhaps losing his daughter to his Christian Servant where they both run away to get married. Then Lorenzio goes to work for Antonio's friend Basanio. Shylock has a lot to be angry for. It is no longer a question of money thus the stereotype of money no longer is applicable. "The quality of mercy is not strained … it blesseth him that gives and him that takes." (Portia, IV, i) Portia is saying that mercy is higher that demanding justice. Shylock recognizes the contract with Antonio but if he gives him mercy, it ends there. If he demands justice, the court of Venice takes over and it will be Shylock who looses his life. Her logic is excellent and surprising. There is no reference to Judaism but to humanity itself. Mercy takes precedence over justice. "How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world." (Portia, V, i) Portia follows later in the same seen to explain that "Nothing is good, I see, without respect. " Is she making reference to Shylock that he is indeed a good man who was wronged by Antonio. He has lost his daughter to Lorenzo who is a friend of Antonio. He has lost part of his estate. He has been humiliated by Antonio for years for being a money lender. Shakespeare shows perhaps the good side of all. Many have interpreted the contrary but in historical context, both sides can be taken. 3. Shakespeare was a jester knowing how to play with his audience. As he had to entertain as well as adhere to social etiquette, he showed women in two different lights. Portia was shown as a young woman who was to become property of her husband. She was already fed up with life because she had to find a husband or rather a husband had to find her because of a promise she had made on his father's death bead. "…I am neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I dislike-so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father" (Portia, I, ii) This was typical in Elizabethan England. Shakespeare gives her a dual role as an intelligent ingenious woman who saves the day but in disguise. She acts as the lawyer who saves Antonio. She uses reverse psychology by saying that the contract between Shylock and Antonio was valid and he owed his pound of flesh but if Shylock intended "….the estimation of a hair, thou diest and all thy goods are confiscate." (Portia, IV, i ) "The law hath yet anoth hold on you…..That by direct or indirect attempts he seek the life of any citizen, the party 'gainst the which he doth contrive shall seize one half his goods….." (Portia, IV, i). The importance of these two quotes show the power Shakespeare gives to the intelligence of Portia and the fact she saves the day by proving that Shylock had no right to Antonio's flesh. Antonio become a richer man. As she becomes engaged with Bassanio, Nerrisa asks Portia's permission to marry as she is her lady in waiting. "Yes, madam, it is, if it's all right with you." (Nerissa, III, ii). Jessica is a controversial character as will be seen . As a Jew, an unhappy daughter, in love with a Christian and hating her father, she is in utter turmoil. Shakespeare doesn't really develop her character. Jessica is called "his pagan girlfriend " as she is Jewish. Jessica and Lorenzo elope. It is a mixed marriage which is never done; and she sells her father's sacred turquoise ring to raise money. The three women are of three very different social classes. (Jessica's ring will not be explained in the comparison of the rings in question four.) 4.1 Portia: A ring binds the woman to the man."This house, these servants, and this same myself are yours, my lord's. I give them with this ring." (Portia, III, ii) But Shakespeare goes ahead an mocks the social meaning of the ring when Galiano and Bassanio give up their rings to Portia dressed as a lawyer "…Take some remembrance of us as a tribute, not as a fee. Grant me two things, I pray you: not to deny me , and to pardon me."(Bassanio, IV, i) Is Shakespeare having fun with us because it is Portia who asks for the ring, Bassanio cannot refuse the request after her saving his best friend's life. "As for your love, I'll take this ring from you. Do you draw back your hand. I'll take nor more…."(Portia, IV, i). Nerissa gets Gratiano's ring in Scene II. Both she and Portia make a game out of it. They both admonish their husbands in Act V showing who is actually in control and has the power. 4.2 The three caskets: On a larger scale, marriage in the 16th century is a business venture, a change of households, a change of names, a question of chance. "Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire" (Morocco, II, vii, Gold) "Who Chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves." (Morocco, II, vii, Silver) "Who Chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath" (Morocco, II, viii, Lead) Shakespeare is challenging the system of marriage. He is mocking that nothing is based on love. Which type of relationship is truly based on love. If you choose the gold you are putting your desires before your spouse's desires . If you chose the silver you think you merit more than others and if you chose lead, you are willing to risk everything for a true relationship. 5. Shakespeare shows the terrible control parents had over their children or the fact that the lower class ie. servants were often free in their sexual arrangements. In the first situation, quite often there is a child - women figure which could be of 12-14 years old who would flee the household to do something inappropriate such as eloping as in Romeo and Juliette. Remember once again that Shakespeare had an audience to entertain. We cannot use our modern understanding to analyze the Elizabethan laws of raising children. Jessica went too far extremes by stealing. There is a double understanding that she stole from someone who was stereotype to love material. Shylock goes back and forth by discussing the money he lost and how much she was costing him in finding her to putting everything in her casket. This was noble of him. "It is a wise father that knows his own child." (Launcelot Gobbo, II, ii ) Launcelot is saying that though Gobbo is blind even if he were not he wouldn't acknowledge Launcelot as his son but the truth of the actions of a child would always come to light to a father. "But love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit." (Jessica, II, vi)  She is talking that she is dressed as a page (boy) and has taken a box of jewels and gold that they can sell in order to elope and start their lives together. "Farewell, and if my fortune be not crost, I have a father you a daughter, lost" (Jessica, II, v) Another example of the bad relationship it the reference to the turquoise ring " Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal: It was my turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor; I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys."() It was her way of hurting her father the most or what it Shylock's attachment to material wealth. "….I would my daughter were dead at my foot and the jewels in her ear! Would she were hearsed at my foot and the ducats in her coffin!" (Shylock, III, i) This makes us realize that Shakespeare is going back between the stereotype of the Jew being attached to the material wealth and a father being shamed by his daughter. Shylock's actions towards his daughter are quite of the 16th century where children were expected to be the total property of the parent. No freedom was given. Read More