The Merchant of Venice-Shylock Analysis

In Shakespeares edgy and suspenseful play, The merchandiser of Venice, the character of shylock may evoke complex feelings within the reader. shylock is distinctly a villain in the sense that he takes repeatedly takes advantage of plurality in vulnerable economic situations and makes a handsome living in this way. He is not an inherently likeable character through come out The merchandiser of Venice by Shakespeare he avoids fri terminationships, he is cranky, and he is steadfast in his beliefs to the shoot for of being rigid.Any character compend of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice should personal line of credit his tendency for selfish behavior and thinking. Shylock is also a man who is unreasonable and self-thinking, demanding, as one of the important quotes in The Merchant of Venice goes, a weight of carrion flesh (IV. i. 41) from a man he suspects give not be able to repay him simply because it is his humour to do so (IV. i. 43). Because he is the villain of this play , justice can only be served if Shakespeares Shylock is punished in a manner that is congruent with his violations of cordial norms and laws.At the same time, though, his punishment is problematic for it seems to mimic the very crime of which Shylock is re in ally being accused, and that crime is absolutism. By insisting that Shylock must be punished in the way that he is in The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare raises doubts about the purity of Christian love and mercy, which certainly creates implications for the very notions of twain punishment and villainy.Shylock is a man who is hardly likeable in all aspects throughout The Merchant of Venice. Already a marginalized member of Venetian golf-club because he is a Jew and occupies the stereotypical profession of the money-grubbing guarantor, Shylock ensures that his peers and the audience leave alone not like him because of his unreasonableness and unwillingness to let go of his tendencies to be greedy, even in a situation that seems to warrant mercy and pity.In several instances in The Merchant of Venice he takes a perverse pleasure in what he refers to in one of the important quotes from The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare, a blithesome sport of exacting an equal pound/Offair flesh to be cut off and taken/In what part of the body pleaseth me as the terms of a loan agreement (I. iii. 151-146), terms which he refuses to justify. At the same time, though, the reader, when performing even a basic character analysis of Shylock, can feel a curious compassion for this character, who is so clearly disliked.Although he has imposed isolation on himself by declaring that he will not eat/ with you, drink with you, nor pray with you. ( I. iii/ ll. 33-34), one begins to reckon why he has withdrawn from social life when he makes his despicable speech in Act ternion, in which it is asked by Shylock who is the victim of racism, Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, pas sions? (III. i. 54).The reader begins to rede how Shylock has never been understood because no one has ever seen him for anything other than his Jewishness. Again, this complicates the readers relationship with his character and the subsequent punishment he receives because although he is not likable, one cannot help but sympathize with his mesh as an outcast. It is Shylock himself who teaches the reader and his own peers the most about Christian love and mercy in The Merchant of Venice.As he continues his Act III speech, he muses about the similarities between Jews and Christians in one of the meaningful quotes, saying, feed the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means as a Christian is. , and then confronts his Christian accusers and judges with three profound questions that invoke these themes in Merchant of Venice If you cocksucker us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? (III. . 54-62). The cycle of unidentified violence that Shylock has set into motion will not end once his punishment has been meted out to him, as he goes on to discourage in the remainder of the speech. Rather than learn this lessonnamely, that revenge in the pretending of justice will never result in anything other than more revengeShylock receives his punishment. Years later, we see the same kinds of issues played out in society, proving that we have learned little about what Shakespeare hoped to teach us through Shylock.