Essays on Merchant of Venice

An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind Here in Canada, we do not have the death penalty as punishment. Our judicial system shows mercy even to the worst of criminals by sparing their lives. Yet even to this day, in some countries...

Merchant of Venice is a play written by William Shakespeare in the 1600s. The Merchant of Venice is a play that focuses on love and revenge in a world of religious intolerance between the Christian and Jewish population of Venice. The Merchant of Venice contains...

Few Shakespearean plays have aroused such controversy and debate throughout the centuries, as has The Merchant of Venice. This potentially tragic play masks itself in comedy, giving its audience a glance at the inherent social prejudices of Renaissance Europe. But just at the moment when...

Merchant of Venice is a play in the 16th century that was written by the infamous writer, Shakespeare. Just like many other of his play, the story is The Merchant of Venice is classified as a tragicomedy, because it shares features in common with comedies...

In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare crafts a dynamic female character uncommon to his collection of plays. Portia, the lovely and wealthy heiress, exemplifies stereotypical feminine qualities but also exhibits independent and intelligent thought. Most of Shakespeare’s female roles function as static characters designed to...

William Shakespeare’s The Comical History of the Merchant of Venice depicts an odd juxtaposition of love in the romantic sense with wealth in the monetary sense. The characters in the text acknowledge both senses as valuable virtues, yet comparatively, said virtues are measured against each...

It is often observed that William Shakespeare’s comedies feature some uncomfortable scenes that leave audiences unsure as to whether characters are participating in harmless, theatrical farce or a meaner brand of mockery that borders on the cruel. Such scenes involve trickery that seems funny enough...

The daughters of Elizabethan England were predominantly subject to their father’s wishes. This is particularly evident in terms of the main female character, Portia, who must obey her father even after his death: O me, the word ‘choose’! I may neither choose who I would...

In Shakespearean plays, the female roles are consistently more complex than the male ones, and though the protagonists are often male, the action is frequently directed by a woman. Though the female characters are often perceived to have a definite aspect of craftiness to their...

In ‘The Merchant of Venice’ written by William Shakespeare there are three caskets: of Gold, Silver and Lead. Introducing them the caskets play a powerful dramatic significance to the play as it helps justify the mindset of her suitors which come ‘from the four corners...

There are many instances where if one were not laughing, they would be crying; that is to say, the difference between the laughable and the lamentable is oftentimes narrow. In fact, the irony behind what is tragic and what is comedic is naturally linked by...

Enter the Jew. In this way does Shakespeare usher the character Shylock into his play The Merchant of Venice, and here begins the greatest controversy that plagues this work. The Elizabethan era, the time in which Shakespeare lived, was a time brimming with hostility toward...

In “The Merchant of Venice”, William Shakespeare explores the cities of contrast which are Venice and Belmont. These two locations in Italy are so antithetic to each other that even characters’ behaviours fluctuate from city to city because of this disparity between them. This Shakespeare...

To Read or Not To Read: Analysis of Discrimination in The Merchant of Venice The Merchant of Venice is a painful read—much more than Shakespeare’s other plays—because it portrays oppression without taking a stance one way or the other. Portia is undermined by societal gender...

William Shakespeare includes a Duke to represent the utmost authority figure in many of his plays. In The Comedy of Errors and The Merchant of Venice, both Dukes hold complete control—or, at least, what they perceive to be complete control—over their respective regions. Shakespeare uses...

In ‘The Motives of Eloquence’, Lantham describes Shakespearean drama as the art of “superposition”. One arc of action is performed over others so that “[d]ramatic motive is stronger than ‘real’, serious motive”. The justification of a characters action occurs as theatre. “Drama, ceremony, is always...

According to the evidence we have, it seems Shakespeare wrote his plays exclusively to be performed. We are repeatedly reminded of this fact; there are throughout many of his plays moments of self-conscious performance, performance that reflects the nature of the very spectacle that occurred...

As a playwright, William Shakespeare has few, if indeed any, colleagues of equal renown. He skillfully created works of incredible diversity; some tragic, others historical, and yet others comedic. Of this last genre, Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice is an example. Through an excerpt...

The Merchant of Venice has been interpreted over time as both a defense and an attack on Jews. (“Shylock”) While it would seem improbable that Shakespeare was forward thinking enough to completely reject the anti-Semitic sentiment of his time, the play is too complex to...