Summative response to The Merchant of Venice
Choose one of the topics below to write an argumentative essay in response to Shakespeare’s play The
Merchant of Venice. You must support your ideas and arguments with appropriate evidence from the
text (general points of character, incident and language as well as specific quotations). The commentaries
from Professor Luxon are quoted here to help provoke your thinking about the play.
Bassanio came to Belmont under false pretences to win "the golden fleece"; so Portia went to Venice under
false pretences, bringing the world of romance, as it were, into the world of finance. She hopes to undermine the
world of contracts, commerce, and law by re-interpreting it according to the fashion of Belmont, where games
of chance are "wisdom" and "destiny," where commercial adventures are disguised as love quests, where
women are lords rather than wives even though they speak a language of obedience, where contracts are
carefully qualified by the language of charmed rings and light oaths.
From Study Questions on The Merchant of Venice by Professor Thomas Luxon (Dartmouth College, USA).
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~engl24/study_questions/merchant/questions.html
A popular interpretation in Shakespeare's day of the parable of the prodigal
son in the gospels (Luke 15:11-31) understood the prodigal son as the gentiles
and the older son in the story as the Jews. When the prodigal returns, he is
like a gentile turned Christian who receives all the bounty his father (God)
can bestow, even though he once wasted his inheritance. The older son is like
the Jew who never left his father, but doesn't understand why the father
forgives the prodigal and resents his father's generosity, even his celebration.
Thus the resentful older son doesn't understand forgiveness, redemption, and
unmerited grace, and so he is like the Jew who resents the Christian who has
taken his place in God's favour. This interpretation is, of course, dreadfully
anti-Jewish. The play alludes to this interpretation by representing Bassanio
as a prodigal trying to redeem himself – "to come fairly off from the great
debts/ Wherein my time, something too prodigal, / Hath left me ’gaged." By
cloaking Bassanio's venture in the terms of Christian redemption (and also in
the terms of romantic love) doesn't the play threaten to undermine those
terms? Is all the Christian talk in the play about grace, unmerited favour,
largess, forgiveness, just a lot of irresponsible prodigality parading itself as
Christian virtue? When Shylock proposes a "merry bond" (1.3.169) isn't he
trying to trick the Christians by appearing to speak their language – a
language of forgiveness of debts, a language that seems to him to make "sport"
of the law and bonds and contracts? He thinks he's going to drive all these
prodigal Christians into a recognition of the law in all its literal severity. Unlike the resentful older brother in the parable, Shylock
hopes "to feed upon the prodigal Christian" (2.5.14-15), to have a feast of his own instead of a feast for the younger brother.
Professor Thomas Luxon (op.cit.)
Themes
1. Pages 167 – 170 of our Cambridge School Shakespeare edition expand on seven different themes
that are explored in the play. Choose one to write an essay about the ways in which The Merchant of
Venice explores the presentation of that theme (e.g. love verses hate; appearance versus reality; etc.).
Characters
2. Read pages 171 – 174 of the Cambridge School Shakespeare edition, which explore aspects of
Shylock’s portrayal. While different productions may vary in their interpretation of his character,
they are all built upon Shakespeare’s text. With this in mind, write an essay on whether Shylock is
the villain or the victim of The Merchant of Venice.
3. Jonathan Morris and Robert Smith write that “Venice is almost completely characterised by
friendships between men” (p.176). As a “lady richly left in Belmont”, is Portia a character who
comes to challenge that world, or one who ultimately supports such a patriarchal society? Read pages
177-8 to help you prepare such an essay.
Language
4. Read the explanation of ‘antithesis’ on pages 182-3 of the Cambridge School Shakespeare edition.
Collect about twenty examples and use them in an extended essay showing how antithesis helps to
create a sense of conflict in The Merchant of Venice.