The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice is categorized among Shakespeare's comedies, primarily because of the romantic subplot that ends - as most of the Bard's comedies do - in serial weddings. But it is far more than a typical romantic comedy. Shakespeare writes about the complicated theme of exterior versus interior. The value of gold and money against the value of friendship and loyalty. Shakespeare explores again, like so many of his other plays, the difference between vice and virtue, the noble and ignoble. In this book he compares the hero Antonio's acts of mercy with the villian Shylock's desire for justice, the spirit of the law versus the letter of the law. Shylock, the moneylender is portrayed as greedy and more concerned about his money than he is about his own daughter. Readers may have a hard time sympathizing with Antonio the Merchant and his friends, Bassanio, Gratiano, et al. They are racist, quick to judge, wasteful, and unconcerned about others. They are delighted to treat Shylock like a dog and to invent phony excuses for their own nasty behavior. But Shylock is no innocent victim. Indeed, he brings about his own ruin. But in a play whose key passage is Portia's courtroom discourse on the quality of mercy, mercy and justice are hard to find in any character. Shakespeare's language is as powerful as ever in this play, but the unlikeable Shylock and the venom doled out to him by his sordid persecutors makes this a challenging work.