Shylock in William Shakespeares The Merchant of Venice :: Merchant of Venice Essays

Shylock in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice Shylock is a Jew in the play "The merchant of Venice". He has a daughter called Jessica and he is in many ways a victim of anti-Semitism. Shakespeare brings across Shylock as a Jew using many different devices. For example he uses anti-Semitism to show that Shylock is meant to be portrayed as an isolated character. Anti-Semitism was based on religious grounds back then, they held the belief that Jews murdered Christ and were therefore in the league of the devil, this is why the Christians in the play and the directors of the play are vengeful towards Shylock. I believe that Shakespeare deliberately isolates Shylock, which then makes the play more effective, because putting all Christians in the play wouldn't give the play such a strong plot, as it has now. There would be no verbally abusive things said to both the Christians and the Jew and no remarks or stage directions used to show Shylock as the outsider, because the Christians would have treated him like one of their own! From the occurrences at that time, there were no rumours going around about the Jews which were mostly all made up, but it then gave Shakespeare an incentive, which resulted in portraying Shylock as the villain. Firstly, what is definitely noticeable is that Shylock is presented as an outsider. A way that this is proven is when you look at the directors, entrance notes an exit notes, they stand out considerably because Shakespeare writes Shylock "The Jew" this immediately denotes a difference within the play. Another way that Shakespeare is making the audience consider the fact Shylock's an outsider, is his use of language. It's very repetitive and it's conspicuous he's an outsider, he ends his sentences wit "well" every time. The sort of treatment that Shylock obtains from the other characters is that of a more aggressive and rude nature, but Shylock returns their vicious comments by a play on words and his hate for Christians,