It is a matter of some dispute whether in ‘The Merchant of Venice’ Shakespeare displays anti-Jewish - page 1
Keywords: It is a matter of some dispute whether in ‘The Merchant of Venice’ Shakespeare displays anti-Jewish prejudice GCSE english coursework
By slashwk on 23/11/2006 17:29:56
Level: GCSE Key Stage 4 (Years 10-11)
Page Number: 1 of 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
Prejudice, the most destructive weapon known to man. Just think of the glories this world could have beheld, if it were not for such a simple yet dangerous concept to stand in the way, a menace to civilisation, yet embraced by enough to keep it alive. Prejudice is the irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion. This essay aims to assess the play ‘The Merchant of Venice’ written by Shakespeare (circa. 1597) and to come to an educated conclusion as to whether Shakespeare used purposeful anti-Jewish prejudice in the play in particular involving the character Shylock.
The first thing we must assess is the background information at the time of the play. This is to reveal what current issues may have influenced Shakespeare to try to produce a piece of popular theatre. One thing I discovered is that in the fourteenth century an Italian short story involving the places Venice and Belmont was written involving a similar task set by the Lady of Belmont for her hand in marriage. A pledge of a pound of flesh to a Jewish money-lender, the court scene involving the Lady to come in disguise, and the plot regarding the rings is also included. This means that Shakespeare may have merely plagiarised his work from another play, and just mimicked all the anti-Jewish prejudice surrounding the money lender. Another play produced in 1589 is ‘The Jew of Malta’ by Christopher Marlowe. This play became increasingly popular after the very public case regarding a man named Roderigo Lopez, a Portuguese Jew. He had converted to Christianity thirty-five years before his arrival in England and he soon became a fashionable society doctor. He was hanged in 1594 for plotting to poison Queen Elizabeth I, but the charge is doubted now, as it was then. It was more likely his hanging was due to being a foreigner and a Jew. Shakespeare may have also only just tried to capitalise on current affairs, whilst competing with the play by Marlowe. Either way, a play involving a Jew who is being mistreated without much reason and portrayed as an evil villain would be a very popular piece of theatre for people to want to see during the Shakespearean era. It is for these factors that I believe that Shakespeare was very likely indeed to purposefully include anti-Jewish prejudice in order to please his audience at the time.
Shakespeare portrays
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