Hi, I was responding to the question “The best texts challenge our assumptions about the experience of being human.” Thank you so much!
The Merchant of Venice challenges assumptions about the experience of being human by asserting that these experiences shape human qualities, rather than the qualities shaping the experiences. Shakespeare achieves this through portraying Shylock’s malicious qualities being shaped by his experience of prejudice and Bassanio’s ethical qualities being changed after his experience of financial hardship. Therefore, when evaluating the play based on whether it challenges assumptions about the experience of being human, it can be placed among the best texts.
The audience’s assumption that Shylock is inherently evil is challenged through the portrayal of his experience of prejudice. In Shylock’s introductory scene, he is portrayed as unsympathetic and only concerned with money, encouraging the audience to believe that those are inherent traits within him. When discussing a loan, double entendre is used in the phrase, “Antonio is a good man” to emphasise the differences in values between the two. Bassanio assumes he is talking about character, placing him as the nobler of the two, where Shylock was discussing money, associating him with greed and implying he doesn’t care about others, making him unsympathetic and not challenging the audience to consider his motivations. This initial portrayal fosters the audiences assumption that Shylock acts in an evil way by nature.
The play then challenges this assumption by exploring his experience of prejudice throughout the narrative. Shylock recalls how Antonio “call(s) (him) disbeliever, cut-throat dog and spit(s) upon (his) Jewish gaberdine”, through using his Jewish gaberdine as a symbol for himself, he reduces himself to only his religion in order to reflect the way that he has been treated as less than human as a direct consequence of his Jewish identity, which is further emphasised through the use of listing. The portrayal of his suffering experienced because of this prejudice places him as a more sympathetic character and challenges the audience to consider his perspective.
This sympathy allows Shylock to challenge the audience’s assumptions about his unlikeable qualities and assert that he is a product of his experience. During his monologue, he blames the Christians for his actions, saying “the villainy you teach me I will execute”, he employs the persuasive techniques of high modality and accusative tone created by second person pronouns in order to increase his ability to convince the audience of his perspective. His humanisation being combined with these persuasive techniques invites the audience to question their assumption that his malicious traits are innate, instead of a result of the experience of prejudice.
The assumption that Bassanio is inherently good is challenged after his experience with financial difficulties, imploring the audience to question whether his good traits were a result of his lack of experiences.
Bassanio demonstrates his Christian value of sacrifice when choosing the casket inscribed with, “who chooseth me, must give…” over the gold and silver ones, marked “who chooseth me shall gain…” and “who chooseth me shall get…” respectively. By contrasting the verbs associated with giving and taking, Bassanio’s ethics of rejecting wealth and instead giving of himself are highlighted and therefore the audience perceives morality as being one of his predominant innate character traits.
However, the effect of his experience of financial hardship is so significant that it pushes him to disregard these values. He uses vague language when discussing his finances, saying, “tis unknown to you, Antonio, how much I have disabled mine estate” in order to create a tone of shame, even with his closest friend which implies both the significance of his financial and the shame that he feels because of it.
This inconsistency of his values is most obviously shown in his pursuit of Portia. He constantly aligns imagery of wealth when describing her, like when he says, “her sunny locks hang on her temples like a golden fleece”, by intertextually comparing her hair to the golden fleece, he associates her with an object that will bring him wealth, revealing that he thinks of her as much of as a source of wealth as a person that he loves, contradicting his value of giving instead of recieving wealth. The audience’s assumption that Bassanio is a good person by nature is challenged through the portraying him having to betray his values in order overcome his experience of financial difficulty.
The Merchant of Venice challenges the assumption that human qualities are innate, instead asserting that they are developed through human experiences. To portray this, Shakespeare initially characterises Shylock as a two-dimensional villain before exploring his experience of prejudice to implore the viewer to consider that Shylock’s malicious traits were a result of his experience. This idea is also explored through Bassanio’s ethical traits needing to be disregarded because of his financial difficulties. Because the Merchant of Venice challenges these assumptions, it can be considered a meritable text.
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Topic: English Advanced Essay (Merchant of Venice) (Read 3486 times)