I think that Shakespeare’s intention of creating Shylock in The Merchant of Venice is quite complicated – he depicted Shylock as a standard caricature of what Elizabethan audiences expected to see, a cruel and bloodthirsty devil incarnate. Yet, Shylock’s personality is exceedingly powerful and strong, being revealed as a resilient Jew who stood solely against the dominating and discriminating Christian, and not entirely exposing his vile, cunning and astute side, but also, with a touch on his poor and miserable side, arousing our feelings of sympathy, indignant and perhaps a little of respect when seeing his unfair and unjust treatment.
If Shakespeare was like any other playwright during the extremely anti-Semitic Elizabethan era, he would have displayed Shylock completely as evil, menacing and avaricious man, with no virtues whatsoever. However, in The Merchant of Venice, he actually tried to portray Shylock as a more acceptable person, since nobody is perfect, and similarly, nobody would have no virtues, thus showing that Shakespeare’s understanding of Jews could not be explicated with simply a word “cruel”. Before dramatizing this play, I think that Shakespeare crawled around in under the skin of Jews to try to comprehend the thoughts that are trickling in their mind, so as to be able to write a more all-rounded and non-opinionated play.
For example, in the story, Shylock, a representative for Jew, stood up strongly and proudly for Judaism, and tried to defend the rights of his religion against the Christians, who is the majority of the population then. One good instance is Shylock’s monologue, with him crying indignantly for being subjected at, “He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” From this example, we could see actually see slight effort put in by Shakespeare to protect the rights of Jews, helping them to convey the voices of their heart. By expressing the point of view of the Jews, Shakespeare made use of Shylock’s mouth to reason that Jews are not different from Christians, and they should not be discriminated against. Thus, this shows that Shakespeare might not be simply criticizing how merciless and heartless Jews are, as he is, at the same time suggesting that Jews might not be downright bad; and, at the same time, through these plays which many common folks and peasants watch, Shakespeare's aim might be trying to influence these Elizabethan folks to stop discriminating against Jews, though not explicitly showing the perils that might bring across by anti-Semitism.
But if he was indeed trying to show the virtues of Jews, why did he even make Shylock face a severe consequence for opposing the dominating Christians? I could suggest two possible reasons to this question. Firstly, it might be due to Shakespeare’s own belief that Jews should be persecuted, and they should be responsible for their own actions of going against them Christians; thus, my previous explanation that Shakespeare might be trying to portray the good side of Jews would be nullified. However, it might also be possible that Shakespeare is still trying to improve Jews’ reputation in Christians’ eyes, but he own stand weakened to what majority thinks, and thus giving Shylock a grim price to pay. Perhaps, he was also afraid that if he made Shylock win over the Christians, there might be pandemonium and chaos among people, for letting Jews win in the end is deemed unreasonable and unwonted, and he himself might have to face grave consequences.
There is one thing we know for sure, that is, Shylock is symbolic for Jews. However, what was Shakespeare’s intention for creating this representative for Jews? This would be left for the reader to interpret, since the mystery a few thousand years ago could not be uncovered, but for myself, I would rather think that the reason is that Shakespeare wants to abolish discrimination, and that through these plays, Shakespeare is making a baby step to a fair and just world.
No comments:
Post a Comment