Abstract
William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice is not antisemitic, for though it contains anti-Jewish expressions and anti-Jewish characters, the main Jewish character Shylock is really the play's only honest dealer, if not necessarily likable.
Introduction
On a superficial level, The Merchant of Venice might appease members of a audience who looked for and wanted some negative traits in a Jewish stereotype, but the character of Shylock is complex and multi-valued. In fact, we are treated to an extraordinary number of other things that Shylock values often moreso than money, which latter may even be a proxy for other things.
Shylock
For a start, Shylock is asked by Antonio what rate of interest he will charge, but Shylock refuses to take interest, preferring a contract that will let him hold Antonio at least temporarily in his power. Later we see Shylock pursue his revenge (for the undisputed wrongs he and his people have suffered) in disdain of money and profit.
Salarino: Why, I am sure if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his flesh! What’s that good for? Shylock: To bait fish withal; if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. 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 diseases, healed by 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? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge! The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
We see Shylock mourn his dead wife Leah whose ring he would never sell, and his lost daughter, and her lost respect for him.
Tubal: One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter for a monkey. Shylock: Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my turquoise! I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.
We see particularly in the court case that Shylock prizes the law, and learning, and wisdom, and his religion. We see in his condemnation of Christian slavery a side of Shylock that may be empathy, or value honesty over (Christian) hypocrisy (and it is Venice's Christians who are portrayed as hypocrites, not the Jews). We see a man demanding respect and justice, standing up (rather bravely even) against his enemies to demand his rights.
What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong? You have among you many a purchased slave, Which, like your asses and your dogs and mules, You use in abject and in slavish parts Because you bought them. Shall I say to you “Let them be free! Marry them to your heirs! Why sweat they under burdens? Let their beds Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates Be seasoned with such viands”? You will answer “The slaves are ours!” So do I answer you: The pound of flesh which I demand of him Is dearly bought; ’tis mine and I will have it. If you deny me, fie upon your law: There is no force in the decrees of Venice. I stand for judgment. Answer: shall I have it?
Shylock is not perhaps a popular or greatly likable man. He has moral convictions without being a moral hero. He seems to yearn for but never quite deserve respect. His vindictiveness is understandable but perhaps excessive. He is tricked in the end because he is not a trickster, but an honest dealer. He is the butt of jokes, the target of abuse in the streets and of false representations. He does complain about expenses, but who would not be horrified by his daughter Jessica's extravagance?
There are many clues to Shylock's character that would be completely unnecessary in an antisemitic play, but to end on just one, in Shylock's summary of Launcelot Gobbo's unsurprisingly unsatisfactory stint of service, weighed against his unprofitable points, his Jewish master says the patch is kind
. This is Shylock's valuing of kindness against all the other negatives; he has kept his servant all this time, not solely for productive reasons, but of something that must approach fondness (a fondness which is piquantly unrequited). And Shylock says farewell by putting in a good word to his new Christian master, and warning his servant that he may not be treated so well in his new employ.
The Christians
We might as well ask, with slightly more profit, if The Merchant of Venice is an anti-Christian play. No, it's not, but the Christian characters, polities and institutions are as a whole more questionable and questioned in the play.
Portia is explicit about the hypocrisy the Christians display, telling us she is better at setting rules than following her own. For all Portia-disguised’s banging on about mercy, it is Bassanio who offers to meet Shylock’s post-blood 3 times 3000 ducat claim, and Portia who pursues punishment upon Shylock, perhaps out of spite (at Bassanio's apparent disloyalty), and her anti-patriarchal sentiments (she has already implied she has a hot temper).
Christians of all ranks appear to lie and deceive; the sense is that Venice's competitive trading culture encourages sharp elbows.
Several of the Christians make racist remarks, which are clearly signposted as bias or bigotry or ignorance. We can take it that Launcelot Gobbo is an unreliable narrator, who deceives his own father with relish, as well as Shylock.
The play also contains criticism of corrupt obtaining of estates, degrees and offices in Christian Europe.
Jessica
Shylock's daughter Jessica is a Jew with a contrasting personality to her father, but her ambition is to elope and become a Christian wife. It is unclear if she regrets this decision by the end of the play. It is left to production and performance how Jessica plays her doubt-expressing love dialogue and receives the court-imposed inheritance.
I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
The Continuum of Life
There is also a consideration if animals and humans are on a continuum, broadening Shylock's powerful universalist plea beyond humanism.
Conclusion
The play successfully treats the subject of antisemitism while giving Shylock some of the best lines and the most powerful arguments. Where Judaism and Christianity are compared, the hypocrisy of Christians is shown up, whereas Shylock pursues an honest, open and for a while apparently legal revenge.
Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice is not an Antisemitic Play by Sleeping Dog is licensed under CC BY 4.0
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