THE BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF THE MERCHANT OF VENICE(对威尼斯商人的简单介绍)

THE BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF THE MERCHANT OF

VENICE

The Merchant of Venice was considered Shakespeare’s most controversial play and one of the most wonderful masterpieces of describing misers in the literature.

The merchant of Venice was written by Shakespeare at the end few years of the 1590s. During these years, British social contradictions gradually sharpen up which result in his deep think of his humanistic and British reality, at that time, the oppression that Jews were suffering in British was more serious than in any other countries in Europe. Jews at that time lived a difficult life. They were suppressed seriously; therefore they have to make living by lending out money at an exorbitant rate of interest. We all know Shylock is a typical affronted Jew in this play. He was a scrivener in this play. At that time, a young man named Bassano who heard about news that Portia, a rich man’s daughter, she got three boxes: a gold box, a silver box, and a lead one. If somebody chosen the box contained her portrait, then she would marry the man. Therefore, he determined to win Portia. However, he needed three thousand ducats to reach his goal. For lack of money, he had to turn to his good friend, a rich merchant Antonio for help. Unfortunately, at this time, Antonio’s money was put into the business and he could not withdraw it right now. To help his best friend, he was forced to borrow money from a wealthy

Jewish scrivener as well as usury. Although he promised to lend him the money. He put forward a strange request that if Antonio could not repay the debt on time, he could cut a pound of flesh from Antonio’s body. And Antonio signed the contact. Fortunately, in the end, shylock was defeated by Portia’s wit and intelligence.

My Comments on Shylock

Generally speaking, shylock always left a cruel, greedy and gainful money-lender image to the readers of The Merchant of Venice. He considered treasure as the most important things in his life even more important than his daughter. When his daughter ran away with a large amount of jewels which were stolen from his, he can not help shouting and curing his daughter to die immediately. How merciless the father is! He was also a hypocritical and cunning businessman. We can seen from this play, when he came on the stage in the first time, he just keep swearing to the god that if he got some treasure, he must do something good and help the poor leave the poverty. However, when he became a wealthy man, he do the exactly the opposite things such as exploit people, being rude to the poor, and cheating.

On the one hand, he is a typical heartless miser in keeping money. On the other hand, he is also a pitiful victim at that time. He is an affronted Jew who suffered much in the hands of the Christians. At that time, shylock dared to allocate assert in case his assert being expropriated