O Mercador de Veneza - Shylock, vítima de preconceito

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Vasconcelos 1 
Luciana Vasconcelos da Costa 
José Carlos Marques Volcato 
English Literatures IV 
26 November 2009 
 
Shylock, the victim of prejudice 
 
The Merchant of Venice is a play written by William Shakespeare in the sixteenth 
century and its best-known character is not the title character Antonio but Shylock, who 
suffered prejudice for being a Jew. Due to his great influence over the play it is also known as 
The Jew of Venice. 
Religious and Socioeconomic matters were the main reasons for anti-Semitism, hostility 
to and prejudice against Jewish people, in the Middle Ages and Jewish people were not just 
considered guilty for Jesus crucifixion, who was worshiped a messiah by the Christians, but 
also of practicing usury, lending money with interest, which were common between Jews as 
there was no law in their religion preventing it as there was in Christian's religion and they 
had no rights to own properties. 
Shylock as a Jewish moneylender saw how Christians can be cruel and merciless when it 
comes to their laws, and being victim of great prejudice Shylock becomes not only a product 
of a merciless society but also the villain, or, at least, a villain to that society which created 
and inspired his desire for revenge. 
Antonio is among those that are to blame by Shylock's tragic life, and in act 1 as 
Antonio comes to Shylock for his help, Shylock makes clear what he feels and tell the reasons 
for his vengeance “You call me misbiliever, cut-throat dog / And spit upon my Jewish 
garbadine” (I.iii.104–105), and he will ‘feed’ it with Antonio’s flesh as he says in this same, 
“Expressed in the condition, let the forfeit / Be nominated for an equal pond / Of your fair 
flesh, to be cut of and taken / In what part of your body pleaseth me.” (I.iii.142–145), 
becoming almost an obsession. E. E. Stoll defend that with this revenge “he is only defending 
himself in what he intends to do; we make him defend his race against all that has been done 
to it. He is putting in a plea for the right of revenge”. (Stoll 55) 
Despite Shylock's obsession for revenge against Christians through Antonio he is as 
human as everyone else, as human as any Christian, and considering that he says that he can 
also be as bad as anyone else, and through vengeance he wants to show how similar he is to a 
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Christian by emerging to a place where he would be the merciless one, and a Christian the one 
relying on mercy, and even desiring this cruelty he still has a strong argument to defend his 
humanity as the reader can see in this quotation, 
 
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. 
(III.i.46-59) 
 
Shylock is looking for revenge by acting like Christians, treating them as they treat 
him, and being as bad as they are, and doing so villainy is attributed to him, by doing so this 
image goes back to Christians, considering it is nothing but a interpretation of Christian's 
villainy, which is what Shylock wants everyone to see. 
 Although this search for equal reactions and the antisemitism made him a bitter villain 
he became a victim and a product of prejudice. His villainy is not his it is the Christian's 
villainy he is willing to return. 
Shylock human side is also shown when he laments the loss of Leah’s ring – his wife 
– which was an important object in his life. However, he shows his humanity not in a 
comparison with Christians, the reader is presented to a human capable to have feelings and 
the reader sees it when Tubal tells Shylock that Jessica gave the ring he tells the importance of 
it and laments the loss of it, when he say, “Out upon her! – Thou torturest me, Tubal – it was 
my / turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachalor. I would / not have given it for a 
wilderness of monkeys.” (III.i.99-100). Shylock shows to the reader how human he is through 
his ability to love and and to feel sadness upon a loss. 
 Therefore, the approach of prejudice makes The Merchant of Venice an atemporal 
play, since that social and religious prejudice are still possible to be found even after centuries 
of society evolution, such as the antisemitism in the World War II. The role of Shylock’s 
character was to show the prejudices through a victim of Christian intolerance, who wanted to 
fight against all that he and his race had already been gone through, moreover making an 
accusation against Christian oppression in the middle ages. 
Vasconcelos 3 
 
List of references 
Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice. Edited by Bernard Lott. Singapore: Longman 
Group, 1988. 
 
Stoll, E.E. Shylock (1927). Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice. Edited by John Wilders. 
London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993. 47-58. 
 
Palmer, John. Shylock (1946). Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice. Edited by John 
Wilders. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1969. 114-131. 
 
Shapiro, James. Shakespeare and the Jews. The Merchant of Venice: William Shakespeare. 
Edited by Martin Coyle. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998. 73-91.