There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,
For I did dream of money-bags to-night.
For I did dream of money-bags to-night.
Shakespeare portrayal of Shylock comes off as extremely demeaning to Jews. Not only does he portray Shylock as the greedy money hungry stereotype of Jewish people but he also depicts him as being almost sub human. Launcelot fights the decision to leave his Jewish master within his own head and although he seeks better treatment, he at the same time fears the stigma that will be attached to him from serving a Jew so closely. This portrayal of Jews within the Merchant of Venice surprised me as I was unaware that Shakespeare held such views within any of his writings.
Although the Moroccan prince is portrayed poorly as he boasts of his accomplishments specifically with women, in my opinion Shakespeare portrays Shylock worse. With Shylock representing Jews and the prince representing those of a darker hue, this surprised me. Being written when it was, I expected racism to be more prevalent than bigotry, however within the early stages of The Merchant of Venice this does not appear to be the case.
4 comments:
I definitely agree that I wasn't aware of Shakespeare's anti-Semitic sentiments until reading this play. It would be easy to call him a victim of his time; however, I feel like that completely ignores the responsibility he bears in propogating such baseless insults to an entire community. I was especially shocked when reading that this specific play has been used as Nazi propaganda. Though the more educated reader realizes that these negative stereotypes of the Jewish community are completely false, the easily persuaded (the Germans) took the character of Shylock as an accurate representation of all Jews. I don't necessarily think that this play should not be read or taught because of the deeply offensive misrepresentation of Jews in the play; but to be honest, I'm a little shocked that we are still reading such a hateful piece of literature today. I'm trying not to hold this against Shakespeare, but my father is Jewish and I am deeply offended by the portrayal of a Jew in this play.
I wouldn't necessarily hold it against Shakespeare if he was a bit anti-semitic. I'm sure if we judge him by today's standards he may seem so, but I'd be surprised if he was especially anti-semetic for his time. Also, it said in the introductory essay that all the Jews living in England had been forcibly removed sometime in the middle ages, so Shakespeare had probably never even met one, so his perception of them was only based on hearsay evidence, so really it's the anti-semitism of his sources that are most to blame, and not Shakespeare.
Connor's connection at the end to Morocco is important, because I think this play is getting us to think about xenophobia in more broad terms than simply Jew and European. Portia and Nerissa's joking about the foreign suitors shows us, perhaps, a broader attitude toward outsiders. As Robert says, Jews were banished by law from London in the thirteenth century (about 300 years before Shakespeare). There probably were some Jews still living in London at the time, and Shakespeare may have encountered some. But in any case, there is much evidence in Shakespeare of fear, mocking, mistrust, but also fascination with "the other."
I am Jewish myself, and this anti-Semitism is something I have had to grapple with every time I have read and / or seen this play. However, as can be seen particularly in the "hath not a Jew eyes" speech, Shylock is not always as one-dimensional as he appears. It depends in large part on the individual production, and how the director and actor choose to portray the character.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Shakespeare was a commercial playwright, and as such needed to write plays which would sell. Portraying a Jew or other "outsider" in a positive light would have been controversial at best. Very bad for business.
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