Elise Staats

The play begins with Antonio acting different/depressed and the others want to know what the cause of his depression is. At first, Salaerio and Solanio think he is depressed because of money and when they found that to be incorrect they then blamed it on love, but that wasn’t correct either.

Reading on, Gratiano notices Antonio’s sadness as well and tries to make him feel better by giving him a speech about life. Then, Bassanio starts distracting Antonia from his problems by telling him his own problems. Bassanio is in love with a wealthy, much desired woman and doesn’t feel like he’s good enough for her. Therefore Bassanio beats himself up over his issue of feeling like an underdog. Antonio, being a good friend, tells Bassanio he may borrow money and go see the woman he loves.

When Portia enters, she talks about how unhappy she is with her life, almost sounding ungrateful. It appears that she is depressed about her father’s death and the fact she is unwed. To be expected, all her complaining has left her with an unpredicted future. We learn that before Portia’s father passed he set up a scenario for her future husband; whichever man selected the correct chest would become her husband. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise to me, that Portia had something negative to say about each of the men that were chosen and in the end, none of them wanted to even take the chance at marrying her. After Portia realizes that none of the men selected wanted to marry her, she tries to think of whom else she could have; coming up with Bassanio. She illustrates her interest for him in line 100 when she says, “I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise.” (I was shocked that he was actually good enough for her).

Bassino wanted to borrow money from Shylock, but Shylock wasn’t so quick to give it to him unless he could be sure he would be getting it back. Bassino arranged for Antonio to help convince Shylock over dinner that he would be getting it back because it was his money that he was lending Bassino. Antonio and Shylock share some religious differences, which turns into a huge argument. Later on, Antonio and shylock make up and shylock extends his hand to become Antonio’s friend; Bassino has a weird feeling about what happened between them and warns Antonio.

After reading Act One, some of the things that I was unsure of was Antonio and Shylock’s argument. There were times where I was lost in what exactly they were arguing about; I mean I know it was all about money, but I was confused. Overall, I am really enjoying the play so far and can’t wait to read on!