New Paltz Shakespeare

(Posted for Mark Petersen):

What is this B plot that is going on between Jessica, Lorenzo, Gobbo, and Lancelot? As I understand it she runs away with Lorenzo disguised as a boy in act 2, scene 6. Lancelot the Clown seems to be helping this happen as shown by act 2, scene 3. Jessica tells Lancelot to give Lorenzo a letter in secret during that third scene, and Lancelot bids her adieu as though there is to be a parting. Jessica then laments that she is Shylock’s daughter and says she’ll become a “Christian and a loving wife” which suggests that by becoming a Christian she is running counter to her father’s wishes. Despite the anti-Semitism, the other characters such as Lorenzo and Grazanio seem perfectly fine with her although she would have inherited Shylock’s blood. Is it that she doesn’t act Jewish, or is it that she’s a woman, with her father’s ducats, who Lorenzo can lie with so he chooses to ignore it? She elopes with a Christian dressed as a boy, putting on two roles she was not born with. Why is Jessica exempt from Jewish status? Lorenzo exclaims “Here dwells my father, Jew,” as he, Graziano, and Salerio are breaking Jessica out with the stolen ducats, Jessica then goes to “gild” herself with more ducats after Lorenzo mentions Bassanio’s feast. It makes me wonder if Bassanio is complicit in the lovers’ plot and if so in what way. The act of stealing from Shylock itself seems to be what makes Jessica “transcend” her Jewishness as shown by Graziano’s comment that she’s a gentile and no Jew. Lorenzo replies that she has proved herself to be “fair and true.” As an aside, the way they describe Jessica is her boy’s clothes, “the lovely garnish of a boy,” makes me wonder about if it was meant to suggest homosexual undertones. When Antonio enters, one wonders if he is aware of Jessica’s plot (especially if Bassanio is) considering he knows them all, although he asks “Who’s there?” which would signify that he didn’t know what they were doing. Since he invites them aboard on the journey to Portia, my thought is that they booked passage so that they could elope so it’s not as though Antonio or Bassanio are invested in this plot, it’s just a coincidence that Jessica happens to be the daughter of the usurer that they borrowed money from. Salerio and Solanio remark on Shylock’s reaction to what happened to his daughter or to his ducats and seem to be aware that Lorenzo is taking passage with them in scene 8 of act 2. In act 3, scene 1 Salerio claims to Shylock that Jessica is more different to Shylock than jet to ivory, then start discussing how Jessica spends fourscore ducats in one night which highlights their difference. So is it Shylock’s behavior that motivates the hatred of him, or the hatred of him that motivates his behavior? It is thrown into question by the better treatment of Jessica, who acts more like the Christians, but thrown into question again because she’s a woman and perhaps not taken as seriously as a Jewish man.