and my grandmother’s experiences living along the Irtysh River
“The Merchant of Venice” is the most controversial play written by Shakespeare, criticized as being antisemitic, and even used as part of Hitler’s propaganda. The book also features passionate speeches made by the character of Shylock, who attempts to convince the other characters in the play and the audience watching of the common humanity shared among all human communities. The characters within the novel are morally ambiguous, with no clear villain or hero, meaning that this is a play that has inspired much conversation.
The most important issue raised in “The Merchant of Venice” is regarding audience expectations and Shakespeare’s characterization. Characters from “The Merchant of Venice” are still relevant today due to their not falling into conventional character categories of villain and hero and are thus able to take on modern interpretations in various adaptations. The character of Shylock is the most intriguing character in “The Merchant of Venice” and perhaps the most developed and nuanced character in all of Shakespeare’s plays. Shylock is an extremely complex character. He possesses a clear core desire and motivation shown by his character arc. He is the play’s tragic flawed hero in his fight for justice and revenge. He stands up for himself, albeit in a way that is self-destructive due to his desire for revenge being all-encompassing.
We seem to be obsessed with putting Shylock into a box, attempting to determine whether or not he fits into the conventional expectations of a literary villain or victim. However, the character of Shylock can be considered both a victim— in the sense that he had been relentlessly tormented and racially/ religiously tormented by Christians, and lost his daughter, wealth, and his own dignity and personal identity. A lot of the factors that plagued his life with unhappiness had very much been out of his control, and his attempt to establish control in his life (by attempting to seek and exact justice by taking a pound of flesh from Antonio, a man he considers the representative of all of the ostracization he has endured at the hands of the Venetian Christians) was unsuccessful and humiliating. This is a man who had never “gotten a break”, and modern audiences, sympathetic to his loss and suffering wish to root for his success, albeit he desires for Antonio’s death. In this way, Shylock can be interpreted as a villain, someone who is “unable to let it go”, a “difficult” marginalized person, who is so difficult that his desire for revenge goes as far as a death wish. Due to his clear motivations depicted by Shakespeare (who can forget Shylock’s quote about the shared humanity of Jews and Christians, and to an extent, mankind?), the reader can see that Shylock is not a fundamentally villainous character. Most villains started as victims, their suffering a part of their “backstory”, something used to garner audience sympathy and understanding of character motives. The modern audience (the antisemitic Victorian-era audiences likely rooted for Antonio, despite Shylock’s efforts to emphasize commonalities between ethnic, cultural, and religious groups) can understand “where Shylock is coming from” per se. This leads to a question about our sense of morality: just because we can understand the origins and explanations for someone’s erratic or morally erroneous behavior, should we attempt to justify their decisions by drawing on our sympathies?
The assumption made by the Christians in the play is that Shylock is supposed to display Christian mercy in his response to the racism displayed by the Venetian Christians, something that was never shown to Shylock. We often expect a response of forgiveness from those who have been wronged, and this can be seen in the shock people have expressed witnessing the expressions of anger of marginalized people following various social rights movements. Why are we so surprised when people act out in violent ways as a result of the violence of others? Is there a correct way in responding to discrimination? How can we dehumanize a person and expect them to turn the other cheek in the same way we believe we will behave given the same circumstances? The Christian Venetians of “The Merchant of Venice” ignore the fact they routinely mistreated and abused Shylock, instead expecting him to act accordingly to “Christian graces”, something they themselves do not exhibit given their refusal to “love thy neighbor”. Portia, under the disguise of being a doctor-judge, urges Shylock to demonstrate mercy, but shows none to Shylock in the infliction of punishment, not only taking away his ability to practice usury, the job sustaining his life, but also forcibly altering his religious identity into that of a Christian. Shylock is repeatedly criticized for displaying the cruelty the Christians have shown to him, as seen in Shylock’s lines in Act 1 regarding how he will do “what they taught him”. This is hypocritical, and Shakespeare could be urging the audience to reflect on their behaviors when expecting certain performances from others.
Identity is a core theme throughout the play, with characters such as Launcelot believing identity to be something biologically innate. while characters such as Jessica and Lorenzo believe it to stem more from one’s mannerisms. However, the issue of associating a cultural identity with a set of behaviors is fundamentally problematic, as that assumption is built on stereotypes, something that can further reinforce hateful ideas about a different community of people.
The two main groups of people featured in “The Merchant of Venice” whose conflicts contribute to the play’s plot are the Venetian Christians and the Venetian Jews. These two groups of people live side by side and often interact with each other in the course of conducting business. However, they are unable to understand the perspectives of the other, intentionally isolating themselves. This can be reflected in the different attitudes the characters possess regarding music, as Shylock and Jessica, who are Jewish characters, cannot appreciate and are even overwhelmed by the music that the Christian Venetians are so fond of. Race, ethnic, cultural, and religious affiliation shape our social identities, and in an attempt to be a part of an “in-group”. We are socialized to hate another group due to other people within our group despising other communities. The idea that two groups of people can live together in the same territory and still refuse to understand the other is a recurring motif across the works we have explored thus far in English class— from the Aboriginal people and British settlers of Australia to the different socioeconomic classes in London and Germany. This made me think of my grandparents’ experience with their Russian neighbors up north. I guess the Irtysh River can be said to have been their “Secret River”.
Colorful Beach (Rainbow Beach), Burqin Yadan landform, Irtysh River, Xinjiang, China. Image credit twabian via Shutterstock.
It was a literally river’s distance away from Russia and a wire fence away from Kazakhstan. I would listen to my grandma phone call her friends each night, recalling how she used to look into the gaps of the wire to observe the activities in Kazakhstan. The river that separated China from Russia’s western Siberia was the Irtysh River. It is the longest tributary river in the world, and for nomadic groups situated around the black Irtysh (the southern part of this river originating from Altai, Inner Mongolia, and Kazakhstan), it meant that this was the body of water everyone turned towards for maintaining steppe grasslands for herd grazing and the Burqin side of the river utilized this water for the maintenance of crops. This river was shared by the many different Turkic and Mongol ethnic groups in Burqin but also with the “white” Russians up north. While there was plenty of interaction, friendship, and normalized marriages within ethnic groups, the “white” people up north of the river were more of a mystery. Sometimes the people on both sides of the river would greet each other in Russian if eye contact was made, but more often than not, people kept to their sides of the river. The reasoning behind this was simple: if one person from one side of the river crossed the river, that could be interpreted as trespassing into foreign land. There were no walls and fences, which is the traditional expectation of what a border would look like, and all that separated either party of people was a short span of the river. The river fed the people by providing vegetation and resources for animal grazing but was ironically the place where war could originate. But despite having this joint use of the river for similar purposes and observing the other across the river, people still limited their interactions.
Another major theme in “The Merchant of Venice” is the fine balance in parenting when communicating with your children, something that was also explored in Kate Grenville’s “The Secret River”, concerning William Thornhill’s anger seeing his child Dick socialize with their Aboriginal neighbors. Shylock can be said to be overprotective of his daughter Jessica, limiting her ability to socialize with other Venetians. This contributed to her desire to elope and become Christian, and her hatred towards her father, which cost Shylock losing half of his fortune through Jessia’s theft. Children suck right? But in both stories, the erosion of the parent-child relationship was rooted in the inability of the parent to communicate their worries to their child directly, instead opting to utilize to inspire discipline through a “just because I am your father” argument.
Photo credit: 19th Century Engraving of The Merchant of Venice. Getty Images/Andrew Howe)
The court scene is the most memorable scene of the play due to the moral dilemma it raises in the viewer: which character are we rooting for? We can sympathize with Shylock’s suffering at the hands of the Venetian Christians and his daughter taking off with his money and ring of sentimental value (left to him by his presumably dead wife, the rings symbolize loyalty and trust), but we can also recognize the absurd cruelty in his determination of receive a pound of Antonio’s flesh. The repetition of “alien” in regard to Shylock is repeatedly emphasized in court despite his living in Venice for quite a while (perhaps generations of his family have lived there), and in fact, he is never referred to again by name after this scene, instead called “the rich Jew”, and “Jew dog”, the fellow characters reinforcing their perceived irrelevance of his character beyond his financial pact with Antonio. This shows how they can repeatedly dehumanize him without guilt: they simply do not care about him or the fate they have prescribed him: stripped of his Jewish identity in converting to Christianity, and without the means to sustain himself as he is no longer able to practice usury, half of his wealth given to the state, and the other half left to Jessica and the Christian she eloped with.
The movie adaptation of “The Merchant of Venice” made use of symbolism in terms of the chair the character of Antonio was placed in: the chair resembled a throne, and its height and size were emphasized by wide-angled shots following the reveal that Antonio is saved by the law and that Shylock is now the person awaiting legal persecution. This symbolizes the change in power among the men, as Antonio becomes the person in control of Shylock’s fate, and their roles become reversed. Antonio frequently volunteers his body for Bassanio: a pound of his flesh to secure Bassanio enough money to woo Portia in Belmont, and his soul for Bassanio and Portia’s marital satisfaction. He seems to perceive himself as a “Christ-like” figure, as has taken on this role since the first scene of the play, where Antonio is shown melancholic, his sadness never easing throughout the play, except during times when he is assured of Bassanio’s happiness. The interesting thing about “The Merchant of Venice” is that the title is a reference to Antonio and not Shylock, meaning that it is Antonio’s sacrificial lamb- tribute tendencies that are the focus of the play as intended by Shakespeare. It could be that he wanted to commit suicide, but opted to get murdered instead, as shown by his easy acceptance of his fate if Bassanio would be able to send him off into the afterlife, and his vocalized desire to be memorialized in the eyes of Bassanio.
The theme of gender and power is also explored in this play. Portia provides help to Antonio due to her marital alliance and love for Bassanio. She is liberated in the sense that she is not afraid to argue for her beliefs and on behalf of the people she cares about, something that is unexpected of women in Venetian times and even during the present day. She is a well-educated woman with a voice. She is clever in searching for legal loopholes by offering differing from literal interpretations of Venetian law, but she is also cruel in carrying out the law in a way that severely limits Shylock’s agency. She also deliberately humiliates Shylock by implanting false hope within him by initially allowing him to move forward with the removal of one pound of flesh from Antonio’s body. She intentionally gives Bassanio anxiety in court and at home as a way to establish her authority, something that she has prompted Nerissa to do with her partner Gratiano, which won the respect of both Bassanio and Gratiano. Portia is bigoted, but in the way all of the Venetian Christians are. There is no doubt regarding her cruelty in treating Shylock, but this is typical of Venetian behavior as a result of the ideologies of that period. This does not justify her actions but can allow the audience to understand the reasons for her behavior. Her attempts to exert her authority by dressing up as a man, interfering with the law case, and pestering Bassanio about the rings are the only ways in which she can establish control within her own life during a period that did not allow for many opportunities for women to pursue their self-actualization. In this way, Portia can be seen as a prisoner of her time but still attempts to create opportunities for herself in which she can establish a sense of authority of control.
Due to the sensitivities and awareness of the role of prejudice in the history of the world, it would be quite difficult to produce this play as it was initially produced in Victorian times by Shakespeare. Alterations and a clear antisemitic message need to be conveyed in any modern productions to avoid the eliciting of hate as media can have significant consequences on the behaviors and ideologies of the public (my English teacher Mrs. Jones has shared about how a news outlet discovered a correlational relationship between the production of “The Passion of Christ” and antisemitic hate crimes in that area due to the anger at the killing of Christ). Even though “The Merchant of Venice” would be a difficult play to produce, it remains worthwhile and important to support the production of such a play (if it is done sensitively). This is because the message and themes conveyed in “The Merchant of Venice” are still relevant today, and a conversation about ethnic discrimination, gender roles, and parent-child relationships are conversations that will benefit human socialization. There are so many ways to interpret the play through a modern lens, meaning that the play is versatile and can be produced through different interpretations of the characters and the plot itself, allowing for creativity. Gratiano and Bassanio can become frat boys in a modern adaptation, and the homoeroticism displayed between Bassanio and Antonio and Portia and Nerissa has often been interpreted through an LGBTQ lens in many Broadway productions.
Unemployed Future Famous Person 
Leave a comment