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The Merchant of Venice 878 Views
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Description:
Take a stroll with us through the shady back alleys of Venice. If you were looking for a relaxing ride through the gondola canals...well, wrong travel guide.
Transcript
- 00:01
The Merchant of Venice, a la Shmoop.
- 00:08
According to modern critics, William Shakespeare has problems.
- 00:11
Nope, it’s not just his receding hairline...
- 00:14
According to some, this playwright of playwrights actually has some… problem plays.
- 00:20
Enter The Merchant of Venice, a play which some say is problematic because of the villainous
Full Transcript
- 00:24
character of Shylock.
- 00:27
This guy is mean...
- 00:28
Greedy...
- 00:29
Vengeful....
- 00:30
And in a lot of ways fits every stereotype that the people of Shakespeare’s day believed
- 00:33
about Jews. What is the Merchant of Venice really trying
- 00:37
to say about Jewish people?
- 00:39
Is it possible that the play is promoting the anti-Semitic attitude of its time?
- 00:43
We can definitely see how it’d be easy to be anti-Semitic in 16th century England. [1]
- 00:45
Most Jewish people had been given the boot way back in the 13th century...
- 00:53
…so all the English had to go on in Shakespeare’s time were popular stories that made Jews out
- 01:00
to be diabolic super-villains.
- 01:02
These stories even claimed that Jews stole Christian children on Easter to use the blood
- 01:06
for Passover rituals.
- 01:08
Some have said that the pound of flesh Shylock demands from Antonio is a reference to these
- 01:13
blood-rituals…
- 01:13
…and that the play is reinforcing these out-of-control stereotypes.
- 01:17
Of course, others will tell you that the play is actually criticizing the prejudices of
- 01:22
its time.
- 01:23
Shylock’s famous speech in which he asks… if you prick us do we not bleed?... insists
- 01:29
that Jews and Christians share a common humanity.
- 01:32
The fact that Shylock says all this even though he's been spit upon, kicked, and railed against
- 01:37
for being different…
- 01:38
…could show that he’s more than a negative Jewish stereotype.
- 01:42
So it might be that the play is way ahead of its time in its portrayal of Jewish people,
- 01:46
right? Another possibility, though, is that the play
- 01:49
isn’t taking any stance at all.
- 01:51
It’s just dramatizing exactly the kind of stuff that was going down in its time.
- 01:55
Shakespeare may have written a character like Antonio, who spews tons of terrible things
- 01:59
about Jews, because...
- 02:00
…well...there were tons of people going around doing just that.
- 02:03
The end of the play, where Shylock is stripped of a lot of his wealth and forced to convert
- 02:08
to Christianity…
- 02:08
…might not be saying that this is the way things ought to be.
- 02:12
Instead, it could just be showing the way things are.
- 02:14
So what do you think?
- 02:17
What is the Merchant of Venice trying to say about the Jews?
- 02:20
Is it promoting the anti-Semitic attitude of its time?
- 02:23
Is it critiquing these prejudices?
- 02:25
Or is it just telling it how it is?
- 02:27
Shmoop amongst yourselves.
- 02:29
[1]I'd rephrase this.
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