Throughout William Shakespeare’s play‚ The Merchant of Venice‚ there is a strong theme of prejudice. Portia has to deal with prejudice against her sex‚ the Prince of Morocco has to deal with prejudice against his race but the character that is most discriminated against is Shylock. He is hated for being a Jew and a money-lender‚ but Shakespeare has not made Shylock a character easy to sympathise with. He appears to be mean and cruel and it seems as though he loves money above all things. However
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Do you sympathise for Shylock? - Give reasons for your answer Should Shylock be shown pity or did he deserve how he was treated? Ever since Shylock was shown as a character by William Shakespeare in the Merchant of Venice there have been many interpretations about him all throughout history. Some of these opinions are of the time are biased. Even different groups of people throughout the centuries have a different point of view about this man. In the 19th century (Elizabethan times) Shylock
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In Elizabethan Europe‚ Jews were seen as the lowest class of society‚ and were discriminated against to extreme degrees. Around the 1000s Jews lived in Europe amongst everyone else‚and did not live in ghettos. A Jew was often wealthy‚ and many became money lenders in their societies. Because of their jobs‚ they often had to be their own debt collectors as well. This led to much resentment against them‚ and the views on Jews were starting to turn negative. As time went on‚ these views became more
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To what extent does Shakespeare present Shylock as a victim? In the ‘Merchant of Venice’ Shakespeare makes it very difficult for us to define who is the victim and who is the villain as certain characters‚ such as Shylock reveal many personalities and therefore portray elements of both the victim and the villain. We are first introduced to Shylock in Act 1 scene 3. In this scene it is quickly made apparent that Shlyock enjoys power‚ especially over Bassanio and likes watching him suffer. This
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Consider the relationship between homosocial and homoerotic in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and A Twelfth Night. “To talk of an Individual in this period as being or not being a ‘homosexual’ is an anachronism and ruinously misleading” (Bray‚ 1982‚ pg. 16) Before a solid argument can commence the reader has to first distinguish a number of key points of view‚ and more over understand them. The problem with such arguments is of course the hurdle between contemporary opinions and
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In “Tourists Could Destroy Venice—If Floods Don’t First” by Simon Worrall‚ a Venetian named Settis explains how the city of Venice could become lost. To begin with‚ important representatives of the city have thought about opening Venice as a theme park. However‚ Settis argues that tourist should not have to pay to explore the city and that the city itself can tell its own history because of its beauty. Also‚ he is a strong believer that Venice should not be famous for its tourism‚ but for the first
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William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice contains many examples that insult Jews because they were the minority in London in Shakespeare’s time. Although many parts of the play could be interpreted as offensive in modern times‚ Elizabethan audiences found them comical. The majority of London’s population at the time was anti-Semitic because there were very few Jews living there. Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice supports anti-Semitism actions and thoughts and therefore
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they deal with the play’s key issues. There are three particular speeches that have been spoken about for many centuries because of their underlying messages- Katharina’s final speech in The Taming of the Shrew‚ Portia’s speech in The Merchant of Venice‚ and Hamlet’s soliloquy in Hamlet. In The Taming of the Shrew‚ Katharina gives the final speech of the play. She speaks to all of her family and friends at the wedding and allows them to see the changes in her character. Katharina says to her sister
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To what extent did the need for strategic leadership lead to the rise of Venice between the 9th and 15th centuries? Venice was a major trading power between the 9th and 15th centuries‚ which led to extraordinary wealth and vast trading services. After the fourth Crusade‚ Venice became the strongest republic of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. As a result‚ Venice succeeded in dominating the entire maritime traffic. Venetians with adventurous spirits traveled abroad in search for new opportunities
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The late sixteenth century play "˜The Merchant of Venice’‚ one of Shakespeare’s more popular comedies‚ is one that is portraying various peoples lives throughout Venice and Belmont. During the course of the play there is a concentration of thoughts and emotions towards the character Shylock‚ a Jewish usurer‚ this is the very character that we shall be concentrating the question in the title on. In most scenes the character Shylock has to deal with a lot of racial discrimination‚ which has at modern
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