Free Merchant of Venice Essays: The Role of Shylock :: Merchant Venice Essays

Perhaps The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare, is neither pro-Jewish, nor pro-Christian, since the illustrations which steer neither the Jew nor the Christian to be perfect are countless.  After having suffered by dint of The Merchant of Venice, and seeing how unjustly poor Shylock was treated by his Christian contemporaries, I cant help but wonder if Shakespeare was actu onlyy essay to show the world how hypocritical members of any religion could be, be it Jewish, Christian, or anything else.  For, although these buggers disliked each other based mainly on differences of spectral doctrine, they had more in common than bleeding when pricked, laughing when tickled, or end when pois geniusd.             As stated in the book of Timothy (vi, 10), The love of gold is the root of all iniquity.  Its not money that is the root of all evil but the  love of it that is pure evil and causes so many problems.  The question characters do love their money, dont they? From Portia to Bassanio,  Antonio to Shylock, Martin to Lewis.              Shylock, in particular, keeps babbling on and on approximately those precious ducats of his, as if they could actually be more important than his take in flesh and blood (and, considering his daughters deviation, they probably were).  As for that bozo Antonio, he was one who loved money, but, in a different way than Shylock, for he seemed to run low more of a buzz off of loaning/giving it to others than out of hoarding it, but, nevertheless, he certainly felt an incessant need to flummox it, as demonstrated by his appeal to deal with the blind Shylock.              Unfortunately, Shylocks cunning didnt match up to his greed, as he was bested by a woman, of all things.  Yes, folks, that pesky Portia, who was hot for Bassanios bod (lust, after all, is a type of greed, is it not?), used her wily ways to help destroy the Jews empire.  Bummer.  Of course, Shylock actually didnt lose it all, since Antonio allowed him to keep the half he was to have been allotted, provided Shylock dig it to his unworthy daughter upon his passing from this plane.  What a sweetheart.