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The Merchant of Venice, a la Shmoop.

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According to modern critics, William Shakespeare has problems.

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Nope, it’s not just his receding hairline...

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According to some, this playwright of playwrights actually has some… problem plays.

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Enter The Merchant of Venice, a play which some say is problematic because of the villainous

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character of Shylock.

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This guy is mean...

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Greedy...

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Vengeful....

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And in a lot of ways fits every stereotype that the people of Shakespeare’s day believed

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about Jews. What is the Merchant of Venice really trying

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to say about Jewish people?

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Is it possible that the play is promoting the anti-Semitic attitude of its time?

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We can definitely see how it’d be easy to be anti-Semitic in 16th century England. [1]

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Most Jewish people had been given the boot way back in the 13th century...

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…so all the English had to go on in Shakespeare’s time were popular stories that made Jews out

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to be diabolic super-villains.

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These stories even claimed that Jews stole Christian children on Easter to use the blood

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for Passover rituals.

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Some have said that the pound of flesh Shylock demands from Antonio is a reference to these

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blood-rituals…

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…and that the play is reinforcing these out-of-control stereotypes.

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Of course, others will tell you that the play is actually criticizing the prejudices of

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its time.

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Shylock’s famous speech in which he asks… if you prick us do we not bleed?... insists

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that Jews and Christians share a common humanity.

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The fact that Shylock says all this even though he's been spit upon, kicked, and railed against

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for being different…

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…could show that he’s more than a negative Jewish stereotype.

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So it might be that the play is way ahead of its time in its portrayal of Jewish people,

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right? Another possibility, though, is that the play

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isn’t taking any stance at all.

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It’s just dramatizing exactly the kind of stuff that was going down in its time.

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Shakespeare may have written a character like Antonio, who spews tons of terrible things

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about Jews, because...

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…well...there were tons of people going around doing just that.

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The end of the play, where Shylock is stripped of a lot of his wealth and forced to convert

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to Christianity…

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…might not be saying that this is the way things ought to be.

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Instead, it could just be showing the way things are.

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So what do you think?

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What is the Merchant of Venice trying to say about the Jews?

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Is it promoting the anti-Semitic attitude of its time?

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Is it critiquing these prejudices?

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Or is it just telling it how it is?

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Shmoop amongst yourselves.

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[1]I'd rephrase this.

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