Extended Character Analysis. In The Merchant of Venice, Portia is a beautiful, intelligent, and wealthy heiress from Belmont. Her father’s will stipulates that she can only marry the man who manages to solve a riddle involving three caskets made of different metals. The caskets are made of gold, silver, and lead.
Throughout The Merchant of Venice, the themes of mercy and justice are continuously contradicting when it comes to Shylock’s situation with Antonio, in the court scene. In the play, Shylock has a deep desire for his bond to be satisfied and justice to prevail. In this Shakespearian time period, Jews are looked down upon.
Portia is the romantic heroine of the play, and she must be presented on the stage with much beauty and intelligence. Of her beauty, we need no convincing. Bassanio's words are enough; thus we turn to her love for Bassanio. Already she has given him cause to think that it is possible that he can woo and win her, for on an earlier visit to.
In The Merchant Of Venice, Portia has a lot of long speeches in which she displays her intelligence by either making fun of her suitors or showing her love for Bassanio or her knowledge of law. The opening scene gives proof that Portia is rich and independent by saying: In Belmont is a lady richly left.
In conclusion, the discussions and argument made in the essay goes beyond any reasonable doubt that the character of the Shylock who is one of the main characters in the play Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare is heavily constructed by the presence, interactions ad behaviors of the Christian community who happened to be the neighbors of the character.
Shylock does not only have control over Antonio and therefore the rest of the Christians but also, until Portia catches him out, the court of Venice and the Duke. This occurs because Shylock, as well as Portia, knows that the bond cannot be merely broken, as this would lead to pandemonium in Venice.