Shakespeare's Shylock

Shakespeare’s Shylock

We have all read Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare in school with great censure for Shylock, who was greedy, cruel and mean. He deserved to lose his dignity, wealth and religion at the end of the trial. Justice prevails and the devil always meets a gory end. A stereotype propounded and etched in the minds of children, who grew to relate to Jews with mistrust. A play used by Nazis to stoke anti-Semitic feelings during the holocaust. Shylocks or loan sharks entered the lexicon and terms like ‘pound of flesh’ became common when someone demanded onerous returns. Is Merchant of Venice a play about anti-Semitism? A moralistic play about good and evil, mercy and justice, love and greed became a major controversial work of Shakespeare with the turn of the 20^th century.

Shakespeare had good business sense and he wrote the play in the aftermath of the execution and public hanging of Roderigo Lopeza, a converted Portuguese Jew. The latter was the official physician of the Queen. In 1594, he was convicted of plotting to poison Queen Elizabeth I and was executed as a traitor. The Lopeza trial and execution inspired the revival of playwright Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, in which the play's title character is a Jew named Barabas, a greedy, cunning and murderous stereotype. It fanned frenzy against the Jews, though at the time only about 200 Jews lived in England, after they had been banished in 1290 under the Edict of Expulsion. Horrifying legends and gory stereotypical stories, about the absent English Jew became rampant; poisoning Christian children, using blood of murdered humans for passover rituals.......When Lord Chamberlain’s Men staged Merchant of Venice, it was a delightful success. The existing atmosphere of hatred for Jews gave the audience more fodder for glee and Shylock was perceived with added hatred and revulsion. The blinkers of vengeance made the masses completely miss the point of a more complex, sympathetic and whole Shylock.  

The tradition of playing Shylock sympathetically began in the first half of the 19th century with Edmund Kean, the famous English actor of his times. It established him as an actor. His portrayal of Shylock completely turned the tables on previous enactments by repulsive clowns or monsters of unrelieved evil. Henry Irving’s act of a proud aristocratic Jew in 1879 was hailed the ‘summit of his career.’ He was followed by Jacob Adler in the early 20^th century, who played the role in Yiddish in an otherwise English production. The new perspective morphed him into a proud man whose self-respect is maligned and destroyed by the so-called men of God. His actions of revenge ensue from pride and he demands justice for a blow to his individuality, profession and religion. The guardians of law – Portia, Antonio, Bassanio, make a mockery of justice and facilitate the passing of a harsh sentence, contrary to their qualities of goodness, love and justice. The final act bares hypocrisy of the so-called good and lends authenticity to the image of Shylock who walks out of court with his head held high -"would he not walk out of that courtroom head erect, the very apotheosis of defiant hatred and scorn?”

Henrik Eger writes- “Some theatres have gone where most directors dare not tread, including the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, by presenting a bare-chested Antonio with the knife of Shylock on his chest. However, few companies like the Quintessence Theatre Group have come as close to the Rembrandt-like scene with Antonio flat on his back, almost a corpse—all in the presence of the entire Venetian court, with Shylock approaching like Dr. Tulp, holding a huge knife in his hands, ready to cut out the promised pound of flesh. This naked determination for physical justice, against the background of years of having been bullied, maligned, and treated like a criminal, is a scene so direct that it is painful to watch.  Benim Foster (Shylock), originally a Jew on being interviewed said-“The play has always been a mystery to me. Something I feared. I avoided it, believing that it would just upset me too much, being Jewish. I also struggled with the thought of Shakespeare, himself, being an Anti-Semite. However, I have come to believe that he was just the opposite. He gives Shylock so much depth, so much humanity, love, pain, beauty and grief, plus his anger, stubbornness, and impatience that he shows us Shylock as human.”

Contemporary adaptations and films continue the trend of giving multiple voices to characters in the play. In the 2004 film adaptation starring Al Pacino as Shylock, the film begins with text and a montage of how the Jewish community is abused by the Christian population of the city. One of the last shots of the film also brings attention to the fact that, as a convert, Shylock would have been cast out of the Jewish community in Venice, no longer allowed to live in the ghetto and would still not be accepted by the Christians, as they would feel that Shylock was yet the Jew he once was.

‘Andrew Dickson, writing in his The Rough Guide to Shakespeare, found that audiences can view The Merchant of Venice from two different perspectives: Antonio's and Shylock's. Both sides of the story are there in this brilliant and troubling play and it's easy to feel that they're irreconcilable. “But,” Dickson continues, ''it is impossible to sit on the fence when watching The Merchant, and the issues it raises about religious intolerance and conflict seem more pressing now than ever before.'' Norrie Epstein, writing in the book The Friendly Shakespeare, calls The Merchant of Venice a troubling play, for the same reason that other critics have come to this conclusion. It is difficult to say, after you have seen it, if it is ''a tragedy or a comedy, a love story or a tale of hate.'' Epstein's conclusion, however, is that in the end, ''in its infinite ambiguity, it is quintessential Shakespeare. No sooner have you reached one conclusion about the play than it's immediately contradicted in the next scene--or line.'' Despite the fact that Shakespeare's audiences in Elizabethan times enjoyed coming to the theatre and ridiculing stock, stereotypical Jewish characters, as was a routine at that time, Epstein states that ''yet embedded within this caricature there's a real human being [in Shylock's character], and every so often Shakespeare lets him out.'' Shylock shows sadness, and he respects his own culture, Epstein writes. And he displays many other emotions in this play. ''He's like a survivor of the Great Depression who grows up valuing money more than love.'' Shakespeare's talent is demonstrated in that he is able to go beyond his ''age's prejudices'' and present ''the world from the alien's perspective.''

Thus, Merchant of Venice cannot be taught in classrooms without historical, circumstantial, political, economical and theatrical context, of the times. It remains a sensitive and highly controversial play 400 years down the line and must be dealt in multiple ways for students. The teaching must open channels for them to perceive it in a wholesome manner and exhort them to further research, to discern truth on their own.

In my humble endeavour to revisit and elaborate on Shakespearean works during his 450th year of celebration, we shall be meeting on 23^rd August at ICG to expound on the tragicomedy Merchant of Venice in the afternoon from 4-6pm. Do join us!