William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely considered the best English author and therefore the world's famous author up until this day. His ongoing works, as well as collaborations, consist of just about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, 2 long narrative poems, and a few other verses, and a number of uncertain authorship. But what I'm focusing on is Williams more unique and powerful plays called The Merchant of Venice in which takes place in 16th-century. It is believed to have been written between 1596 and 1599, which is the time when Jews in Venice were treated poorly and had ultimately no human status towards any Christians. I believe that in the Play, The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare uses "Shylock" as an example to demonstrate these multiple perspectives of conflict throughout the story at the time of 1596 to 1599. To which, William Shakespeare had a unique, diverse and understanding on what was happening to the Jewish culture at the timeline of 1596 to 1599. To hold-up my statement, I will be using three points of evidence; firstly, using Shylock's dialogue/speeches, secondly using the critique against the unjust treatment of Jews in the society at the time and lastly, using events such as the courtroom scene.
First, the character Shylock is a miserable Jew, moneylender and father of Jessica in the play. During the reading of The Merchant of Venice, Shylock's dialogue is very unique and misplaced. The reason why is because Shylock's role is to be the antagonist/joke of the story, but it seems to me that Shylock has too much personality/backstory to be left as just an antagonist/joke. I like to believe that Shylock is put in to demonstrate the multiple perspectives of conflict throughout the story at the time of 1596 to 1599 by Shakespeare. Shylock has a few speeches he gives during the play that would point out the conflicts during the time; the one that stands-out the most is this speech from Shylock, "To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge.
