Shakespeare opens this passage by touching the levels of the society. It is sort of an irony that Gratiano calls Antonio a ¡§royal merchant¡¨ (Act3 Scene2 Line238) because just in the next person¡¦s dialogue the readers learn that all of Antonio¡¦s ships hadn¡¦t made it but instead had sunk the ocean. From the way that Bassanio calls his wife ¡§Gentle lady,¡¨ the sense of a hierarchal pattern was established. Since Bassanio won Portia by chance of the caskets and the fact that Portia has a great deal of money, Bassanio practically reveres her. But even when Portia considers herself as ¡§half of Bassanio,¡¨ or, his wife, such that he doesn¡¦t need to show so much respect for her but instead treat her as a equal, why does Bassanio still do so? Is it because he wants to borrow a great deal of money from her? Or is it just simply because he wants to show all his love for her? Or maybe he

Shakespeare presents us with a interesting dialogue between Christians, talking about the Jew that they all persecuted. They communicate their hatred towards Shylock with such passion that one cannot believe that a person of such a holy religion is saying about another religion. It is queer how they can be so polite to each other, calling them by names of status, yet they can be so powerful in their derision of Jews. Shakespeare seems to have wanted his readers to think that Christians were like hypocrites, highly and polite on one side but lowly and evil on the other. Shakespeare has done a marvelous job in making us wonder which interpretation is correct. No matter which interpretation we choose to accept, this piece of writing is still a magnificent piece of writing. Christian, or not Christian, Jew, or not Jew, this masterpiece should be widely accepted with open arms by everybody of each religion to show that we, together as a whole, not as separate religious groups, view this play as leisure instead of scorn.

However, anti-Semitism plays an important role in this Shakespearean masterpiece also. In actuality, this play cannot be described by the term ¡§anti-Semitism¡¨ because Shakespeare probed the dark side of Christianity. This leads to a conflict between the two religions. On one hand Shakespeare portrays the Jewish as the villain in the play, for the Jews always try to get revenge at the Christians. But the notion of vengeance is something that all humans have, so in a way, Shakespeare was trying to lead his readers in the direction that Jewish people were the ones going against the Christians, but that is just prejudice along with anti-Semitism. The fact that Antonio was referred to as ¡§good Antonio¡¨ (Act3 Scene2 Line238) established the biased opinion for the Christians to be ¡§good.¡¨. It is p

Some topics in this essay:
Scene2 Line238, Shylock Shakespeare, Salerio Jessica, Christian Christians, Scene2 Line253, Merchant Venice, Sympathy Christian, Christian Antonio, Jews Shakespeare, Jew Jew, towards jews, act3 scene2, levels society, act3 scene2 line238, bassanio realized, role shakespearean, religion christian, piece writing, mistake readers, hatred towards, deal money,