The document provides a summary and analysis of William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice. It discusses some of the play's most memorable characters including Antonio, Shylock, and Portia. While Shylock is initially portrayed as the villain for suing Antonio, Shakespeare adds complexity by depicting Shylock with both humanity and cruelty. The play contains elements of both comedy and tragedy, and can be interpreted in various ways regarding its treatment of themes like mercy, justice, and religious discrimination.

1. BOOK REVIEW
MERCHANT OF VENICE

2. INTRODUCTION
The Merchant of Venice* contains some of Shakespeare’s most memorable and
complex characters. While Antonio is central to this play — after all, he is normally
considered the person for whom it is named — audiences are inevitably fascinated by
Shylock, the Jew who sues Antonio for a lethal “pound of flesh” in return for unpaid
loans, and by Portia, the wealthy heiress, who marries Antonio’s friend Bassanio and
saves Antonio’s life in a dramatic courtroom scene.
Although Shylock is the villain of this play, Shakespeare departs from the Elizabethan
caricature of the cruel, hated Jew, as exemplified by Marlowe’s Barabas in *The Jew of
Malta* (1589-90). His creation is more complex, fusing humanity with unrelenting cruelty
and a strict adherence to the letter of the law. In this way, the Jew-figure becomes
something impossible to define, performable as the clownish, evil, red-haired
Elizabethan devil (a precursor to Dickens’ Fagin), or as the sympathetic Jew of our
modern.

3. ABOUT THE BOOK
The Merchant of Venice ranks with Hamlet as one of Shakespeare's most
frequently performed dramas. Written sometime between 1594 and 1598,
the play is primarily based on a story in Il Pecorone, a collection of tales and
considerable debate concerning the dramatist's intent in The Merchant of
Venice anecdotes by the fourteenth-century Italian writer Giovanni
Fiorentino. There is because, although it conforms to the structure of a
comedy, the play contains many tragic elements. One school of critics
maintains that the drama is fundamentally allegorical, addressing such
themes as the triumph of mercy over justice, New Testament forgiveness
over Old Testament law, and love over material wealth. Another group of
commentators, observing several ambiguities in the play's apparent
endorsement of Christian values, contends that Shakespeare actually
censures Antonio and the Venetians who oppose Shylock. In essence, these
critics assert that the Christians' discrimination against Shylock which
ultimately results in his forced conversion from Judaism, contradicts the New
Testament precepts of love and mercy. Other commentators suggest that
Shakespeare intentionally provided for both interpretations of the drama:
although the playwright does not entirely support Shylock, they contend,
neither does he endorse the actions of Antonio and the other Venetians in
their punishment of the Jew.

4. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William Shakespeare (/ˈʃeɪkspɪər/;[1] 26 April 1564 (baptised) – 23 April 1616)[nb 1] was
an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in
the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.[2] He is often called
England's national poet, and the "Bard of Avon".[3][nb 2] His extant works,
including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays,[nb 3] 154 sonnets, two
long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays
have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often
than those of any other playwright.[4]
Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the
age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and
twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful
career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called
the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men.

5. Summary of the book
A young Venetian, Bassanio, needs a loan of three thousand ducats so that
he can woo Portia, a wealthy Venetian heiress. He approaches his friend
Antonio, a merchant. Antonio is short of money because all his wealth is
invested in his fleet, which is currently at sea. He goes to a Jewish money
lender, Shylock, who hates Antonio because of Antonio’s anti-
semiticbehaviour towards him.
Shylock nevertheless agrees to make the short-term loan, but, in a moment
of dark humour, he makes a condition – the loan must be repaid in three
months or Shylock will exact a pound of flesh from Antonio. Antonio agrees,
confident that his ships will return in time.
Because of the terms of Portia’s father’s will, all suitors must choose from
among three caskets, one of which contains a portrait of her. If he chooses
that he may marry Portia, but if doesn’t he must vow never to marry or
court another woman. The Princes of Morocco and Arragon fail the test and
are rejected. As Bassanio prepares to travel to Belmont for the test,
his friend Lorenzo elopes with Shylock’s daughter, Jessica. Bassanio chooses
the lead casket, which contains her picture, and Portia happily agrees to
marry him immediately.

6. Meanwhile, two of Antonio’s ships have been wrecked and Antonio’s
creditors are pressurising him for repayment. Word comes to Bassanio about
Antonio’s predicament, and he hurries back to Venice, leaving Portia behind.
Portia follows him, accompanied by her maid, Nerissa. They are disguised as
a male lawyer and his clerk. When Bassanio arrives the date for the
repayment to Shylock has passed and Shylock is demanding his pound of
flesh. Even when Bassanio offers much more than the amount in repayment,
Shylock, now infuriated by the loss of his daughter, is intent on seeking
revenge on the Christians. The Duke refuses to intervene.
Portia arrives in her disguise to defend Antonio. Given the authority of
judgment by the Duke, Portia decides that Shylock can have the pound of
flesh as long as he doesn’t draw blood, as it is against the law to shed a
Christian’s blood. Since it is obvious that to draw a pound of flesh would kill
Antonio, Shylock is denied his suit. Moreover, for conspiring to murder a
Venetian citizen, Portia orders that he should forfeit all his wealth. Half is to
go to Venice, and half to Antonio.
Antonio gives his half back to Shylock on the condition that Shylock
bequeath it to his disinherited daughter, Jessica. Shylock must also convert
to Christianity. A broken Shylock accepts. News arrives that Antonio’s

7. remaining ships have returned safely. With the exception of Shylock, all
celebrate a happy ending to the affair.
CRITICAL ASSESSMENT
Through the years, The Merchant of Venice has been one of William Shakespeare’s
most popular and most frequently performed plays. The work has an interesting and
fast-moving plot, and it evokes an idyllic, uncorrupted world reminiscent of folktale and
romance. From the opening description of Antonio’s nameless sadness, the world is
bathed in light and music. The insistently improbable plot is complicated only by the evil
influence of Shylock, and he is disposed of by the end of act 4. However, Shakespeare
uses this fragile vehicle to make significant points about justice, mercy, and friendship,
three typical Renaissance virtues. Although some critics suggest that the play contains
all of the elements of tragedy only to be rescued by a comic resolution, the tone of the
whole play creates a benevolent world in which, despite some opposition, things will
always work out for the best.
The story, based on ancient tales that could have been drawn from many sources, is
actually two stories in one—the casket plot, involving the choice by the suitor and his
reward with Portia, and the bond plot, involving the loan and the attempt to exact a
pound of flesh. Shakespeare’s genius is revealed in the way he combines the two.
Although they intersect from the start in the character of Bassanio, who occasions
Antonio’s debt and is a suitor, they fully coalesce when Portia comes to Venice in

8. disguise to make her plea and judgment for Antonio. At that point, the bond plot is
unraveled by the casket heroine, after which the fifth act brings the celebratory
conclusion and joy.
The most fascinating character to both audiences and critics always has been Shylock,
the outsider, the anomaly in this felicitous world. Controversy rages over just what kind
of villain Shylock is and just how villainous Shakespeare intended him to be. The matter
is complicated by the desire to absolve Shakespeare of the common medieval and
Renaissance vice of anti-Semitism. Some commentators argued that in Shylock
Shakespeare takes the stock character of the Jew—as personified in Christopher
Marlowe’s Barabas in his The Jew of Malta (1589)—and fleshes him out with
complicating human characteristics. Some went so far as to argue that, even in his
villainy, Shylock is presented as a victim of the Christian society, the grotesque product
of hatred and ostracism. Regardless of Shakespeare’s personal views, the fact remains
that, in his treatment, Shylock becomes much more than a stock villain.

9. conclusion
The Merchant of Venice is a popular work that allows for a wide variety
of interpretations. The complexity of the characters of Portia and Shylock in
particular continue to intrigue actors, critics, and readers alike. As S. C. Sen
Gupta has stated, "The Merchant of Venice introduces us to the middle of
Shakespeare's dramatic career" in which "we find not the apprentice of
promise but the artist of full genius."