Christian Prejudice and Racial Discrimination of Marginalized in the Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, there are quite a few cases in which the non-Christian characters are marginalized and victimized of Christian prejudice and absolute racism. The Christian prejudice and racial discrimination transpires through the use of language and terms of reference. In sixteenth-century Europe, Jews were a despised and persecuted minority. England, in fact, went beyond mere persecution and harassment by banning Jews from the country altogether. In theory at least, there were no Jews at all in England in Shakespeare’s time, and there had not been since the year 1290 when they were officially expelled by King Edward I. For some time it was thought that Shakespeare had never actually met a Jew and must have created the character of Shylock of The Merchant of Venice entirely from his imagination, however it is now believed that this was not necessarily the case. Despite what the law said, there was a small community of Spanish Jews living in London during Shakespeare’s time. These exiles from Spain managed to evade the intent of the law by nominally converting to Christianity. Shakespeare may have been aware of this community, and possibly even have known some of its members. However, there is a reason to believe that he viewed the existence of Jews in London as a major social problem. During Shakespeare’s time the English people viewed the Portuguese and the Spanish, their national enemies and rivals in trade, with great distrust. In any event, the most influential models for the character of Shylock were no doubt drawn from literature, not real life. The Jewish villain was a stock character in medieval literature. Medieval passion plays, reenactments of the story of the crucifixion of Jesus, invariably portrayed the disloyal disciple Judas Iscariot as a stereotypical Jew. Of course, historically, Jesus and all of his disciples were Jewish, but this was ignored. Subsequent authors, when they portrayed Jewish characters at all, they always

Cited: Auden, W. H. Love and Usury in The Merchant of Venice.” ed. by Frank Kermode. New York: Avon, 1965. Charlton, H. B. Shakespearean Comedy. New York: Methuen, 1988. Danson, Lawrence. The Harmonies of The Merchant of Venice. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978. Grebanier, Bernard. The Truth About Shylock. New York: Random House, 1962. Holland, Norman. The Shakespearean Imagination. New York: Macmillan, 1964. Lelyveld, Toby. Shylock on the Stage. London: Routledge, 1961. Weiss, Theodore. The Breath of Clowns and Kings: New York: Atheneum, 1971.