Merchant of Venice Themes

Themes in ‘The Merchant of Venice.’

1. The nature of love, marriage and friendship.

▪ Shakespeare’s romantic comedies usually lead up to and end with marriages, including one noble marriage and this is true in this text. The suitor loves and serves his lady; but after marriage the wife loves and serves the husband. As soon as Bassanio has chosen rightly, Portia calls him Lord: ‘her Lord, her governor, her king,’ (Act 3, scene 2) adding ‘Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours / Is now converted.’ Portia behaves throughout as an ideal daughter and wife, according to the ideals of the day.

▪ A letter now arrives announcing Antonio’s ruin. Bassanio tells Portia, ‘I have engaged myself to a dear friend’ (Act 2, scene 2.) Due to his love for Antonio, he even offers his own life: ‘The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones and all / Ere thou shalt lose me one drop of blood.’ Portia offers her fortune: what was hers is his; and what is his is Antonio’s. The wedding takes place offstage. Bassanio’s love for Portia makes him extremely reluctant to part with her ring, and he does so only when pressed by Antonio (the fact that Portia finally forgives Bassanio for parting with her ring emphasises that love and forgiveness are superior to self-centred greed). The Renaissance ideal of noble friendship between men is less familiar than the ideal of marriage.

▪ Ideal male friendship is a theme of Renaissance writing; it is called Platonic because it was first found in the ‘Phaedrus’ of Plato, whose works were revived at the Renaissance. Antonio’s unconditional love for Bassanio is of this kind, a term which may mean their relationship is more of either an adopted father or a godson. It is remarkable when we think of their relationship that neither Portia nor Antonio show any jealousy of the other’s love for Bassanio, although Antonio’s sadness remains.

▪ In another sense the play is a demonstration of the triumph of love and friendship over greed. Shylock’s initial conversations with Bassanio and Antonio show he hates Christians because they frustrate his greed. He says that he hates Antonio because ‘he lends out money gratis and brings down the rate of usance here in Venice,’ depriving Shylock of greater profit. Later in the play, Shylock willingly parts services with Launcelot as he is ‘snail-slow in profit.’ To Tubal he openly admits ‘I will have the heart of him if he forfeit, for were he out of Venice I can make what merchandise I will’ (Act 3, scene 1). Without Antonio to undercut his rate of interest, Shylock will be free to charge whatever he likes. The trial scene shows the depths of his greed.

2. Money as the root of good or evil.

▪ Money is a theme of the love plot as well as the hate plot of the play. Bassanio’s need for money to pay court to Portia, ‘a lady richly left,’ (Act 1, scene 1) is what puts Antonio in the power of Shylock. Antonio and Shylock are very different merchants, yet all merchants try to make money. And Jessica brings plenty of money with her when she elopes with Lorenzo: she throws down a casket. She then spends extravagantly the money her father had won so carefully.

▪ Attitudes to the getting and spending of money are a theme of the play. Wealth does not make Portia happy; she needs to love and be loved. Spending money is more fun than getting it and generosity is better than meanness.

▪ At this time commerce was almost respectable, and moneylending almost acceptable; yet the taking of interest was unpopular and usury, although legal, was still regarded as morally wrong.

▪ Venice was a mercantile city, and its luxurious life is based not on land and title but on commerce, law and credit. Although Bassanio has wasted his money, Antonio forgives him and is happy to finance his pilgrimage to Belmont. Bassanio deserves Portia because he is not taken in by ‘outward shows’ (Act 3, scene 2), the glamour of precious metals; he is granted a moral insight.

▪ Portia’s wealth is fabulous: she is the Golden Fleece won by Jason. But Portia’s readiness to give her fortune away for love is matched by Antonio’s. This loving and giving is in stark contrast to a greed which prefers ducats to a daughter and a hate which prefers a pound a flesh to thousands of ducats.

▪ Gold rings are tokens of exchange, of wealth, and of engagement; it is worth comparing the fates of the rings belonging to Leah, Nerissa and Portia.

3. Justice and mercy.

▪ The keynote of the play is Portia’s ‘The quality of mercy is not strained’ (Act 4, scene 1), in the trial scene. It alerts the audience to what is at issue. Shylock has the right in law to his pound of flesh, and refuses the plea for mercy. He insists on justice, the law, his bond. Portia likewise refuses Bassanio’s plea that he should relax the law, knowing that in the exact wording of the bond lies Antonio’s salvation. Although every argument and move counts in this trial scene, the trial is dramatic rather than legal. Drama is conflict, and the trial is a contest between two radically opposed attitudes to the human life which is at stake.

▪ Portia’s argument for mercy is the Christian one that no-one deserves salvation, for it is only God’s mercy that can save a human soul. She extols the virtue of mercy: ‘The quality of mercy is not strain’d…’ (Act 4, scene 1) It does not move Shylock, who demands justice according to the law, but revenge. Jessica says that she has heard him swear to his Jewish friends ‘That he would rather have Antonio’s flesh / Than twenty times the value of the sum / That he did owe him’ (Act 3, scene 2).

▪ Portia is as merciless as Shylock as in her administration of the law. Antonio shows mercy, as does the Duke. It is perhaps significant that when Portia returns to Belmont she shows forgiveness and mercy.

▪ Shylock’s insistence on blood contrasts with Antonio’s willingness to lay down his life for his friend, a version of the supreme Christian ideal of love. Antonio forgives Bassanio’s wastefulness; Shylock cannot forgive Jessica’s. The play’s fifth act shows women forgiving men for having broken their word and giving away their rings, forgiveness which leads to the reconciliation required by comedy.

▪ Two figures are left out of the reconciliation, Shylock and Antonio. The self-sacrificing Antonio is left alone, with the token consolation of three ships miraculously restored.