It is through powerful storytelling which enlightens audiences to the intricate complexities
within human motivations and emotions, revealed through an examination of the intrinsic
human tendency to exhibit inconsistent behaviour when subjected to the conformist pressures
imposed by dominant hegemonies. Indeed, at the heart of William Shakespeare's 1596
tragicomedy The Merchant of Venice, lies a dramatic story of collective theological discord
between religious minorities and a dominant Christian collective, portraying the paradoxical
capacity of individuals to be both perpetrators and victims of animosity. Furthermore,
Shakespeare tells a prosperous tale of female self-actualisation against a patriarchal
hegemony through the application of qualities of intelligence and deception, anomalous to
Elizabethan expectations of feminine subservience. Moreover, despite scrutinising Christian
virtue as inconsistent and hypocritical, Shakespeare ultimately reaffirms the Christian zeitgeist
of Elizabethan England, forging a comical story of redemption to necessitate Christian qualities
of compassion and mercy as the sole rectifier of social division.
By constructing Shylock as both a victim of antisemitic marginalisation and perpetrator of
vengeance, Shakespeare tells a story exploring the paradoxical complexities of victimhood to
awaken responders to the inherent individual tendency to reciprocate animosity arising from
the collective oppression of disempowered minorities. Capturing the xenophobic zeitgeist of
Elizabethan England through the epithet, "cuthroat dog", Shakespeare depicts the Christian
collective's oppression of the subaltern as a projection of their intolerance for religious
difference, thereby imposing hegemonic pressures upon "the Jew” in promotion of conformity.
Consequently, Shakespeare introduces Shylock as an avaricious Venetian usurer through the
transactional motif, "I will buy with you, sell with you, (.) not eat with you, drink with you",
connoting his condemned role as the perpetrator of the selfless Christian ideology through his
high modality rejection of the latter acts of hospitality. However, Shylock's dramatic
monologue, "Hath not a Jew hands, organs, (.) passions?" employs cumulative rhetorical
questions to foreground the commonality of the human experience, positioning revisionist
audiences to recognise how Shylock's paradoxical duality as both victim and Vice is
symptomatic of his religious suppression. Further addressing the complexities of human
behaviours in retaliation to oppression in the rhetorical question "And if you wrong us, shall
we not revenge?", Shakespeare suggests the metaphorical "villainy" imposed by the
dominant Christian collective instigates Shylock's emotional outburst of anger and violence,
thereby revealing the intrinsic human tendency to seek retribution when subjugated by
prolonged social ostracism.
The construction of Portia as metonymic of women navigating the 16th century Elizabethan
society is underpinned by her capacity to challenge the gendered expectations of the
patriarchy through channelling comedic conventions of disguise and misdirection to assume
agency.
However, Shakespeare simultaneously constructs a tale of female agency in defiance of the
rigid patriarchal norms pervading Elizabethan England, highlighting the potential for
individuals to overcome the restrictive social conventions placed upon them by the dominant
collective through exhibiting anomalous qualities of duplicity and wit. Reflecting Manichean
images of women, Shakespeare symbolises the patriarchal restriction of female autonomy
through the initial state of Portia, who was metaphorically "locked in" her father's motivic
caskets, ironically equating a life of subservience to an objectified existence; death. However,
Shakespeare subverts the expectations of feminine docility enforced by Elizabethan gender
roles through Portia's tone of longing in, "O me the word, 'choose!" », positioning
contemporary responders to empathise with her anomalous motivation to overcome her
subordination by the masculine collective. Thus, through a revisionist lens, Portia's suggestion
to Bassanio to "hazard all he hath", alluding to the selfless Greek hero of "Hercules" to
manipulate her own fate, is supported by contemporary audiences despite her Christian faith
and anomalous use of deception. Ultimately, Portia's self-actualisation through the dramatic
irony of her masculine costuming in the stage direction, "Portia for Balthazar, disguised as a
doctor of laws", reflects the epistemological shift to Renaissance Humanism through her
defiance of the chauvinist Great Chain of Being, attaining the privilege of agency in her
ultimate delegation as the play's heroine and thereby overcoming patriarchal bounds through
duplicitous wit. (..)
Ultimately, by illuminating the complex disparity between the nominality and application of
Christian virtue through the titular merchant Antonio, Shakespeare positions audiences to
appreciate consistent displays of mercy as the sole and absolute driver of social harmony
within the human experience. Criticising Antonio's inconsistent facade of kindness,
Shakespeare employs invective language through Antonio's threat, "to spet on thee again, to
spurn thee, too", contrasting his unmerciful mistreatment of the literary 'Other' to his Christian
advocation of values of forgiveness to reveal the intrinsic human tendency to resonate the
values propagated by the indomitable hegemony. Consequently scrutinising Christian values
as inconsistent and self-serving, Shakespeare binds Antonio to Shylock's punishment through
the motivic "pound of flesh"; a didactic manifestation of social discord, warning responders of
the implications of a societal void of merciful sentiment. Subsequently, Shakespeare provides
audiences an opportunity to appreciate the quality of mercy through Portia's simile asserting
"the quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven", capturing the
Christian zeitgeist of Protestant England, whilst illuminating the ubiquity of mercy as the
remedy to social fragmentation. As such, Shakespeare specifies this necessity for mercy in the
peripeteia through the symbolic return of Antonio's motivic 'argosies' that "richly come to
harbour" as a reward for his merciful actions, representing the restoration of the status quo
and achievement of social harmony symptomatic of exhibiting compassionate and forgiving
behaviour. (...)