SOURCE: Graham, Cary B. “Standards of Value in The Merchant of Venice.” Shakespeare Quarterly 4, no. 2 (April 1953): 145-51.

[In the following essay, Graham maintains that shifting standards of moral, economic, and social value in The Merchant of Venice provide a fundamental insight into the variety of interpretations and responses the drama has elicited.]

Recently Professor E. E. Stoll remarked, “… nearly everything certain in Shakespeare scholarship has in some quarters been disputed, as nearly everything uncertain has been affirmed.”¹ Although the statement was not applied especially to The Merchant of Venice, it is obvious that this play is a fruitful source of disagreement. It may be called either comedy or tragedy. Shylock may be regarded as a villain, a comic figure, or a martyr. Bassanio may be either an idealized Renaissance lover or a wastrel who recoups a squandered fortune by risking the life of a dear friend who in turn may be either a good businessman or a fool. Jessica is a charming young Jewess who is justified in leaving an unhappy home to elope with a handsome Christian lover, or she is an ungrateful wench who robs a provident father and who proves a traitor to her own religion. Indeed, as the reader will be reminded in the pages which follow, all of these varied conclusions have been reached.² But comparatively little attention has been paid to Shakespeare's use of standards of value in The Merchant of Venice.³ A glance at the values employed, their relationships within the play, and their connection with the intellectual background of the Renaissance may explain in part the technique of Shakespeare in appealing to an audience and may help to show why interpretations have varied so widely.

In the bond story, the first value to be established is that of friendship. Antonio, offering his purse, his person, his extremest means, values the friendship of Bassanio far more highly than material wealth. When Antonio says to Shylock,

If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not
As to thy friends, for when did friendship take
A breed for barren metal of his friend?
But lend it rather to thine enemy,
Who, if he break, thou mayst with better face
Exact the penalty

(I. iii. 133-138)

the comparative worth of money and friendship has been used to suggest a penalty, an extreme form of which is proposed by Shylock a moment later. Again, in II. viii, Salanio and Salarino emphasize the friendship of Bassanio and Antonio in contrast with the mercenary values endorsed by Shylock. Later, in the trial scene when Antonio appears doomed, he comments first upon the kindness of Fortune, which is about to cut him off from the misery of an old age in poverty, and then upon the superior value of Bassanio's friendship.

In the same story appears another value which was a familiar topic in Renaissance literature and which Shakespeare himself employed in other plays—that of appearance as compared or contrasted with reality.⁴ When Antonio agrees to the bond, appearance and reality should be the same, but they are not. “I like not fair terms and a villain's mind,” says Bassanio. At the opening of the trial scene, the converse is true: appearance and reality are the same, but they should not be, as the Duke points out:

Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so too,
That thou but lead'st this fashion of thy malice
To the last hour of act; and then 'tis thought
Thou'lt show thy mercy and remorse more strange
Than is thy strange apparent cruelty.

(IV. i. 17-21)

Meaningful though the values of friendship and of appearance and reality may be, even more significant and certainly more complex is the problem of the value of money as an interest-bearing commodity. What Shylock calls interest, or thrift, Antonio regards as usury, or excess; and, as he says, “I do never use it.” As Professor John W. Draper has pointed out, the conflict of values in Shylock and Antonio, based partly upon religion but even more upon mercantile ideals, would be especially significant to Elizabethans, who were caught in the midst of the change from the medieval economic system to the modern capitalistic system.⁵ A specific treatment of this conflict of values appears in the Jacob-and-Laban story, with which Shylock responds to Antonio's reluctant offer once to break a custom and pay interest. The complexity of this apparently simple story is indicated in such varying interpretations as the following: the story conceals the workings of Shylock's mind as he tries to concoct a bond that will allow him to “collect interest without taking interest”;⁶ the story is a “sophistical and specious defense of what to an Elizabethan was manifestly wrong”;⁷ the story exposes the fallacy of “the formal principles underlying the Christian condemnation of usury.”⁸ But the analogy serves not merely to emphasize opposing values; it is also a fitting preliminary to the pound-of-flesh penalty and to Shylock's direct attack after Bassanio has objected to the bond.

O father Abram, what these Christians are
Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect
The thoughts of others! Pray you, tell me this:
If he should break his day, what should I gain
By the exaction of the forfeiture?
A pound of man's flesh taken from a man
Is not so estimable, profitable neither,
As flesh of muttons, beefs, or goats.

(I. iii. 161-168)

This speech serves as a forceful reminder that, although Antonio earlier had offered to pay interest, in the final arrangement it is Shylock who has foregone his own values by lending money without charging interest. “This is kind I offer.” Note at this point, too, the opposed conclusions: either Shylock the money-lender has met Antonio the merchant on his own ground—friendship, not profit in the form of interest—or he has deliberately trapped Antonio into a possibly fatal agreement.

Despite conflicting interpretations, Shylock's renouncing of his values, for whatever reason, sets the precedent for later shifts in value needed to motivate his actions. In II. viii, Salanio reports the lament of Shylock for the loss of ducats and daughter. In addition to suggesting that here Shylock's sense of values is confused, Salanio predicts that Shylock will transfer his resentment to Antonio, who was in no way responsible for the elopement.

Let good Antonio look he keep his day
Or he shall pay for this.

(II. viii. 25-26)

In III. i, the report is verified and the prediction is fulfilled: Shylock concludes by vowing to cut out the heart of Antonio. But the shifting of values which leads to this conclusion is by no means one-sided in its implications. The taunting words of Salanio and Salarino about the flight of Jessica and about the loss of Antonio's ships lead Shylock to utter the “Hath not a Jew eyes” speech, and this may be interpreted as a plea for tolerance. However, as various critics have noted, the speech in its entirety is a plea not for charity but for revenge.⁹ Now the flesh of Antonio does have a greater value than that of “muttons, beefs, or goats.” But even if revenge is rejected on principle, it is difficult to ignore Shylock's charge that revenge is a Christian practice. There is enough truth in the statement to emphasize a balancing of values not entirely complimentary to the good Antonio and the handsome Bassanio. The ensuing dialogue between Tubal and Shylock stresses alternately the financial losses of Shylock and those of Antonio. As a result Shylock is driven to the point of valuing revenge above everything else. III. iii, reveals Shylock in exactly the same state of mind (note the reiteration of “I'll have my bond”), and the way is clear for the battle of values in the trial scene. Here Shylock defends his claim to Antonio's flesh by forcefully reminding the Christians that they own slaves. Just as in his plea for revenge, there is sufficient truth in the analogy to make it dramatically effective. The next value in the scene is that of mercy as compared with strict justice, developed in Portia's speech; and this value, together with that of Shylock's revenge and the Antonio-Bassanio friendship, is used to build up to the surprise reversal, where Shylock's own words—“A Daniel come to judgment, etc.”—are echoed by Gratiano. Obviously Shylock, valuing his revenge above all else, shows no mercy for Antonio. But do the Christians, valuing so highly the “quality of mercy,” exhibit no revenge toward Shylock? Conflicting opinions on this point are responsible, at least in part, for the question of whether or not Shakespeare himself was anti-Semitic. Dr. S. A. Tannenbaum, recalling uncomplimentary references to Jews in Macbeth, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Much Ado About Nothing, Love's Labour's Lost, and 1 Henry IV, says, “Shakespeare's anti-Semitic prejudice is clearly shown in The Merchant of Venice,”¹⁰ Professor H. B. Charlton calls Shylock's punishment a callous one which shows Shakespeare's antipathy.¹¹ Opposed to this opinion is that of Professor T. M. Parrott, who finds “no tinge of race-hatred” in Shakespeare and who believes that the audience would consider the enforced conversion of Shylock a means of salvation for him.¹² Professors William A. Neilson and Charles J. Hill believe “… it is impossible to accuse Shakespeare … of anti-Semitism.”¹³ Professor Norman Nathan sees no evidence of anti-Semitism in Shylock's punishment, and reminds us that according to law he would have lost both his money and his life.¹⁴ Others maintain that, whether or not Shakespeare himself was prejudiced, he sharply criticised both Jew and Christian. This is the conclusion of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who finds the intended victims “as heartless as Shylock without any of Shylock's passionate excuse,”¹⁵ and of John Palmer, who says that when the bond story is concluded, both Christian and Jew have charged each other with “an inhumanity which is common to both parties.”¹⁶

In the casket story the comparative values of appearance and reality are fundamental. The choice of the right casket is far from a mere gamble; it is a test of the suitor's ability to evaluate appearance. In each case the procedure is the same: the candidate explains carefully that appearance may not reflect reality, he tries to apply the principle in the casket situation, and his failure or success is emphasized in the scroll found in the casket he has chosen. Morocco correctly argues that the outward appearance of his complexion should not obscure the inward reality of his bravery, but in choosing the gold casket he violates the principle that the apparent value may not coincide with the real value. Arragon rejects the lead casket because it does not look fair enough; he rejects the gold casket with a caustic reference to “the fool multitude, that judge by show”; then, quite unaware that the basis of his first rejection places him in the group he has scorned in the second, he selects the silver casket whose inscription promises him as much as he deserves. Both Morocco and Arragon are misled by apparent values: Morocco fails because he wrongly evaluates the caskets; Arragon, because he wrongly evaluates himself. The decision of Bassanio is somewhat more involved. Portia has clearly indicated her preference for him (III. ii. 1-24), and some critics believe that by means of the song, which contains words rhyming with lead and which warns the hearer against fancy, Portia gives Bassanio the clue to the proper choice.¹⁷ However, the acceptance of this conclusion does not preclude the emphasis upon values.¹⁸ Bassanio discourses at length upon the theme,

So may the outward shows be least themselves;
The world is still deceived with ornament

(III. ii. 73-74)

as it applies in law, in religion, in morality, and in beauty—in short, the subjects to which the values of the play are closely related. His thoughts point logically to his choice of the lead casket. Of the three suitors only Bassanio, as Professor Thomas M. Parrott has remarked, employs “the understanding which pierces below the surface and fastens upon reality.”¹⁹ At the same time, just as in the bond story, the values in the casket scenes have formed the basis of conflicting estimates of character. The English critic John Palmer looks upon Bassanio merely as a young man whose quest of beauty and fortune forms one of the “ingredients in a tall story.”²⁰ Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch considers him a fortune-hunter whose lofty speeches are not in keeping with his nature.²¹ Professor Charles Read Baskervill, tracing the background of the casket scenes in the Renaissance conception of Platonic idealism,²² sees Bassanio as an ideal lover whose standards of value are exalted by contrast with those of Morocco and Arragon. At this point in the play (III. ii), Shakespeare shifts the emphasis from appearance and reality to the comparative values of love, wealth, and friendship. Portia, learning of Antonio's danger, unhesitatingly sends away her newly acquired husband and some of his newly acquired wealth:

Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond;
Double six thousand, and then treble that,
Before a friend of this description
Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault.
.....For never shall you lie by Portia's side
With an unquiet soul.

(III. ii. 302-308)

As the casket story ends, both dialogue and action connect the values of this story with those previously employed in the bond story. Money, love, friendship—the greatest of these, in true Renaissance tradition, is friendship.

As noted previously, the elopement episode is mainly responsible for the shifting of Shylock's standards so that revenge alone has any value for him. But Shakespeare has shown also that in the home life of Shylock and Jessica there is little harmony. Jessica's values are not those of Shylock, and it is not merely financial standards that separate them. Jessica's suggestion of tediousness and unhappiness is substantiated by the Shylock who goes to dinner in “hate, to feed upon the prodigal Christian,” who releases Launcelot to help impoverish Bassanio, who scorns music and merriment, who instructs Jessica to “Let not the sound of shallow foppery enter my sober house,” and who leaves his daughter behind locked doors with the threat that perhaps he will return immediately. Shylock's reaction to the elopement and the robbery, as reported in II. viii, by Salanio, emphasizes about equally the father's loss of his daughter and his loss of ducats and jewels; and Salanio is prejudiced against Shylock. However, in III. i, the very scene in which appears Shylock's so-called plea for tolerance, Shylock himself emphasizes mainly his financial loss. Of the approximately seventy-five lines spoken by Shylock in this scene, only ten refer to Jessica; and even these lines express Shylock's bitterness and rage rather than love for his daughter. In the remaining scenes he speaks of her only once—to express the wish that she had been married to any of the stock of Barrabas rather than to a Christian. Indeed, there is not one line in the entire play in which Shylock directly expresses affection for his daughter. Thus the picture of Shylock at home and the revelation of his changing values after the robbery tend to balance, in the eyes of reader or audience, the fact that Jessica is a thief and an apostate. However, once more conflicting standards of value have led to opposed estimates of character. For example, Sir Walter Raleigh, who sees Shylock as a tragic figure, says that his heart “is stirred with tender memories in the midst of his lament over the stolen ducats”;²³ Professor Harold R. Walley, who considers Shylock the villain in a romantic comedy, says that he “laments loudest the gold that has gone with her [Jessica] and anxiously computes the cost of recovery.”²⁴

The ring episode, which concludes the play, is primarily a comic treatment of the comparative values of appearance and reality and those of love and friendship, especially the latter. The mock quarrel involving both pairs of lovers is carefully prefaced first by the dialogue of Jessica and Lorenzo which turns upon fidelity in love and upon other values,²⁵ next by Portia's comments about the nature of true value, and finally by her vow of faith, all of which are ironically effective preliminaries. As the quarrel proceeds, it becomes evident that the ring story is an ingenious combination of parallels and reversals, based upon values previously employed in the bond story and the casket story, and made amusing by the device of dramatic irony. In the bond story the value of friendship leads Antonio, at the request of Bassanio, to risk and apparently to lose everything in helping his friend to win Portia. In the ring story the value of friendship leads Bassanio first to leave his bride and then, at the urging of Antonio, apparently to lose her. In the bond story Antonio himself suggests a penalty and thus leads Shylock to propose the pound-of-flesh forfeit. In the ring story Bassanio insists upon the civil doctor's accepting some remembrance, and thus leads Portia to ask for the ring. Even the threatened loss of Antonio's flesh in the bond story is recalled by the rueful remark of Bassanio:

Why, I were best to cut my left hand off
And swear I lost the ring defending it.

(V.i.177-178)

Finally, the exposure of disguise which resolves the ring story also reveals to Bassanio that his successful judging of appearance and reality in the casket story has been balanced by his failure in the ring story: Portia's request was not what it appeared to be. Thus, the play ends with comic emphasis upon values introduced earlier in the play for serious purposes.

Probably no one would contend that Shakespeare was interested merely in dramatizing values. However, his use of them is surely one of the important elements in this play. As is apparent from the connections mentioned, the pattern of related values helps to unify the effect of four stories probably drawn from at least three different sources. These values are employed for both serious and comic effects, for both adventure and romance. They are fundamental in almost every scene of the play. They involve every major character and most of the minor figures—even Launcelot Gobbo offers a somewhat dubious evaluation of the standards represented by Shylock, Bassanio, and Jessica. They help to indicate the significance of the play in its own age by reflecting the Renaissance interest in such topics as the proper value of material wealth, the comparative worth of love and friendship, and the problem of judging reality by appearance. Finally, the extent, the variety, and the complex relationships of these values provide at least a partial explanation for the fact that thoughtful readers, sensitive actors, and responsive audiences—themselves influenced in turn by the standards of their own environment—have arrived at widely different conclusions about the central figures in the play.

Notes

1. “A German Producer's Hamlet,” SQ [Shakespeare Quarterly], I (1950), 38.

2. Adapted from a paper read at the May 1950 meeting of the Indiana College English Association. All textual quotations are from The Complete Plays and Poems of Shakespeare, ed. William A. Neilson and Charles J. Hill (Cambridge, 1942).

3. Alfred Harbage, As They Liked It (New York, 1947), and Donald A. Stauffer, Shakespeare's World of Images (New York, 1950), have discussed moral values in Shakespeare, but neither of them has given detailed treatment of the values in this play.

4. Shakespeare's use of this idea has been pointed out by Theodore Spencer, Shakespeare and the Nature of Man (New York, 1942), pp. 84-85, et passim.

5. “Usury in The Merchant of Venice,” MP [Modern Philology], XXXIII (1935), 38, 46-47.

6. Leah W. Wilkins, “Shylock's Pound of Flesh and Laban's Sheep,” MLN, LXII (1947), 28.

7. Harold R. Walley, “Shakespeare's Portrayal of Shylock,” Essays in Dramatic Literature, ed. Hardin Craig (Princeton, 1935), p. 237.

8. H. B. Charlton, Shakespearian Comedy (New York, 1940), p. 141.

9. For example, John Palmer, Comic Characters of Shakespeare (London, 1947), p. 79, and E. E. Stoll, Shakespeare Studies (New York, 1927—reprinted, 1942), p. 268.

10. “Shakespeare an Anti-Semite?” SAB, XIX (1944), 47-48.

11. Charlton, p. 128. For a brief list of others who hold similar opinions, see Norman Nathan, “Three Notes on The Merchant of Venice,” SAB, XXIII (1948), 160-161.

12. Shakespeare: Twenty-three Plays and the Sonnets (New York, 1938), p. 212.

13. Neilson and Hill, p. 116.

14. Nathan, p. 155.

15. Shakespeare's Workmanship (New York, 1931), p. 75.

16. Palmer, p. 87.

17. For example, John E. Hannigan says that Portia “had loaded the dice in violation of her father's will,” (“Shylock and Portia,” SAB, XIV, 1939, p. 173), and Hardin Craig says that the song contains “a plain indication of the nature of the choice” (The Complete Works of Shakespeare, New York, 1951, p. 504).

18. Thomas M. Parrott doubts that the song was intended to guide Bassanio's choice, and he suggests that, even so, it was Bassanio's “quick intelligence that caught the clue” (Shakespearean Comedy, New York, 1949, p. 141).

19. Shakespeare: Twenty-three Plays and the Sonnets (New York, 1938), p. 211.

20. Palmer, p. 63.

21. Quiller-Couch, p. 75.

22. “Bassanio as an Ideal Lover,” Manly Anniversary Studies (Chicago. 1923), pp. 90-103.

23. Shakespeare (London, 1907), p. 150.

24. Walley, p. 240.

25. Harbage, pp. 188-189.