Discussion Topic
Dramatic Elements and Devices in The Merchant of Venice
Summary:
In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare employs dramatic devices like dramatic irony and poignant monologues to evoke audience emotions. Dramatic irony is evident when Shylock remains unaware of Jessica's plans, creating tension based on the audience's knowledge. The play’s climax features Shylock's trial, where Portia's legal acumen saves Antonio, highlighting themes of mercy and justice. Shylock's monologue, "Hath not a Jew eyes?" powerfully underscores his plea for humanity amidst anti-Semitic prejudice, making the scene particularly dramatic.
What dramatic devices in The Merchant of Venice evoke audience emotions?
In Act II, scene 5, there's a classic example of dramatic irony. This is where the audience knows something that one or more of the characters in the play doesn't. Shylock has been invited to dinner by Bassanio. Before he leaves, he instructs his daughter Jessica to lock all the doors and windows. He also instructs her not to stick her head out of the window and stare at what he calls "Christian fools" with painted faces participating in the masquerade.
Just before Shylock leaves, his sneaky servant Launcelot turns to Jessica and gives her a secret message:
Mistress, look out at window, for all this.
There will come a Christian by
Will be worth a Jewess' eye.
Launcelot has already carried a secret letter from Jessica to her gentile lover, Lorenzo. And now he's giving Jessica a verbal reply to that letter; Lorenzo will come visit her...
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this very evening while her father's out dining with Bassanio.
This is an example of dramatic irony because we the audience know what's going on, but Shylock is blissfully unaware that he's being taken for a fool. In terms of the audience's emotional response, it all rather depends on what we think about Shylock. If we don't like him, then we'll feel pleased that he's getting his comeuppance. However, if we find him a much more sympathetic character, then we'll be rightly appalled at Launcelot and Jessica's betrayal.
How does Shakespeare make the end of The Merchant of Venice dramatic?
Ever so interestingly, William Shakespeare mixes ponderous themes with comedy and romance in his Merchant of Venice. Shylock, a character whose prose rivals that of Falstaff, is both threatening and ridiculous in his spirit of resentment while Portia's and Jessica's romantic deceptions are entertaining. All of these elements pale, however, with the high drama of life and death as Shylock calls in his loan to Antonio, and is first chastised by Portia's eloquent speech on the quality of mercy:
The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown-- (4.1)
and then defeated by her astute argument that Shylock can take only one pound of flesh, not less or no more, and the conditions of the bond do not allow any blood to be shed. This defeat leads to yet another defeat for Shylock as Portia then cites a law under as a Jew and considered an "alien" in Venice, must forfeit his property because he has attempted to take the life of a citizen. Therefore, half of Shylock's fortune must go to the Venetian government and half to Antonio, leaving his life at the mercy of the Duke and the court.
Finally, as the renowned Shakespearean critic, Harold Bloom, comments, "Shakespeare was up to mischief" with his defeat of Shylock, who agrees to the order that he must become a Christian, which Bloom (who is Jewish) declares is as ridiculous as "Cleopatra's consent to become a vestal virgin at Rome."
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Which scene from The Merchant of Venice is particularly dramatic and why?
The student submitting this question has chosen William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice as the play from which to extract and discuss a particularly dramatic passage. The Merchant of Venice is both a drama and comedy, the comedic aspect embodied in Portia's contrivance with respect to her late-father's scheme for selecting for her a suitable husband. While Shakespeare was obviously a gifted playwright, adept at both drama and comedy, it is the dramatic aspect of this play that is most memorable and that lends itself well to the particular assignment at hand.
It is up to the individual reader or student to select a scene from a chosen play and to explain how the playwright structured that scene and built the drama. One possible selection from The Merchant of Venice occurs in Act III, Scene I--the pivotal scene in which the trial takes place that will determine whether the Jewish moneylender, Shylock, will succeed in extracting a pound of flesh from the body of Antonio. Antonio, desperate to borrow money to help his friend Bassanio win over Portia's hand-in-marriage, agrees to an arrangement with Shylock in which the latter will provide the money in exchange for a pound of Antonio's flesh should the latter fail to repay the loan.
What makes the play, and this particular scene, so dramatic is the history between these two men. Antonio may be a good friend to Bassanio and to others, and is sincere in his desire to help his friend woo Portia, but he is also, common to that time and place, virulently anti-Semitic, insulting the Jewish businessman at every opportunity. Shylock is bitter and resentful, and is determined to exact his revenge for this history of slights. During the trial, however, his struggle for justice is undermined by Portia, and his frustration at the manner in which this perverted legal process is playing out boils over, with the result being one of the greatest and most touching monologues in the history of the English language. In the following quote, Shylock is exhausted from the injustices and indignities to which he has been subjected, and makes a heart-felt plea for treatment commensurate with his basic humanity:
I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
The character of Shylock is infamous in the annals of theater for its crude portrait of the stereotypical Jew. Shakespeare, however, gave this character a full airing, with his comments throughout the play filled with anger and contempt for those who look down on him and have relegated him and the city's other Jews to the margins of society. In so doing, Shylock is presented in a negative light unless one takes the time to seriously assess the nature of his being. It is this speech in Act III that offers the penultimate demand for equal treatment.