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The Merchant of Venice

by William Shakespeare

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Discussion Topic

Shylock's use of rhetorical devices, including metaphor and repetition, reflects his character in The Merchant of Venice

Summary:

Shylock's use of rhetorical devices, such as metaphor and repetition, highlights his resentment and determination. His metaphors often depict his deep-seated animosity, while his repetitive speech emphasizes his unwavering resolve and desire for revenge, painting a picture of a character driven by both personal and cultural grievances.

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What rhetorical devices does Shylock use in The Merchant of Venice?

The device used in this passage is the rhetorical question. Shylock draws his persecutors' attention to the humanity of the Jewish race by prompting them to see the common humanity shared between Christian and Jew.

Another device used in the passage is grammatical parallelism. The structure of Shylock's sentences share a similar pattern:

Hath not a Jew eyes. . . 

Hath not a Jew hands. . .

If you prick. . . 

If you tickle. . . 

If you poison. . .

This parallelism sets the ground for the other rhetorical device of repetition. The repeated use of introductory conditional clauses emphasizes emphasizes Shylock's point that there is no difference between the two races, that both share the same humanity.

Finally, the rhetorical device of the catalog is employed in the listing of items grouped by type: bodily appearance, bodily needs, bodily vulnerabilities. The device of repetition is seen also in the emphasis on the body.

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What rhetorical devices does Shylock use in The Merchant of Venice?

Shylock's rhetoric is displayed most prominently in his famous monologue, known commonly by the phrase, "If you prick us, do we not bleed?" The speech can be found in the first scene of the third act.

The rhetoric of this passage appeals to the common humanity of men, suggesting that the distinctions of class and race are superficial in comparison with the underlying common nature shared by all.

Shylock does not claim common humanity to argue for more enlightened relations, however. Instead, he uses the proposition to argue his just right to revenge.

This passage has several parts: (1) catalog of abuses, (2) meditation on a common humanity, (3) meditation on common responses to injustice.

These three division unite to conclude with the following proposition:

"The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."

Shylock's rhetorical point is that cruelty begets cruelty.

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How do Shylock's rhetoric, including his use of metaphor and repetition, reflect his character in The Merchant of Venice?

Shylock does have a distinctive speaking style. When Bassanio asks to borrow three thousand ducats, Shylock repeats, “Three thousand ducats; well.” He continues to copy Bassanio’s words, adding “well” to the end of each sentence: “For three months; well.” Shylock does not answer Bassanio right away, suggesting that he is contemplating this business deal before making a decision. This indicates that Shylock is a calculated individual.

Shylock also uses much repetitive and colorful language, referring to pirates as “land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves,” again indicating that he thinks as he speaks and spins a web of language for listeners to figure out. He draws from the Bible to justify his actions, such as why usury should be allowed. Shylock explains in detail why Jacob actually profited from interest by breeding his sheep and thus increasing his fold. His measured, systematic speeches not only make Shylock a gripping storyteller, they make his arguments difficult to dispute.

Shylock’s most famous monologue defends his existence as a Jewish man. He asks a series of questions leading up to an answer: “Hath not a Jew eyes?” he asks, listing the similarities between Christians and Jews until he gets to his point, “If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge.” His rationalization for his revenge is that Jews and Christians are alike in both good and bad ways, so of course they both seek vengeance when they are wronged.

It is important to note that many of Shylock’s qualities arise from antisemitic stereotypes. He represents the crafty, clever Jew, sinister but well-versed in religious texts. His language, which differs from other characters’ more straightforward syntax, suggests that he is an outsider, an “alien,” as Portia observes. Interestingly, Shylock’s use of rhetoric makes him perhaps the most compelling character in the play, and it makes his speech about Jews so powerful.

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How do Shylock's speeches reflect his character in The Merchant of Venice?

There is far more to be said about this topic than can be covered here, but one way to understand Shylock is to compare and contrast his public utterances to people who have more power (because they are Christian), such as Bassanio and Antonio, to both his private thoughts and his utterances to a fellow merchant when out of earshot of the powerful. This leads us toward a post-colonial reading of Shylock's rhetoric. A post-colonial reading explores the view of the powerless, often called the "view from below."
We first must note that Shylock is built on a negative stereotype: the stock character of the Jew as damned and money-hungry. This derives from medieval theater. However, Shakespeare goes far in humanizing this stock character: if nothing else, Shylock's rhetoric shows him to be as human as any Christian.
But Shylock is not a Christian. He is a second-class citizen, and his public speech shows he must repress much of what he really feels in order to survive, as subaltern people almost always have to do. For example, though he loathes him, he greets Antonio with honor and respect:
Rest you fair, good signor.
Your worship was the last man in our mouths.
Meanwhile, in an aside, we as audience become privy to his seething resentment toward Antonio:
How like a fawning publican he looks!
I hate him for he is a Christian,
But more for that in low simplicity
He lends out money gratis and brings down
The rate of usance here with us in Venice
This aside is also an example of rhetoric from Shylock that runs throughout the play and characterizes him as filled with a resentment that is both elevated (he resents the way he and his people are treated just for being Jewish) and base (the Christians make it difficult for him to earn an income from money-lending). Like all of us, Shylock is a mixture of high and low motivations.

Further, in one of his most famous speeches, Shylock says this about Antonio to Salarino in act 3:

He hath disgraced me, and
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
enemies; and what's his reason? 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? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that.

This speech, perhaps more than any other, establishes Shylock as fully human, both justifiably upset at how unfairly he is treated and yet smoldering with a destructive resentment. If he comes across in the courtroom as initially angrier and more vengeful than the Christians (though in the end, they show him little mercy), this perhaps emerges from having to suppress his feelings and pretend to fawn on those who despise him for so long.

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How do Shylock's speeches reflect his character in The Merchant of Venice?

Let me first make a caveat: although we can all spot the SAME features of Shylock's language, what they tell us about his character is subjective. There's no absolute right answers.

The first thing I notice about Shylock is that he constantly repeats himself:

I will be assured I may; and, that I may be assured,
I will bethink me.

...let him look to his bond: he was wont to
call me usurer; let him look to his bond: he was
wont to lend money for a Christian courtesy; let him
look to his bond.

There are lots more examples (see the link below for a complete list of Shylock's utterances).

Shylock's motto - "Fast bind, fast find" - is, like much of his language, rhythmic, pared right down to the bone, and repetitive. His speech is full of antitheses (balancing one thing against another - as "find" is balanced with "bind" in the quote above) and with an almost obsessive need for even his words to be fitted exactly into place courtesy of a verbal pattern or rhythm. This, you might think, is appropriate for a man obsessed with his money and his things being exactly as he wants them, where he wants them.

John Gross has pointed out that Shylock's speech is full of "linguistic idiosyncracies": words like "synagogue" and "Nazarite" are not found elsewhere in Shakespeare's canon, nor is "moneys", Shylock's odd plural of "money". This, surely, is to mark out Shylock's foreignness in Venice. He is also a direct, plain-speaker in a play full of lyrical poetry.

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How does Shylock use metaphor and repetition in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice?

Whenever an author, or character, uses literary devices such as metaphors and repetitive language, it is done in an effort to create a mental image in the mind of the audience (or other character) for the sake of deeper understanding, and/or to drive home a point, message, or theme. Shylock does this masterfully because he wants the Christians to know and understand how they continue to make him and his fellow Jews suffer. For example, before Shylock loans three-thousand ducats to Antonio, he reminds him how he has treated him in public in the past. During Shylock's discourse, he repeats the words you, moneydog, and cur because he doesn't want Antonio to forget the connection he is now making between hurting Shylock and needing to borrow money from him.

"You come to me, and you say

'Shylock, we would have moneys'--you say so,

You, that did void your rheum upon my beard,

And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur

Over your threshold. Moneys is your suit.

What should I say to you? Should I not say

'Hath a dog money? is it possible

A cur can lend three thousand ducats?'" (I.iii.111-118).

Basically, Shylock is telling Antonio that it is ironic that he needs money from someone he has spit upon and called a dog and a cur. He wants Antonio to recognized the irony and wallow in it for all the suffering he has caused Shylock in the past. Shylock uses the metaphor of him being compared to a dog because not only is that what Antonio has called him before, but now the high and mighty Antonio is seeking help from said dog. Shylock, again, then uses the repetition of the above-mentioned words in order to drive home the point of this ironic business transaction.

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