Saturday, September 6, 2014

Is the play The Merchant Of Venice by William Shakespeare a tragicomedy?

Yes, Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice could certainly be categorized as a tragicomedy. Although the vast majority of the characters within this play wind up with happy endings, one character faces his own personal tragedy.


Bassanio and Portia enjoy a happy ending when Portia is successfully able to defend Bassanio's friend, Antonio, when he is tried for defaulting on a loan. They end the play happily married, as do their friends Gratiano and Nerissa and Jessica and Lorenzo.


Shylock, on the other hand, is the tragic element of the play; he loses his daughter, Jessica, gets tricked out of the "pound of flesh" he is owed, and is on the whole mocked and subjected to anti-Semitic attitudes from the other characters. While Shylock is able to escape with his life, he is forced to convert to Christianity and leave his estate to the daughter who abandoned him and her new Christian husband. The treatment of Shylock is abusive and bigoted, a subject not so much of prosecution, but rather persecution.

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