“The Merchant of Venice” is concerned with two issues that were of importance in the Elizabethan Age: Jewry and Usury. It is generally assumed that the Elizabethan attitude to Jewry was hostile and that the execution of Roderigo Lopez in 1594 was characteristic of the Christian rejection of all ‘Jews, Turks, Infidels and Heretics’, who were considered to be “misbelievers”. But this could also be a false assumption, for although the Jews were forced to convert to Christianity to live in England, once they did they were generally left alone. Marlowe in “The Jew of Malta” portrays a Machiavellian Jew, but one who is ‘rarely mean’ in his villainy. Usury was a contemporary and important issue during Shakespeare’s time. Shylock is the negative and stereotype picture of the usurer that most of the Elizabethans had- one who was seen as a ‘greedy dog’, ‘a leech’.

The interpretation of Shylock’s character is difficult and also to some extent ambiguous. He was earlier portrayed as a comic character but later on could be interpreted as a malevolent villain. But if Shylock is taken as a comic character the whole power of the play is lost. He would almost become a ridiculous villain. It could also be that Shakespeare created Shylock as a match for Marlowe’s Jew- one that was terrible, imposing but also human.

Shylock is one of the main characters of the play but this also depends on the way that his character is played. He has mostly been portrayed as a comic character but when he is the tragic protagonist he ‘usurps the center of the stage.’ Shylock “represents the killjoy against whom the pleasure-loving characters unite.” He represents a “a-social miserliness” and thus his villainy is somewhat mitigated and brought within the scope of humanist debate. Shylock exists as a visible complication to the smooth running of Bassanio’s friendship with Antonio and his courtship of Portia. One can almost say that is the character that makes the plot possible.

As John Palmer has said, Shylock is “An imaginative realization of what it means to wear the Star of David.” Shylock is a Jew in a Gentile Society, an alien who is never accepted. He is proud of his race, his religion but he is up against a Venetian society that is insufferable to the outsider. Even his daughter attacks all that he holds dear. She marries a Christian and takes away his money- his family pride, the only “props” in his life. He is humiliated and scorned at by the Christians. One feels sympathy for such a man, who is “more sinned against than sinning.”

During the trial scene it is even less easy to make a moral decision, a comfortable discrimination between the gentle Christian and rapacious Jew. The reader’s and the audience’s sympathies are directed towards Shylock who earlier had pleaded his humanity: “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?” Our compassion is due to Shylock’s plight but also because of the unease that we experience at the behaviour of the Christians : “A Daniel…! Mark Jew!”

Here the Christian cruelty is on par with that of the Jew. However in the 20th C we are more sensitive and conscious about political correctness.

The issue of racism has further complicated Shylock’s character. Shylock’s role attracts greater sympathy.

One feels that the Venetian Christians have denied Shylock’s humanity and we are all the time reminded of the Anti-Semitism of the Nazi’s and of the Genocide that took place during the holocaust.

We are more concerned with alien rights than the Elizabethans were. These modern attitudes then in the words of Edwin Booth, tend “to lift (Shylock) out of the darkness of his native element of revengeful selfishness into the light of the venerable Hebrew, the Martyr, the Avenger.”

Shylock can be seen as a product of centuries of racial persecution. Thus Shylock ‘s character has oscillated between the malignant caricature and the dignified tragic hero.

Is Shylock a representation of the Jewish hatred for Christians or is he motivated due to his personal hatred for Antonio? When Shylock says,

“I hate him for he is a Christian: But more for…He lends out money gratis…” one realises that his hatred is based on money and he is not the religious martyr that he portrays himself to be. He takes a gamble when he lends the money and makes Antonio sign the “merry” bond. He has no way of knowing that all of Antonio’s fortune will sink and that he will be able to take the forfeit. His hatred for Antonio and the rest is apparent throughout.

Shylock is the representative of the money code, the greed and the hoarding that is contrasted to the Christian code of honour. But does he embody the evil side of the power of money? Or is he just a scapegoat who embodies the qualities embedded in the Venetians? As mentioned earlier, Shylock’s character raises a lot of questions. He may have been victimized due to the Christian hypocrisy.

It could be that he is a villain who is allowed to express the sort of treatment that has made him what he is and he justifies his route to villainy. We, with our modern considerations for alien rights, could be turning a plea for the right to revenge into a plea for equal treatment. His cause might win our sympathy but the ferociousness of the means loses it.

However the humanity of Shylock as seen here is an unconscious byproduct of the Shakespeare’s dramatic genius. It is an example of the interplay between technical craft and creative imagination. It is an example of a character so dynamic that it takes over from the writer and assumes dimensions of an independent entity. He evokes an interest that is beyond the scope of the play. Shylock for us is not just a Jew; he stands for all the people that are discriminated against, people who suffer injustice due to their colour, religion and even caste. And this is the universality of Shakespeare; he created a character not for his time but for all times. But Shakespeare also set a dramatic problem when he established ‘the villain as hero’ as Shylock does ‘steal the show’ and overshadows the formal hero. We have to be aware of the ‘intellectual ‘ and ‘emotional limits’ that Shakespeare might have faced when dealing with these issues during his time. One’s view of Shylock influences the interpretation of the other major characters and also determines that of the whole play. And it is true that, as E.W. Godwin said, “at Shylock’s exit the play is virtually over.”

Shylock evokes multiple reactions in the reader and the audience. When we view the Christian smugness and hypocrisy we see a modern parallel to the treatment of the American Negro. But one is also repulsed by his treatment of his daughter and his mercenary attitude. If we wish to do full justice to the character of Shylock as well as to Shakespeare’s dramatic genius in creating such a character we have to explore the Elizabethan aspects of the play and not view it only with our present concern for racial discrimination and economic conflict.