Merchant of Venice is one of the most famous works by William Shakespeare. It represents Shylock as the antagonist, who is a wealthy moneylender. Shylock is considered by many critiques as the most memorable character of the play and his characterization is the main reason for that.
It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that Shylock might be viewed both as a villain, and as a person who is very humane. He is believed to be a bad person because he is a greedy moneylender; the interests he charges are high; moreover, he insists on revenge when he is not paid the interest. One of such situations occurred when Shylock loaned Antonio money. However, later the moneylender’s daughter runs from him with a Christian, taking her father’s ducats, Shylock demonstrates that he does not care about the money he gave to Antonio, but he wants to revenge for the loss of his daughter. Finally, he is defeated in the court because of his extreme selfishness (The Merchant of Venice).
Demonstrating Shylock to be a villain, Shakespeare focuses on his positive qualities as well, causing the viewers feel sympathy – after all, he is just a father who lost his daughter. Moreover, later he loses his religion and his property. Nowadays religious difference is not as important as it used to be; however, for any religious person at any time it is vitally important to follow the religion chosen and never change it. Thus, at the end of the play he has nothing which gave him power. Moreover, his daughter, property and religion were his whole life and now they are all gone (Shylock as villain in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice).
Of course, Shylock deserves some sympathy, but he cannot be considered to be a good character. He is sympathized only because he suffers, but all his troubles are caused by his own actions, by his own selfishness. Thus, Shylock is a villain who has paid for his bad attitudes to other people, who suffers, and deserves to have another chance to make his life go another way.
References
Shylock as villain in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. Retrieved from HYPERLINK "http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=16657" http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=16657
The Merchant of Venice HYPERLINK "http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/merchant" http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/merchant
FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY PAGE \* MERGEFORMAT …