Shakespeare's Characterization of Shylock

Shylock is one of the notorious characters in the entire range of Shakespearean drama. He represents a mixture of several traits of character who arouses different feelings in us at different times. He cannot simply be classified as tragic figure or as a villain or as a comic character.

Shylock is a villain because of his hypocrisy, cunning, religious fanaticism, his obsession with money, his usury and avarice and his lack of human feeling. He is a schemer who forms a secret plan to kill Antonio by means of a bond of the pound of flesh. He hates Antonio because Antonio is a Christian but even more because Antonio lends money without any interest, besides, the has another reason to take revenge upon Antonio.

Shakespeare's-Characterization-of-Shylock

“You (Antonio) call me (Shylock) misbeliever, cut-throat dog,

And spit upon my Jewish gabardine. ”

Shylock is a spokesman of the Jewish race. This becomes clear from his famous speech in which says, “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew ears, organs, dimensions, senses, affections and passions? Fed with the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is?” This argument is irrefutable and this speech shows in (Shylock) as a representative of the much abused, deeply wronged and ill-used Jewish race and therefore as a tragic figure.

In the trail scene Shylock appears to be a monster or a devil in human shape. He pays no heed to the appeals for mercy. Feeling sure that he would be allowed to cut off a pound of flesh from Antonio’s body, he begins to sharpen his knife. But all is attempted and in vain when Portia bids him:

“Take ten the bond, take thou the pound of flesh;

But in the cutting it if thou dost shed

One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods

Are by the laws of Venice confiscate

Unto the state of Venice.”

But the matter does not end her. He has to part with his earth by means of the Venetian law which demands that a foreigner who plots against the life of Venetian citizen forfeits all his possessions the one half of them going to the victim the other half to the state while his life hangs on the mercy of the Duke. Shylock is now completely caught in his own net. Though his life is pardoned by the Duke he is compelled to turn a Christian.

Thus the punishment which Shylock receives at the end of the trail is very excessive. As Shylock totters out of the court a ruined and broken man, we begin to feel somewhat sympathetic to him. Here we begin to feel that he is no less sinned against than sining. Here we think of that girl who had burst into tears at the punishment awarded to Shylock and who had then said:

“By heaven, the poor man is wronged”

At the end then, we do feel some sympathy for Shylock and we do deplore the callousness and the cruelty, which the Christian have exhibited in their treatment of the Jew.

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