The Merchant of Venice is a Comedy of Incidents
The plot of The Merchant of Venice is a highly elaborate one.
The play does not have a single plot. The main plot of the play is the Bond
story and the sub plots here are the story of the caskets and the Lorenzo
Jessica love affair; here we have also an under plot namely the story of the
rings. With a great skill Shakespeare has woven together these various stories
into a coherent whole.
The Bond story is set
afoot by the casket story. Bassanio needs money to try his luck in the lottery
of caskets at Belmont and approaches Antonio for that. But Antonio has not
ready money and hence the two go to Shylock for a loan and the fatal bond is
signed. The bond is that if Antonio fails to repay the loan within three
months. Shylock would be entitled to cut off a pound of flesh from nearest
Antonio’s heart. Thus the Bond story and the Caskets story are closely
interdependent. If Bassanio, the hero of the caskets story, had not needed the
money to go to Belmont to try to win Portia as his wife, there would have been
no need for Antonio, the hero of the Bond story, to borrow any money from
Shylock and to sign a fatal bond.
Bassanio succeeds in
choosing the right casket at Belmont and thus winning Portia as his wife. But
just then news comes that Antonio has lost all his ships he has forfeited and
Shylock is now insisting on his pound of flesh. Then Portia the heroine of the
caskets story sends Bassanio posthaste to Venice, fully equipped with the money
necessary to save the life of Antonio from the clutches of Shylock. Besides Portia
disguised as a man and wearing lawyers clothes in The Trail scene turn the
table against Shylock and defeats him by
his own weapon and brings the Bond story to
a happy finale. If it had not been for Portia’s intervention in the
case, Antonio would surely have lost his life. The interweaving of the two stories is thus perfect.
The Lorenzo- Jessica
under plot provides one additional motive to Shylock for trying to take his
revenge upon the Christians. Jessica informs Bassanio of the determination of
the Jew to exact the pound of flesh which he would not give up even if he were
paid twenty times the value of the borrowed money. Portia leaves to Lorenzo and
Jessica the charge of their household when she goes to rescue Antonio. Thus the
story is dovetailed into the Bond story.
The Rings story is an
offshoot of the Bond story and the casket story. If there had been no bond
Portia would not have come to Venice to judge Shylock’s case against Antonio,
bringing Nerissa with her; the two women could not have obtained their rings from
their respective husbands who had sworn not to give away those rings.
Thus the marvelous
combination of all the different strands of stories, so diviners and
incongruous in their tone and spirit, shows a great skill on the part of the
dramatist. Stopeford Brooke has justly said, “the plotting of the play is
admirable; its stage management a triumph.”
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