The Merchant of Venice is a Comedy of Incidents and not of Characters.

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.”

 

You Can also Read:

• Comment on the Trail Scene in "The Merchant of Venice"?

• Write on Shakespeare's Characterization of Shylock.

• Consider "The Merchant of Venice" as a Tragi-Comedy