Don't be hatin Shakespeare

Sarah Adler

10/19/14

In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare uses repetition and name calling to convey the way he represents Jews as people who value money over family, communicating the general public’s view of Jews in Shakespeares time. Shylock’s daughter, Jessica, has just run off with Lorenzo, a Christian, and stolen Shylock’s ducats and jewels. As Shylock is filled with grief, Solanio overhears him crying out, “Justice! The law! My ducats and my daughter!/ A sealèd bag, two sealèd bags of ducats,/ Of double ducats, stol’n from me by my daughter!”(2.8, 18-19). Shylock repeats the word “ducats” to emphasize the weight of his loss. By mentioning “ducats” before his daughter, Shylock is showing that he puts money first and therefore equates his love of his money over his love of his daughter. Because Shakespeare has Shylock value money so greatly, he desensitizes Shylock to the loss of his daughter, encouraging a stereotype of Jews at that time. Shakespeare has Solanio call Shylock “The villain Jew” (2.8, 4) representing the hatred felt towards the Jewish people and portraying Shylock in a negative light. To further disrespect Shylock, Solanio calls Shylock “the dog Jew” on line 14, to dehumanize him and display the public bias against Jews. The repetition of “ducats” that Shakespeare has Shylock use, expresses the way Jews were thought to treasure their money even more than their loved ones. Similarly the spiteful names Shylock was called, demonstrates the ways in which people would degrade Jews, ergo depicting the anti-semitism very prevalent at the time.