Mr. Huntoon
In Scene 2 Act 1 in The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare shows Lancelot Gobbo following the devil's opinion on running away from Shylock, his master, while trying to create confusion through humorous dialogue in order to run away from his father's judgment (which supports his conscience's opinion). In the beginning, Lancelot continually keeps debating whether he should follow his conscience to stay with Shylock, or follow the fiend's "more friendly counsel" (2,28) into running from Shylock due to Shylock being "the very devil incarnation" (2,24). Lancelot holds this idea of Jews bring a great evil because of the Christian opposition of Jews at the time. When Lancelot is talking with his father, old Gobbo, he tells the audience "now will I raise the waters" (2,45), which gives us an image of water being more murkier and less exposed to sunlight that is parallel to confusion. This is shown when he refers to himself humorously as "young Master Lancelot"(2,44) in order to confuse his father that he is a master, not a mere servant (which he is). This is also shown when Lancelot states to his father: "I am Lancelot, your boy that/ was, your son that is, your child that shall be." (2,80-81). He changes the order of growing up, which is actually your child, your boy, and your son, in order to mock the traditional blessing from father to son in a way to further the confusion. In lines 100-101, Lancelot notes to give Shylock a halter (a noose for horses) instead of a present because of Shylock being "a very Jew" (100). This also shows Lancelot's disgust in being a servant of a Jew and Lancelot humorously shows this by portraying Shylock as an animal, lesser than human. In the end, Shakespeare uses Lancelot's humorous dialogue to create confusion for Lancelot's father in order to "run away" from Shylock and go into Bossanio's care.
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ReplyDeleteNice job utilizing good quotations to support your thesis and you set the tone of the scene very well (giving examples of the humor and confusing dialog Shakespeare uses in his writing). I would only recommend that you redo some of the word order in the essay (for example your thesis) because the wording is a little hard to follow; push a little more to the "so what"; and also, you say in your thesis that old Gobbo's opinion is the same as Lancelot's conscience's opinion which says to "take heed, honest Lancelot"..."do not run" (2.1.6-8). However, Old Gobbo's opinion is that he should leave his master and he even tries to help him get his new job when he tells Bassanio that Lancelot "hath a great infection, sir, as one would say, to serve" (2.2.120-121). Over all nice job!