Shylock be ranting

Leonardo Vilchez
Mr. Huntoon
Portfolio B

In Scene 3 Act 1 of The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare uses Shylock's monologue and his argument of Antonio being cruel to him in order to show the feelings of vengeance and hate that were shared among Christians and Jews in the 1400s (at the time). At the start of the passage, Shylock hints to Salarino that his bond with Antonio "will feed my (his) revenge" (3,1,50) and that by not imposing any threat "if he forfeit (Antonio), thou would wilt not/ take his flesh." (3,1,49) he can gain his trust "To bait fish withal." (3,1,50) and take vengeance upon him. He uses several examples of cruelties in his monologue on how "He (Antonio) hath disgraced me..." (3,1,51) just because "I (Shylock) am a Jew" and tells Salarino how Jews and Christians are very similar but have different beliefs. Shylock argues that "Hath not a Jew hands... fed with the same food... warmed and cooled by the / same winter and summer, as a Christian is?' (3,1,59) and presents to us how small the difference is between Jews and Christians to make us sympathize with him in order to set up for what his true intentions are in the last part of the paragraph. He then states: "If a Jew wrong a / Christian, what is his humility? Revenge." (3,1,64) to mock a Christian's "humility" (which is to be expected of them) in order to show their true actions that are put upon Jews in order to further make Christians look like the real villain. He then says "If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by / Christian example? Why, revenge." (3,1,65) to show how it is the Christians' fault for the Jews' hatred toward Christians and that the Jews are only giving back what was given to them. And finally, he states his true intentions: "The villainy you / teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction." (3,1,67). What Shylock is saying is that he will return the "villainy" "taught" to him by Antonio but in a more terrible or cruel way ("but I will better the instruction.") in revenge. In the end, Shakespeare has Shylock reveal his true intentions toward Antonio through his monologue and the cruelties on Jews made by the Christians to show the tension between Jews and Christians at the time.