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Neither Comedy, Romance, nor Tragedy: The Merchant of Venice

From Midsummer Magazine, 1992; used with permission

By Patricia Truxler Coleman

Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is neither comedy, romance, nor tragedy, and consequently defies easy classification. Although it dates to between 1595 and 1600 and thus belongs to that period of enormous productivity during which time Shakespeare composed, in addition, to this play, six romantic comedies, three histories, and two tragedies, The Merchant of Venice is more properly a “problem play,” one that raises far more questions than it answers. With its intricate triple plot—the Shylock-Antonio bond, the Portia-Bassanio romance, and the ring trick—this play is an already complicated story which turns on our understanding of the relationships of mercy to justice and love to honesty.

Thus, at the outset of this play, we are introduced to the melancholic Antonio, who “hold[s] the world but as the world, . . . / A stage where every man must play a part, / And [his] a sad one,” to Gratiano, who “speaks an infinite deal of nothing,” and to Bassanio, who has “much disabled [his] estate” by running up extraordinary debt. Into this world steps Shylock who hates Antonio “for he is Christian” and resents that he “lends out money gratis and brings down / the rate of usance here with us in Venice.” Here then we have the material for one plot: Bassanio needs money; Antonio has tied all his money up in his ventures at sea, and Shylock has money to lend.

Up to this point, the plot seems straightforward enough. But it is not, and what complicates the plot is simply the moral bankruptcy of the citizenry of Venice. Bassanio thinks little of the consequences of his indebtedness; in fact, he intends to borrow more money in order to pay back what he owes. Antonio thinks little of doing business—borrowing money—from his avowed enemy and even less of the moral consequences of his providing Shylock with business. After all, Shylock is in clear violation of the letter of the law by loaning money with advantage, and Antonio is in clear violation of the spirit of the law by providing this “sinner” with the opportunity to “sin” by borrowing money from him. Thus the play raises the old questions of the nature of sin and the relationship of the tempted to the tempter.

Morally Smug

Furthermore, the apparently “holy” Antonio is so morally smug that he cannot fathom the possibility of nature conspiring against him by preventing the return of his three ships. So, while Antonio fancies himself the universal exception to the ordinary rules which govern man in the world, Shylock sees an opportunity to revenge himself on those complacent Christians in Venice who have, by their own definition, made all Jews unworthy “sinners.” Bassanio, in the meantime, is so self-absorbed that he allows his friend Antonio to enter into a potentially deadly bond with Shylock in order that Bassanio might woo the wealthy Portia and end both his unrequited romantic longings and his long-standing indebtedness.

In apparent direct contrast to the corrupt world of Venice is the world of Belmont, which on the surface seems pure and elegant. But even here, lurking beneath the hope of moral consistency, is a world of potential chaos. We are told, when we first meet Portia, that she “can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow [her] own teaching.” Further, it is she who gives shelter to Jessica, Shylock’s thieving and dishonest daughter, and her lover Lorenzo. If we do not see the world of Belmont as a world of potential tragedy, at least one person does—Portia’s father, who, though dead at the outset of the play, has conspired to control his daughter’s choice in marriage even from the grave. Clearly, Portia’s father understands the lack of congruence in this world between appearance and reality, between words and deeds, between thought and performance. And thus we have the material for a second plot.

But Portia and Bassanio do genuinely love one another, and so she manages to guide her suitors in their choices of the caskets. Bassanio, while clearly a flawed individual who is willing to risk the life of a friend for the love of Portia, seems to understand the nature of real romantic love. He chooses the casket bearing the inscription to “give and hazard all” because he seems to understand that the only love that can be guaranteed is that in which the lovers are prepared to do just that—to give and hazard all. Of course, it may be argued that Bassanio isn’t “hazarding” much, at least financially, as his presence in Belmont is the direct result of Antonio’s generosity. But he is, nevertheless, willing to “give and hazard all” in more than merely monetary ways. So while Bassanio may succeed in alienating us in the first act, he redeems himself, at least in part, with us and with Portia when he demonstrates that he understands the nature of lasting love.

Lacks Moral Sophistication.

Still, the worlds of Venice and Belmont are doomed to collide, and they do this through both Shylock and Portia. When Antonio’s ships do not return and he is incapable of paying the debt he owes to Shylock, the Jew demands justice—a pound of Antonio’s flesh. As in nearly all of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies and romances, it is the heroine—here Portia—who is intellectually sophisticated enough to solve the problem, a problem which is typically a male invention and which the heroine must be in male guise to solve. But, unlike Shakespeare’s other romantic heroines, Portia lacks moral sophistication. When, in the guise of a man, she cautions Shylock to show mercy, she reminds both him and us that “earthly power doth then show likest God’s / When mercy seasons justice.” And yet, having caught Shylock in a bind—he is due his pound of flesh, but not one drop of blood—she proceeds in her humiliation and destruction of Shylock, seasoning none of hers or Christian Venice’s justice with mercy. Apparently, for the citizens of Venice and Belmont, that mercy which “is an / attribute to God himself” is the just due only of those who are like them in appearance, behavior, beliefs, and values.

But, of course, Shylock is like them, and like us. He asks: “Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?” (3.1.62)

And our answer must be “yes.” For we see Shylock suffer—at the hands of his daughter who betrays him by stealing the only thing of sentimental value to Shylock and by eloping with a Christian and turning her back on all that her father has valued; at the hands of Antonio, who is so completely able to separate his public and private selves that he will do business with Shylock but will not respect him; at the hands of Portia and the court of Venice, which will commend mercy to Shylock as a way of handling Antonio but which will show him none themselves; and at the hands of a system of Christian justice which teaches us on the one hand to love our enemy and on the other to strip him of his faith.

Furthermore, for all her intellectual sophistication, Portia lacks a certain softness of nature where love is concerned. While it may be amusing to her to trick Bassanio and Gratiano into parting with their wedding rings, it is certainly not amusing to the gentlemen. Here we have the material for the third plot. For even if only for a brief time, Portia and Nerissa have mercilessly trapped their husbands in a lie and made the men think that they might have been cuckolded. Thus, The Merchant of Venice ends in a final collision of the worlds of Venice and Belmont. For all that we may have hoped otherwise, we must conclude that Venice and Belmont have at least one thing in common: things are not as they seem. Once again, Shakespeare has reminded us of the perpetual incongruence, where people are concerned, between appearance and reality and of our capacity to be better at knowing what is good to do than we are at doing it.

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The Play The Merchant of Venice — Tragic and Comic Element

As a traditional romantic comedy: .

The play has been traditionally accepted as a romantic comedy by many critics, for it ends in enormous fun and laughter. Love too triumphs, or so it appears at first instance. Bassanio marries Portia, Lorenzo marries Jessica, Gratiano marries Nerissa, and even Launcelot finds a dark skinned woman as a mate for himself.

Yet Bassanio marries after he betrays Antonio in more ways than one, for the latter loses the former to Portia. Antonio also almost loses his life trying to unite Bassanio and Portia. Bassanio too marries Portia as much for her wealth as for his love for her; and we can hardly find a satisfactory reply as to why a woman of Portia's grandeur would fall for a person so devoid of any positive trait. Lorenzo and Jessica unite after the latter has betrayed her religion, and her father, and the former has abetted her in achieving this. How love can ever flourish amidst so much of evil is hard to fathom. Love's main accessory is moral uprighteousness based on trust. Lorenzo and Jessica are neither uprighteous nor moral, for they betray Shylock's faith, and Jessica rejects Judaism for Christianity, in an arbitrary exercise of religious flippance. Gratiano and Nerissa indulge only in tomfoolery, and there is hardly any romance between the two.

Antonio As A Tragic Figure: 

Antonio is melancholic in the very first line of the play when—

  "In sooth, I know not why I am so sad  It wearies me;" [I. i. 1-2]

Salarino and Salanio, his two companions, try to explain his sorrow and we know they are way off target. His melancholy is due to his loneliness. He has an all-consuming love of a homosexual for Bassanio. Bassanio may be bisexual or may be he is not, for we get no hint of it. Yet he chooses to 'woo Portia. We know that Antonio already had been told about this by Bassanio sometime before the commencement of the play, for the first time that Antonio meets Bassanio in the play he anxiously asks:

"Well, tell me now, what lady is the same  To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,  That you today promised to tell me of?" (I. i. 120-123)

There is distinct suffering in these words. Antonio is about to lose the sole purpose of his existence, to Portia, someone he cannot compete with, for she is a woman, and homosexuality was not accepted in society. We know that his suffering is acute as is his reconciliation to his loneliness for life, for a few minutes earlier he had told Gratiano that

"I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;  A stage where every man must play a part,  And mine a sad one." (1. i.76-78)

Shylock As A Tragic Figure: 

Shylock too suffers immensely. He suffers because he is a Jew, and is proud of being one. The Christians in Venice, forgetting the cardinal value of tolerance, sympathy and brotherhood, display the exact opposite of emotions towards him. Shylock suffers the most at the hands of Antonio. The latter calls him a dog and spits on him at the Rialto. These two are not stray incidents, for the persecution of Shylock is repeated and incessant. Neither is Antonio the sole persecutor. He is merely the symbol of Christian intolerance towards the Jews in Venice. Shylock's humiliation and suffering can only be measured by someone who has experienced the alienation of a gross minority. Shylock suffers on other counts too. His business of lending money is looked down upon. Though he roughs it out through sheer perseverance, the loneliness must undoubtedly have remained with him. He misses his wife Leah, whom he obviously loves dearly. Normally daughters are a great source of comfort and happiness to fathers. Jessica cannot be much of a solace, for she hates her own religion and is embarrassed by her father's thrift and business. She betrays him by robbing him of all his money after he had bestowed upon her the trust of his house. She not only takes the money but also marries Lorenzo, a Christian boy by changing her religion. This must have been particularly heart- breaking for the proud Jew. Later Shylock is to suffer more due to Jessica, when he learns from Tubal that she exchanged the turquoise ring which Leah gave to him as a bachelor, for a monkey. When you hear of this, you wish that God had spared him of such a daughter. Shylock's persecution is complete, and his heart hardens to such an extent that he is prepared to take Antonio's life when the opportunity comes. Justice finally prevails when Shylock is prevented from carrying out his hideous design. But when justice goes further and confiscates his entire wealth, and forces his survival on his conversion to Christianity, we realise that the gods are not just. For a man so proud of his heritage and religion, suicide may have been a better option than the one given to him by the laws of Venice.

Portia's Sadness and Suffering: 

Even the exquisitely beautiful and ebullient Portia is not always happy. Her suffering at her father's choice of the method of choosing a husband for her is full of hazards, till others fall and Bassanio finally chooses the casket. She admits to Nerissa that she may land up with a wrong husband and be trapped into a loveless marriage. Most of her suitors are arrogant and no match to her grandeur. Moreover she loves Bassanio and the chances of not marrying him due to the arbitrary lottery are very real.

Plenty of Comedy in the Play: 

There is plenty of comedy in this play too. Launcelot Gobbo is a clown or a jester who was introduced by Shakespeare only to produce laughter. Launcelot's fooling of his own father is comic too, though it is something crude and farcical. He is capable of making a good joke also as for instance, when he says that the making of Christians (or the conversion of the Jews to Christianity) would raise the price of hogs in Venice. But it is the sense of humour and the wit of Portia and of Gratiano which import to the play a truly comic quality. Portia's wit is first brought to our notice through her comments on her suitors. She says about her English suitors that he is oddly suited; and in this context she further says that he must have his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere. A plenty of mirth and laughter has been produced by the comedy of rings and the playwright ends his play with mirth and laughter.

Play's Ending in much fun and Merriment: 

The play ends in much fun and merriment as everything is brought to a happy end. In the moonlit night in Portia's garden, the three pairs of lovers unite in one rhapsody of happiness. Antonio, too, though alone, gets the news of the return of his ships with merchandise which were considered lost and almost cost him his life. There is not a hint of sadness and the reader is prone to believe that nothing can be happier than this. Yet, we can only accept this if we forget the tragic Shylock, who has lost his religion, his wealth and his reputation. Had the fifth act not been written by Shakespeare the play would have been a tragedy. Shakespeare does not finish his play immediately after the trial scene, because he wanted to make sure that the play is accepted as a comedy. Amidst the prosperity and happiness, we also forget the sorrow of Antonio who has lost Bassanio to Portia, and has no method to cope with his suffering due to unrequited and unreturned love.

Though ended happily the play cannot be called a romantic comedy. "Shakespearean romantic comedy is fundamentally different from classical comedy. It is an unlimited venture of happiness and an impringly imaginative undertaking of human welfare. It's heroes and heroines are Voyagers' in pursuit of a happiness, not yet attained-a 'Brave New World', wherein man's life may be fuller his sensations more exquisite, and his joys more wide-spread more lasting, and so more humane. The central theme of Shakespeare's romantic comedy rotates a round love-an immorally inspiring love. To quote Beatrice Webb, “ The Merchant of Venice , certainly, contains elements of romance; the elopement of Jessica, the melancholy sweet love between those two young lovers and the love-lit just meeting of Bassanio and Portia-all these are the most sparkling elements of a romantic comedy. But we should also note that love is not the central theme of the plot; the play a grim fight between two antagonistic religious orthodoxies." 

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A Summary and Analysis of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare’s most popular comedies, and is widely studied and has been subject to considerable analysis. Contrary to what many people think, the ‘merchant’ of the title isn’t Shylock (of whom more below) but the far less famous character, Antonio. So how well do we know The Merchant of Venice ? Below, we offer some words of analysis, but first, it might be worth recapping the plot of the play.

Plot summary

There are two main plot strands to The Merchant of Venice , both closely intertwined. The first involves Portia, the wealthy heiress of Belmont, who decides that she will marry whichever suitor picks the right casket when faced with a choice of three (made of gold, silver, and lead).

The second involves a loan the Jewish moneylender, Shylock, makes to Antonio, the merchant of the play’s title. These two plot lines are connected because Antonio borrows money from Shylock in order to help out his friend, Bassanio, who wishes to finance a trip to Belmont to try his hand at Portia’s ‘three caskets’ trial. (The princes of Morocco and Aragon both choose the wrong caskets, but Bassanio correctly guesses that the lead casket, and the two are engaged.)

The terms of the loan are as follows: Antonio will repay the money to Shylock when his ships return from their voyage; if he fails to pay up then, Shylock will be entitled to a pound of Antonio’s flesh. When Antonio’s ships are declared lost at sea, he cannot repay the debt to Shylock, who promptly demands his pound of flesh.

These two threads run through the play, becoming united towards the end of the play, when Portia disguises herself as a male lawyer in order to defend Antonio against Shylock’s knife. She is aided by her maid, Nerissa, who is engaged to Bassanio’s friend, Gratiano; Nerissa is also disguised as a man (Portia’s clerk).

After trying, unsuccessfully, to appeal to Shylock’s ‘quality of mercy’ (a famous speech which we have analysed here ), Portia changes tack, and saves Antonio on a legal technicality: whilst his agreement with Shylock allows the Jewish moneylender a pound of Antonio’s flesh, it does not entitle him to a drop of the merchant’s blood – and if he tries to remove a pound of his flesh and makes him bleed, he will be liable. Shylock is defeated, and Antonio saved.

And Shylock is well and truly defeated: he has to pay ‘damages’ to Antonio – half of his entire wealth – and is also forced to convert from Judaism to Christianity. However, Antonio gives the money he gets from Shylock immediately to Jessica, Shylock’s daughter, who had earlier eloped with Lorenzo, against her father’s wishes.

There is one last, romantic, twist to the plot: before the trial, Portia and Nerissa had made gifts of rings to their betrotheds, Antonio and Gratiano. After the trial is over, to express their gratitude to the lawyer and clerk for saving Antonio’s skin (literally), they both give their rings to the lawyer and ‘his’ clerk as tokens of thanks.

To test (and have a bit of fun with) the two men, Portia and Nerissa, back in Belmont and out of their male disguises, ask the returning Antonio and Gratiano where the rings are which they gave them. The two men say they have lost them, and the two women produce new ones – which are really, of course, the originals. As a final piece of good luck, Antonio learns that not all of his ships were lost at sea, and the two couples celebrate their upcoming wedding.

Venice has a long-standing association with trade, commerce, and money. The materialistic world of this city-state regards people only in terms of their financial worth, and Shylock embodies this cold materialism in the extreme. To him, Antonio is only a debtor, so much flesh, from whom he can extract his pound if Antonio is unable to repay his loan. The great clash in The Merchant of Venice is between money and love, as both Shylock’s trial and Portia’s very different ‘trial’ – the test of the three caskets – demonstrate.

Against this heartlessly materialistic worldview is set the world of mercy and compassion, expressed in the two most famous speeches from The Merchant of Venice : Portia’s ‘The quality of mercy is not strained’ and Shylock’s own ‘Hath not a Jew eyes? If you prick us, do we not bleed?’

The valorisation of wealth and gold above all else is also famously rejected and criticised in Portia’s three caskets: gold and silver seem to promise the suitor wealth (in the form of Portia’s inheritance), but it is only by rejecting these in favour of the relatively worthless lead that Bassanio proves his worth as a potential husband to her.

However, the plot of The Merchant of Venice doesn’t entirely reject the world of money: Antonio borrows money from Shylock in an act of friendship (to help his relatively poor friend Bassanio travel to Belmont to undertake Portia’s three caskets test), but it’s also a financial reality that money is needed to be in the ‘race’.

And it’s worth noting that mercy doesn’t triumph over materialism at the trial: Shylock is deaf to Portia’s appeals, and his contract with Antonio can only be defeated on a technicality which speaks the only kind of language Shylock recognises.

And Shylock is the key to the whole play, as the confusion over him being mistaken for its title character demonstrates. For Harold Bloom, in a persuasive analysis of The Merchant of Venice in his book Shakespeare: The Invention Of The Human , The Merchant of Venice presents a number of difficult problems.

First, there’s no denying it is an anti-Semitic play; second, for Bloom, Shylock should be played as a comic villain and not a sympathetic character for the play to have ‘coherence’ and make full sense; third, to play Shylock this way would no doubt exacerbate the play’s anti-Semitic properties.

Many recent productions of The Merchant of Venice have certainly depicted Shylock more sympathetically than he was probably played when the play was first staged, in the 1590s which gave London not only Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta (whose title character, Barabbas, is a cartoon villain too exaggerated to be taken with complete seriousness) but also the execution of the Portuguese Jewish immigrant Roderigo Lopez, physician to Queen Elizabeth I, who was accused of plotting to kill the Queen (he was, almost certainly, innocent).

If the casual anti-Semitism that was widely tolerated as recently as the early twentieth century is anything to go by, Shakespeare’s original audience would probably have viewed Shylock as a money-grubbing villain.

But as is so often with Shakespeare’s characterisation, the character can be interpreted more sympathetically (his famous ‘If you prick us, do we not bleed?’ speech is one example of where we can find evidence for this interpretation), and this is the line most modern productions of the play have taken. And it must be a hard-hearted reader or spectator who can watch Shylock being forced to convert to Christianity (by Antonio) and not feel a twinge of uneasiness.

What’s more, the parallels between Antonio and Shylock arguably don’t end with that popular misconception over who the title character is. Antonio is just as money-driven as Shylock, and – as his insistence that Shylock be made to convert to Christianity shows – not exactly overflowing with Christian charity. This is the mentality that Venice seems to engender: a world of financial interests, account books, and hatred and mistrust of others.

The Merchant of Venice has become Shylock’s play, eclipsing all else, and whilst there may not be much else besides him that makes the play interesting, the one exception here is Portia, who is one of Shakespeare’s finest female roles from the 1590s.

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4 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice”

Definitely one of Shakespeare’s problematic plays. I view it more as a tragi-comedy and believe Shakespeare provided ambiguity towards Shylock in that he did not lampoon him but gave him full characterization. Perhaps Shakespeare wanted the audience to see beyond the culture and see a person.

Problematic indeed! Thank you for your most interesting exploration of the issues.

VERY CLEAR SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS. THANK YOU FOR ALLOWING ME TO READ IT AS ONE PART OF MY READINGS

Wouldn’t thou allow such mercy to Shylock if he show an ounce of pennant thought, or would it rather be rendered he suffer the harsh justice he demanded upon Antonio that you, in your fraudulent identity, chastised him for. You ask that Shylock grant mercy, but you refuse him such the like. Surely, you present him the harshest of consequences. Perhaps, opportune his chance of recompense and change of heart. Allow the man his beliefs and as well an example to present to his like minded. Allow him at least the the humane existence, some mere portion of fortune. There must be thoughts and consistency of mercy , although through consequential reasoning, placed upon both arguments.

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The Merchant of Venice: Comedy or Conundrum?

Shortly after she enters the courtroom disguised as a young lawyer, Portia asks the defendant and plaintiff to identify themselves. Generations of readers and audiences have asked the same question with regard to the identity of the play itself. The Merchant of Venice appeared in print for the first time in 1600 as The most excellent Historie of the Merchant of Venice ; however, on the sheet which followed the title page appeared another title, The comicall History of the Merchant of Venice . Near the end of the 20th century, one publisher of Shakespeare’s works listed the play as a tragedy. History? Comedy? Tragedy? In the end, the play seems more of a conundrum than anything else.

In shaping The Merchant of Venice , Shakespeare consulted a number of sources that ultimately yielded two plots and a sub-plot. There are, in fact, two climaxes in the structure of the play, the first at its center, when Bassanio wins Portia—the kind of climax typical of other Shakespearean romantic comedies. The second climax comes at the critical moment of the courtroom scene, when Shylock comes perilously close to winning his case against Antonio.

This second climax undercuts, and, some would argue, scuttles what many have seen as the real theme of the play. In the introduction to his Arden edition of the play, John Russell Brown concludes with a statement of this theme: “In the scramble of give and take, when appearance and reality are hard to distinguish, one thing seems certain: that giving is the most important part—giving prodigally, without thought for the taking.”

The theme of love as selfless giving finds its finest flowering in Portia’s offer of herself to Bassanio. After Bassanio finds her picture in the lead casket, she gives him everything: “Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours / Is now converted.” Her complete gift of self underlies the famous speech on mercy in the courtroom scene, but it is withheld at the end of the scene, when she puts mercy aside to render judgment.

Here we come to the second principal cause of audience difficulty with the play, Shakespeare’s treatment of Shylock. The playwright’s apparent intentions are clear from Shylock’s very first appearance: “I hate him for he is a Christian…If I can catch him once upon the hip, / I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.” Shylock reinforces his villainy with virtually everything he does in later scenes, until we reach the speech that echoes down the centuries to haunt us: “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections…?” In his refusal to simplify the complexity of all things human, Shakespeare demonstrates the truth of Shylock’s last words in this speech: “The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”

The Fifth Act serves as a coda to the play, reinforcing the theme of selfsacrificing love in the resolution of the quarrel over rings. But the damage has been done, and audiences emerge from performances of the play unable to forget the vivid “Hath not a Jew eyes” speech or the image of a Shylock leaving the play bent down under the weight of burdens.

The play remains a conundrum, in Kenneth Rothwell’s words, “the woefullest but most complicated comedy ever written.” But, second only to Hamlet in popularity among Shakespeare’s works, T he Merchant of Venice will continue to attract readers and audiences seeking to understand its complexities and to enjoy its vividly realized characters.

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The Merchant of Venice

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The Merchant of Venice , comedy in five acts by William Shakespeare , written about 1596–97 and printed in a quarto edition in 1600 from an authorial manuscript or copy of one.

Bassanio, a noble but penniless Venetian, asks his wealthy merchant friend Antonio for a loan so that Bassanio can undertake a journey to woo the heiress Portia . Antonio, whose money is invested in foreign ventures, borrows the sum from Shylock , a Jewish moneylender, on the condition that, if the loan cannot be repaid in time, Antonio will forfeit a pound of flesh. Antonio is reluctant to do business with Shylock, whom he despises for lending money at interest (unlike Antonio himself, who provides the money for Bassanio without any such financial obligation); Antonio considers that lending at interest violates the very spirit of Christianity. Nevertheless, he needs help in order to be able to assist Bassanio. Meanwhile, Bassanio has met the terms of Portia’s father’s will by selecting from three caskets the one that contains her portrait, and he and Portia marry. (Two previous wooers, the princes of Morocco and Aragon, have failed the casket test by choosing what many men desire or what the chooser thinks he deserves; Bassanio knows that he must paradoxically “give and hazard all he hath” to win the lady.) News arrives that Antonio’s ships have been lost at sea. Unable to collect on his loan, Shylock attempts to use justice to enforce a terrible, murderous revenge on Antonio: he demands his pound of flesh. Part of Shylock’s desire for vengeance is motivated by the way in which the Christians of the play have banded together to enable his daughter Jessica to elope from his house, taking with her a substantial portion of his wealth, in order to become the bride of the Christian Lorenzo. Shylock’s revengeful plan is foiled by Portia, disguised as a lawyer, who turns the tables on Shylock by a legal quibble: he must take flesh only, and Shylock must die if any blood is spilled. Thus, the contract is canceled, and Shylock is ordered to give half of his estate to Antonio, who agrees not to take the money if Shylock converts to Christianity and restores his disinherited daughter to his will. Shylock has little choice but to agree. The play ends with the news that, in fact, some of Antonio’s ships have arrived safely.

The character of Shylock has been the subject of modern scholarly debate over whether the playwright displays anti-Semitism or religious tolerance in his characterization, for, despite his stereotypical usurious nature, Shylock is depicted as understandably full of hate, having been both verbally and physically abused by Christians, and he is given one of Shakespeare’s most eloquent speeches (“Hath not a Jew eyes?…”).

For a discussion of this play within the context of Shakespeare’s entire corpus, see William Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s plays and poems .

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The Merchant of Venice

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The Merchant of Venice: Introduction

The merchant of venice: plot summary, the merchant of venice: detailed summary & analysis, the merchant of venice: themes, the merchant of venice: quotes, the merchant of venice: characters, the merchant of venice: symbols, the merchant of venice: literary devices, the merchant of venice: quizzes, the merchant of venice: theme wheel, brief biography of william shakespeare.

Historical Context of The Merchant of Venice

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• Full Title: The Merchant of Venice
• When Written: 1596–8
• Where Written: England
• When Published: 1623
• Literary Period: The Renaissance
• Genre: Comedy/tragicomedy; Revenge tragedy
• Setting: Venice, and the nearby country estate of Belmont
• Climax: The trial of Antonio, the merchant, and Shylock, the Jewish moneylender
• Antagonist: Shylock

Extra Credit for The Merchant of Venice

"Which is the merchant here? And which the Jew?" Modern audiences of Merchant of Venice often mistake Shylock for the "merchant" of the title—which actually refers to Antonio.

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A Modern Perspective: The Merchant of Venice

By Alexander Leggatt

The Merchant of Venice is a comedy. Comedies traditionally end in marriage, and on the way they examine the social networks in which marriage is involved: the relations among families, among friends, among parents and children, and what in Shakespeare’s society were the all-important ties of money and property. Comedies also create onstage images of closed communities of right-thinking people, from which outsiders are excluded by being laughed at. If The Merchant of Venice has always seemed one of Shakespeare’s more problematic and disturbing comedies, this may be because it examines the networks of society more closely than usual, and treats outsiders—one in particular—with a severity that seems to go beyond the comic.

In the interweaving of the play’s stories we see a chain of obligations based on money. Bassanio needs money to pay his debts, and plans to get it by marrying the rich heiress Portia. To make money he needs to borrow money—from his friend Antonio, who borrows it from Shylock, who borrows it, according to the patter of his trade, from Tubal. Once Bassanio has won Portia she becomes part of the network, and the obligations become more than financial. She imposes on herself the condition that before her marriage is consummated, Antonio must be freed from his bond to Shylock; as she tells Bassanio, “never shall you lie by Portia’s side / With an unquiet soul” ( 3.2.318 –19). She takes on herself the task of freeing Antonio. As Bassanio must journey to Belmont and answer the riddle of the caskets, Portia must journey to Venice and answer the riddle of Shylock’s bond. Antonio thus becomes “bound” ( 4.1.425 ) to the young doctor (Portia) who saved him, and the only payment the doctor will take is Bassanio’s ring. Antonio now, in effect, has to borrow from Bassanio to pay Portia: it is at Antonio’s insistence that Bassanio reluctantly gives away the ring. Yet the ring represents Bassanio’s tie of loyalty to Portia, the husband’s obligation to be bound exclusively to his wife; she gives the ring, as Shylock gives money, with conditions attached:

Which, when you part from, lose, or give away,

Let it presage the ruin of your love,

And be my vantage to exclaim on you.

( 3.2.176 –78)

The line of obligation runs, like the play itself, from Venice to Belmont, then from Belmont to Venice, and back to Belmont again. The ring exemplifies the paradox of marriage: it binds two people exclusively to each other, yet it does so within a social network in which they have inevitable ties with other people, ties on which the marriage itself depends. Portia and Bassanio depend on Antonio, who is Portia’s chief rival for Bassanio’s affection. The story of the ring is based on paradoxes: Bassanio, in giving it to the young “doctor,” is betraying Portia at her own request, and giving her back her own. In the final scene Portia gives the ring to Antonio, who returns it to Bassanio, thus participating in a symbolic exchange that cements the marriage relationship from which he is excluded. As Portia’s ring comes back to Portia, then back to Bassanio, the line of obligation becomes at last a circle, the symbol at once of perfection and exclusion.

Portia is also bound to her father. When we first see her she is chafing at the way her father has denied her freedom of choice in marriage: “So is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father” ( 1.2.24 –25). But by the end of that scene she is reconciled to her father’s will when she hears that her unwanted suitors have departed rather than face the test; and of course Bassanio, the man she wants—the man who visited Belmont in her father’s time ( 1.2.112 –21)—is the winner. The will of the dead father and the will of the living daughter are one. Portia sees the value of the test from her own point of view when she tells Bassanio, “If you do love me, you will find me out” ( 3.2.43 ), and in the moment of victory he insists that to have satisfied her father’s condition is not enough “Until confirmed, signed, ratified by you” ( 3.2.152 ). The dead father is satisfied, but theatrically the emphasis falls on the satisfaction of the living daughter.

In the story of Shylock and Jessica all these emphases are reversed. Jessica’s loyalties are divided. She recognizes a real obligation to her father—“Alack, what heinous sin is it in me / To be ashamed to be my father’s child?” ( 2.3.16 –17)—and she hopes her elopement will “end this strife” ( 2.3.20 ). For her it does (with reservations we will come to later); but Shakespeare puts the focus on the pain and humiliation it causes Shylock. The vicious taunts he endures from the Venetians identify him as an old man who has lost his potency, “two stones, two rich and precious stones” ( 2.8.20 –21), and his cry, “My own flesh and blood to rebel!” draws Solanio’s cruel retort, “Out upon it, old carrion! Rebels it at these years?” ( 3.1.34 –36). While Portia’s father retains his power beyond the grave, Shylock is mocked as an impotent old man. We may find Lancelet Gobbo’s teasing of his blind father cruel; while Shakespeare’s contemporaries had stronger stomachs for this sort of thing than we do, Shakespeare’s own humor is not usually so heartless. With the taunting of Shylock he goes further: the jokes of Salarino and Solanio, like those of Iago, leave us feeling no impulse to laugh.

This brings us to the problem of the way comedy treats outsiders, and to the cruelty that so often lies at the heart of laughter. Portia begins her dissection of her unwanted suitors “I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but . . .” ( 1.2.57 –58) and goes on to indulge that sin with real gusto. The unwanted suitors are all foreigners, and are mocked as such; only the Englishman, we notice, gets off lightly. (His fault, interestingly, is his inability to speak foreign languages; in one of the play’s more complicated jokes, the insularity of the English audience, which the rest of the scene plays up to, becomes itself the target of laughter.) Morocco and Arragon lose the casket game for good reasons. Morocco chooses the gold casket because he thinks the phrase “what many men desire” is a sign of Portia’s market value. This is a tribute, but not the tribute of love. Arragon thinks not of Portia’s worth but of his own. Besides, Morocco and Arragon are foreign princes, and Morocco’s foreignness is compounded by his dark skin, which Shakespeare emphasizes in a rare stage direction specifying the actor’s costume: “a tawny Moor all in white” ( 2.1.0 SD). Portia’s dismissal of him, “Let all of his complexion choose me so” ( 2.7.87 ), is for us an ugly moment. The prejudice that is, if not overturned, at least challenged and debated in Titus Andronicus and Othello is casually accepted here.

The most conspicuous problem, of course, is Shylock, and here we need to pause. The Merchant of Venice was written within a culture in which prejudice against Jews was pervasive and endemic. It can be argued that this goes back to the earliest days of Christianity, when the tradition began of making the Jews bear the guilt of the Crucifixion. Throughout medieval and early Renaissance Europe the prejudice bred dark fantasies: Jews were accused, for example, of conducting grotesque rituals in which they murdered Christian children and drank their blood. The story of a Jew who wants a pound of Christian flesh may have its roots in these fantasies of Jews violating Christian bodies. Shylock’s profession of usury is also bound up with his race: barred from other occupations, the Jews of Europe took to moneylending. Antonio’s disapproval of lending money at interest echoes traditional Christian teaching (Christian practice was another matter). Shylock’s boast that he makes his gold and silver breed like ewes and rams would remind his audience of the familiar argument that usury was against the law of God because metal was sterile and could not breed. Not just in his threat to Antonio, but in his day-to-day business, Shylock would appear unnatural.

Prejudice feeds on ignorance; since the Jews had been expelled from England in 1290, Shakespeare may never have met one. (There were a few in London in his time, but they could not practice their religion openly.) Given that the villainy of Shylock is one of the mainsprings of the story, it would have been far more natural for Shakespeare to exploit this prejudice than resist it. Many critics and performers, however, have insisted that he did resist it. His imagination, so the argument runs, worked on the figure of Shylock until it had created sympathy for him, seeing him as the victim of persecution. The great Victorian actor Henry Irving played him as a wronged and dignified victim, representative of a suffering race. Shylock’s famous self-defense, “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands . . .?” ( 3.1.57 –58), has been taken out of context and presented as a plea for the recognition of our common humanity. In context, however, its effect is less benevolent. Shylock’s plea is compelling and eloquent, but he himself uses it not to argue for tolerance but to defend his cruelty: “The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction” ( 3.1.70 –72). Gratiano’s taunt, “A Daniel still, say I! A second Daniel!— / I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word” ( 4.1.354 –55), shows that Gratiano, along with the word “Daniel,” has also picked up from Shylock, without knowing it, the word “teach,” and the echo is a terrible demonstration of the ways we teach each other hate so that prejudice moves in a vicious circle.

Does the play itself break out of this circle? There is little encouragement in the text to think so. In other plays Shakespeare casually uses the word “Jew” as a term of abuse, and this usage is intensified here. The kindest thing Lorenzo’s friends can find to say about Jessica is that she is “a gentle and no Jew” ( 2.6.53 ). We are aware of the pain Shylock feels in defeat; but the play emphasizes that he has brought it on himself, and no one in the play expresses sympathy for him, just as no one—except Shylock—ever questions Antonio’s right to spit on him. Given the latitude of interpretation, there are ways around the problem. Critics and performers alike have found sympathy for Shylock in his suffering, and have attacked the Christians’ treatment of him. But these readings are allowed rather than compelled by the text, and to a great extent they go against its surface impression.

It has to be said that many people who normally love Shakespeare find The Merchant of Venice painful. It even has power to do harm: it has provoked racial incidents in schools, and school boards have sometimes banned it. One may reply that the way to deal with a work one finds offensive is not censorship but criticism; in any case, everyone who teaches or performs the play needs to be aware of the problems it may create for their students and audiences, and to confront those problems as honestly as they can. At best, there are legitimate interpretations that control or resist the anti-Semitism in the text. At worst, it can be an object lesson showing that even a great writer can be bound by the prejudices of his time. To raise this kind of question is of course to go beyond the text as such and to make the problem of Shylock loom larger than it would have done for Shakespeare. In discussions of this kind, the objection “Why can’t we just take it as a play?” is often heard. But we cannot place Shakespeare in a sealed container. He belonged to his time, and, as the most widely studied and performed playwright in the world, he belongs to ours. He exerts great power within our culture, and we cannot take it for granted that this power is always benevolent.

To return to the text, and to explore the ramifications of the figure of Shylock a bit further: Shylock, Morocco, and Arragon are not the play’s only losers. The group, paradoxically, includes Antonio, who is the center of so much friendship and concern. In the final scene he is a loner in a world of couples, and the sadness he expressed at the beginning of the play does not really seem to have lifted. He resists attempts to make him reveal his secret; but when to Solanio’s “Why then you are in love” he replies “Fie, fie!” ( 1.1.48 ), we notice it is not a direct denial. Solanio himself later makes clear the depth of Antonio’s feeling for Bassanio: “I think he only loves the world for him” ( 2.8.52 ). In the trial scene Antonio tells Bassanio to report his sacrifice and bid Portia “be judge / Whether Bassanio had not once a love” ( 4.1.288 –89). Antonio has not only accepted Bassanio’s marriage, he has helped make it possible—yet there is a touch of rivalry here. In the trial his courageous acceptance of death shades into an actual yearning for it, and in the final restoration of his wealth there is something restrained and cryptic. Portia will not tell him how she came by the news that his ships have been recovered; his own response, “I am dumb” ( 5.1.299 ), has the same curtness as Shylock’s “I am content” ( 4.1.410 ), and the same effect of closing off conversation. Whether we should call Antonio’s love for Bassanio “homosexual” is debatable; the term did not exist until fairly recently, and some social historians argue that the concept did not exist either. Our own language of desire and love does not necessarily apply in other cultures. What matters to our understanding of the play is that Antonio’s feeling for Bassanio is not only intense but leaves him excluded from the sort of happiness the other characters find as they pair off into couples. This gives Antonio an ironic affinity with his enemy Shylock: both are outsiders. Many current productions end with Antonio conspicuously alone as the couples go off to bed.

Another character who is in low spirits at the end of some productions of The Merchant of Venice is Jessica. There is less warrant for this in the text, apart from her line “I am never merry when I hear sweet music” ( 5.1.77 ). Jessica is a significant case of a character who has broken the barrier between outsider and insider, joining a group (the Christians) to which she did not originally belong. She is welcomed, and seems at ease in her new world, but Lancelet Gobbo, the plainspoken and sometimes anarchic clown of the play, raises doubts about the efficacy of her conversion—she is damned if she is her father’s daughter, and damned if she isn’t ( 3.5.1 –25)—and about its economic consequences: “This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs” ( 3.5.22 –23). In a play in which money counts for so much, this is a very pointed joke. Lancelet uses his clown’s license to raise the question of whether Jessica will ever be fully accepted in Christian society. (His own contribution to race relations has been to get a Moor pregnant, and his reference to her does not sound affectionate.) Jessica’s uneasiness at going into male disguise could suggest a worry about the deeper change she is making in her nature.

Her uneasiness also makes a revealing contrast with Portia’s attitude to her disguise, and suggests there may be a parallel between the two women. Given her easy dominance of every scene in which she appears, it may seem odd to think of Portia as an outsider. But she is a woman in a society whose structures are male-centered and patriarchal. She greets her marriage with a surrender of herself and her property to a man who, like her father, will have full legal control over her:

Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours

Is now converted. But now I was the lord

Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,

Queen o’er myself; and even now, but now,

This house, these servants, and this same myself

Are yours, my lord’s.

( 3.2.170 –75)

Yet she continues to dominate Bassanio, and more than that: like Jessica, she uses male disguise to enter another world, the exclusive male club (as it then was) of the legal profession. Unlike Jessica, she moves into this new world with confidence. Her mockery of swaggering young men as she plans her disguise is irrelevant to the story but seems to answer a need in the character to poke fun at the sex whose rules she is about to subvert. Not for the only time in Shakespeare, we see a stage full of men who need a woman to sort out their problems.

Portia may also be seen as bringing fresh air from Belmont into the sea-level miasma of Venice, and readings of the play have often been constructed around a sharp opposition between the two locations, between the values of Portia and the values of Shylock. Shakespeare, however, will not leave it at that; there are constant echoes back and forth between the play’s apparently disparate worlds. Portia gives a ring to Bassanio, who gives it away; Leah gave a ring to Shylock, and Jessica steals it. Keys lock Shylock’s house and unlock the caskets of Belmont. Portia calls Bassanio “dear bought” ( 3.2.326 ) and Shylock uses almost the same words for his pound of flesh, which is “dearly bought” ( 4.1.101 ). Shylock’s proverb, “Fast bind, fast find” ( 2.5.55 ), could be a comment on the way the women use the rings to bind the men to them. His claim on Antonio’s body is grotesque, but the adultery jokes of the final scene remind us that married couples also claim exclusive rights in each other’s bodies. Marriage is mutual ownership, and Shylock’s recurring cry of “mine!” echoes throughout the play.

The final images of harmony are a bit precarious. The moonlight reminds Lorenzo and Jessica of stories of tragic, betrayed love, in which they teasingly include their own. These stories are stylized and distanced, but not just laughed off as the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe is in A Midsummer Night’s Dream . The problem of the rings is laughed off, but there is some pain and anxiety behind the laughter. The stars are “patens of bright gold” ( 5.1.67 )—that is, plates used in the Eucharist which are also rich material objects. The play’s materialism touches even the spiritual realm, and Lorenzo’s eloquent account of the music of the spheres ends with a reminder that “we cannot hear it” ( 5.1.73 ). When Portia describes the beauty of the night, she creates a paradox: “This night methinks is but the daylight sick; / It looks a little paler” ( 5.1.137 –38). So, as we watch the lovers go off to bed, we may think of their happiness, or of the human cost to those who have been excluded; we may wonder how much it matters that this happiness was bought in part with Shylock’s money. A brilliant night, or a sickly day? We may feel that this is another harmony whose music eludes us. Or we may conclude that the happiness is all the more precious for being hard-won, and all the more believable for the play’s acknowledgment that love is part of the traffic of the world.

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“The Merchant of Venice” as a Comedy Essay

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There are several aspects in any work of art that make it be characterized as a comedy. The classification is usually based on the form and the content of that particular work of art. In most cases, a comedy has twists and conflicts that are usually solved at the end of it, all hence leading to a happy ending.

They usually end in a festive and triumphant manner, hence causing satisfaction on the side of the audience. The play; ‘The Merchant of Venice’, has numerous scenes that are ridiculous, and this provides comic effect on the audience, which is a common feature for comedies. There seems to be questions concerning the aspects of whoever should be accepted in society and the conditions under which it should happen. Struggle for position seems to characterize both Belmont and Venice (Lablanc 100).

In the play, Portia describes her suitors in a comical way. For instance, she describes the Englishman as being alienated in his imported outfits. She speaks about the German suitor as being a drunkard while the Scottish man is featured as a coward who is depended on the backing of the French. All these descriptions are purely based on her stereotypes. The play can be characterized as a tragic comedy given that it has both the elements of triumph as well as tragedies.

Triumph is particularly evident in the successful resolution of the problems that befall the Christians. The tragic side of it comes out when the Jewish Shylock is forced to be converted to the Christianity and loses his property. It is quite comical that one of the conditions in the case of a default of the loan taken from the Jewish Shylock by Antonio is the repayment of the loan in form of one pond of his flesh.

Given the fact that a comedy ends in a happy ending, it is quite evident that Portia disguised as a doctor of law manages to convince the Duke of Venice to rule in favor of Antonio. She insists that the Jewish Shylock should convert to Christianity and has to give up half of his wealth upon his death to Jessica and Lorenzo. Everyone else seems to be happy at the end with the exception of the Jewish Shylock. It is controversial that the suitors have to rely upon luck so as to win Portia on their side.

Most of them make efforts to choose the gold casket, but their efforts and wealth do not work to their advantage. However, Bassanio manages to choose the right casket after getting a hint from Portia herself. He succeeds even though he uses the money from the Jewish Shylock and is driven in a rented limousine. They fall in love and they live together happily their after.

Portia finds it hard to accept blindly her fathers demands concerning controversial issues like the choice of a suitor. She, therefore, decides her own way of ensuring that she guides her desired suitor to choose the right casket without necessarily appearing to be defiant to her father.

She succeeds to get the suitor she wants. The writer also uses clever disguise to bring out the comical aspects of the play. Portia disguises herself as a male doctor of law and manages to trick the Jewish Shylock to submission through her influence on the ruling Duke of Venice.

The author has also employed the use of puns which are significant characteristic of comedies (Brantley 1-2). Wordplay has been used in a witty way that leaves the audience with laughter. Portia, for instance, says, “If he have the condition of a saint, and a complexion of the devil, I would rather he should shrive me than wive me (Shakespear 5).”

This statement though comical indicates that she is a racist. Another comic feature reveals when Antonio addresses Bassanio concerning his commitment to assist him. For instance, he says, “I am married to a wifewhich is as dear to me as life itself; But life itself, my wife, and all the world Are not with me esteemed above thy life, I would lose all, ay sacrifice them all Here to this devil, to deliver you” (Shakespear 281-286).

The writer has also used stock characters which is a basis for certain stereotypes. These characters always turn out to be comical characters. The Jewish Shylock has, for instance, been portrayed as a comical character. He forms the basis for all the prejudice against the Jewish population. For example, he says to Jessica:

Look up my doors, and when you hear the drum

And the vile squealing of the wry-necked fife,

Clamber not you up the casements the…

But stop my house’s ears- I mean my casements:

Let not the sound of shallow fopp’ry enter

My Sober house (Shakespear 28-36).

This statement portrays Shylock as a naïve and comical character, hence creating a comical effect in the play. The author has, therefore, used all these dimensions of comedy which include the aspects of a happy ending, the use of puns, use of stock characters and dramatic twists that are resolved at the end of the play. He manages to present the play in an interesting and comical manner. All these features form the basis for the classification of the play as a comedy.

Works Cited

Brantley, Ben. Railing at a Money-Mad World . The New York, Priv.,2010. Print.

Lablanc, Michael. Shakespearean criticism . Michigan: Gale Research Co, 2003. Print.

Shakespear, William. The Merchant of Venice . Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 1616. Print.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Merchant of Venice — Blending the Elements of Tragedy and Comedy in the Merchant of Venice

Blending The Elements of Tragedy and Comedy in The Merchant of Venice

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The Merchant of Venice

Comedy or tragedy?

Shakespeare always treads a fine line between comedy and tragedy. His tragedies all have moments of comic relief, where the characters are able to find humour in their predicament, and his comedies often deal with the darker elements of love, loss and relationships.

The Merchant of Venice is listed as a comedy in Shakespeare’s canon and it has all the traditional features of a Shakespearean comedy – love, intrigue, disguise, no deaths, and a wedding at the end. However, the audience’s reception towards this play has changed a great deal over the years, and directors have also chosen to present the play in different ways, and even sometimes change the ending.

Answer the following question:

Do you think the production of The Merchant o f Venice you saw was presented as a comedy or a tragedy?

Use these points as a guide:

• How did the play end? Was the ending positive for all of the characters?
• Do you think the characters deserved their ending?
• What sort of atmosphere did the director create - was it comical, somber, serious, or something else entirely?
• What parts of the play interested you the most, the comic or the tragic elements?
• Did you empathise with any characters? If so, which ones and why? If not, why not? Were you outraged in any way by the way they are treated or positioned in society?
• Was there a particularly comic or tragic moment that you think changed your mind as to whether the play was a comedy or tragedy?
• How did you feel when you left the theatre? What were the questions that the play left you with? Were you entertained, outraged, inspired?

Present your ideas in a written essay, or debate in a class discussion.

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Merchant of Venice

By william shakespeare, merchant of venice essay questions.

In what ways does The Merchant of Venice defy the comedic genre?

While The Merchant of Venice is firmly placed in the genre of comedy, it is a unique comedy in that it features many tropes of early modern tragedy – namely, the gruesome predilections and rhetorical skill of its central antagonist, the long-winded soliloquies interrogating major philosophical concepts, and the bleak, anxious tone that characterizes most of the play before its "twist" of a conclusion. As such, many interpret the play as an ambiguous take on the nature of prejudice and the tragic consequences it can have (though they do materialize in this play in particular).

To what extent is Shylock a true antagonist?

A major contributing factor to the play's ambiguous tone is its antagonist, Shylock. Shylock is both a selfish, money-hungry, vengeful schemer and a victim of prejudice at the hands of the Christian characters. As such, the play encourages its audience to question wether Shylock can be considered a pure villain or pure victim throughout. While he is inarguably the play's central antagonist, his character development over the course of the play asks the audience to reflect on where that antagonism may have been generated.

What, or who, triumphs at the end of the play?

Generally speaking, it is the Christian characters who triumph at the end of the play, specifically Antonio as he is freed from his contract with Shylock. However, Portia's speech during the trial (when she is disguised as Balthazar) suggests that the real victor in the play is mercy, or qualities of the righteous Christian soul. Mercy was and continues to be associated with Jesus Christ, and in speaking about the importance of mercy between Shylock and Antonio, Portia suggests that the teachings of Christianity will triumph in the end.

Why does Shylock demand a pound of Antonio's flesh instead of money?

During the trial, Shylock refuses to accept 6,000 ducats from Antonio (double the amount of the original loan). While Shylock is portrayed as a money-hungry miser throughout the play, he rejects this offer and continues to demand the pound of flesh from the original contract. This moment suggests that Shylock is not motivated entirely by money or financial gain. On the contrary, it seems his dedication to receiving the pound of flesh stems from his deep desire for revenge on a member of the Christian community, after he has suffered years of abuse at their hands for being Jewish.

How does the play comment on gender?

In one of the play's more lighthearted plots, Portia and Nerissa disguise themselves as male officials of the Venetian court in order to intervene on Antonio's behalf. While cross-dressing was always entertaining on the early modern stage, Portia's confidence that she can sway the court serves as commentary on the relationship between gender and power. Portia suggests that masculinity – and the power associated with it – is itself performative, and that it only takes a male disguise for a woman to be taken seriously among men.

Merchant of Venice Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Merchant of Venice is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Explain Portias tactics. Why does she appear to support Shylock at first?

When Portia arrives in court, she asks, "Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?" (4.1.169). Indeed, given the confusion so many people have with the title, it is often this very question which is asked. Scholars have tried to attribute her...

Describe merchant of venice as romantic comedy

While the story hits upon the tragic element of despair, The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, is a comedy because lovers are separated, characters are in disguise, and the story has a happy ending.

ACT III SCENE 3: What do you think Shylock means when he says, “it is my humour”?

This could be defined as "this is what I feel like doing".

Study Guide for Merchant of Venice

Merchant of Venice study guide contains a biography of William Shakespeare, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Merchant of Venice
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Essays for Merchant of Venice

Merchant of Venice literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Merchant of Venice.

• The Victorious Woman in Measure for Measure and The Merchant of Venice
• Father-Daughter Relationships in The Merchant of Venice
• Mercy and the Masquerade: Trial and Performance in The Merchant of Venice
• Christianity and Judaism in The Merchant of Venice: Imperfect Faith
• The Anti-Semitic Question in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

Lesson Plan for Merchant of Venice

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William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: Tragedy or Comedy?

Introduction

            William Shakespeare is a very famous playwright who has produced equally famous plays that touch the hearts of the audiences with a variety of emotions—anger, pity, romance, sadness, and much more. He has been famous for writing and producing plays that tinker with both the tragedy and comedy of life. After all, literature is meant to reflect the different things that are happening in the realities of society. Although the same perception cannot be judged on some of his plays which have touched on the magical and mythical like in the case of A Midsummer’s Night, he has many other plays which he has written that portray stories of the tragic which has transcended time—as with the likes of the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet which is already considered as classic. It is not with romance only which was subjected to the tragic themes of William Shakespeare. As literature is meant to portray the events and issues that are happening in the realities of society, his other plays have mirrored the contempt and malicious hearts of men as with the examples of Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello. However, an issue on whether a work is indeed a tragedy of a comedy is reflected on William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. The play is classified under a comedy, and yet, there have been considerable arguments on whether the play in actuality is a tragedy. It is very simple in plot and contains the usual witty women and intellectual banter that seems to pervade William Shakespeare’s plays. Although there is a considerable amount of thoughts to ponder on whether the play is really a tragedy or a comedy, the play will reveal whether it is the former or the latter in the manner of which perspective it is looked at.

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            The play portrays the lives of the merchants of Venice and some aspects of religion and even discrimination. The play opens in Antonio’s demise in finding the solution to Bassanio’s problem of money. Bassanio wants to marry the wealthy Portia but has no money to pursue her; thus, he goes to his friend Antonio, a wealthy merchant, to lend him the much coveted money. However, Antonio has just invested his money elsewhere, leaving them in a predicament. This is solved by Shylock, a merchant who is much in conflict with Antonio for the reason that he, Shylock, is a Jew. The conflict of the play arises when Shylock asks for an “equal pound / Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken” (1.3.140) if Antonio is unable to pay the money. Unfortunately, Antonio agrees, and this is what constitutes the events in the play that will soon follow after.

It was soon known that Antonio’s investments were altogether subject to loss and despair which makes Shylock request for the pound of flesh valid according to the law. Although there are romantic moments between the characters of the play (Bassanio and Portia, Jessica and Lorenzo, and Nerissa and Graziano), the focal point is really the conflict between Shylock and Antonio. The play concludes when Shylock appears in court along with the rest of the characters to get what was rightfully his—Antonio’s pound of flesh. However, Portia disguises herself as a man and defends Antonio with witty and brilliant logic which vouches for Antonio’s life.

The Question of the Tragic and the Comic

            The question on whether the play was a comedy or a tragedy actually depends on which perspective a person would use in analyzing the play. Although there have been substantial amount of evidence in proving that the play is a comedy, I still believe that the play is a tragedy—on Shylock’s case, that is. The comic part probably relies on William Shakespeare’s background and that the usual formula he uses on categorizing his plays as a comedy are ultimately applicable to The Merchant of Venice. The play has been classified under a comedy according to Shakespeare himself: “The Merchant of Venice, like most of Shakespeare’s comedies, is about love and marriage” (Mowat and Werstine xiii). Shakespeare himself classified the play under such category since the play ends in the failure of the Jew, Shylock, and the triumph of the Venetian Christians, Antonio, Bassanio, and Graziano. This can be only attributed to the fact that Shakespeare himself is prejudiced against Jews and does not feel any melancholic sadness over the tragic fate of Shylock—being forcefully converted to a Christian, having lost his only daughter and almost losing all of his properties and wealth: “Shakespeare seems to have shared in a widespread…despicable prejudice against Jews” (Mowat and Werstine xiii). Shakespeare cannot be blamed for such prejudice of course since it is only understandable that at the time which he lived in, Jews were either mocked or (in some historical cases) killed. If it would be assessed in today’s radical thinking, the prejudice of the Europeans can only be considered as a common case of racism which is still prevalent in many parts of the globe.

Shylock’s character as a Jew can be considered as something which is a wonder to look at—a clown or novelty of some sort, since “In Shakespeare’s England there had been no Jews for a long time, except for an occasional visitor…” (Mowat and Werstine, xiii). Thus, the play being classified as a comedy is right if it is perceived with regard to Shakespeare’s background and time.

However, modern essayists have also contemplated on the fact the play is comedy, no matter which perspective it is looked at. Paul J. Voss, for example, wrote a review on different critical essays which have discussed the play as whether a tragedy or a comedy: “Clearly, though, Shylock at some level fits perfectly within the framework of Shakespearean comedy. There is no literary need to upset the structure of the play and to create a tragedy out of an ostensible comedy” (406). Voss seems to be implying that any other angle of looking at the play is just another case of over-analyzing or over-reading the play. In my opinion, he is terribly misinformed or even ignorant of the more important aspects of the play. Aside from the fact that Shakespeare himself was prejudiced against the Jews, it makes the play a tragedy of some sort—the tragedy of Shakespeare and the Christian Venetian. They are merely committing a crime of ignorance—and it is with this ignorance which justifies the premise that Shylock is a tragic hero.

In my most humble of opinions, the play is undeniably tragedy. Shylock’s thunderous speech about the injustices done to him by Antonio and the rest of the Venetian community is a proof that he is undermined and ridiculed by the Christians. This is coming from their ignorant belief that Jews needs to be converted to Christianity as what Antonio forced Shylock to do at the end of the play. Shylock’s speech is what constitutes the whole despicable discrimination of Antonio:

SHYLOCK. He hath disgraced me… [and] scorned my nation… and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. (3.1.46-64)

It is through Miller’s definition of a classic tragic hero which justifies the judgment of the play as a tragedy: “his inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity, his image of his rightful status” (3). Because of what Shylock was desperately trying to convey in the entirety of the play—that he is a Jew, that Antonio has “wronged” him because he is a Jew, and he will have his revenge for such ill-treatment—is what triumphantly makes him a hero of a tragedy. In conclusion, as what Miller has written in his essay, Tragedy and the Common Man: “the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing—his sense of personal dignity” (3). My conviction and judgment lies in this knowledge—that The Merchant of Venice was written to be called a comedy, and ironically, it ended up as being a tragedy.

Works Cited

Miller, Arthur. “Tragedy and the Common Man.” The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller. New York: Viking Press, 1978. 3-7.

Mowat, Barbara A. and Paul Werstine. “Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.”  The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare. New York: Simon ; Schuster, 2004. xiii-xiv.

Shakespeare, William. New York: The Merchant of Venice. New York: Simon ; Schuster,

Voss, Paul J. “The Merchant of Venice: New Critical Essays.” Christianity and Literature, 53.3 (2004): 406-408.

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Tragedy in The Merchant of Venice

According to dictionary.com, a tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering; furthermore, it is a dramatic composition, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically that of a great person destined through a flaw of character or conflict with some overpowering force, as fate or society, to downfall or destruction. Tragedy elements are that in which a protagonist agonizes disconnection from society and also, he or she makes an error or shows awful decision making. There are typically deaths which arise at the end or near the end of the play. The Merchant of Venice can be classified as a tragedy because it contains the rather sinister elements generally found in tragedies and the play Antigone can be considered a tragedy, because of the severe consequences of the story's proceedings.

As a tragedy, The Merchant of Venice focuses on the collapse of a Jewish moneylender, Shylock, who exits the stage a wrecked man and is unavoidable at the conclusion of the play to become a Christian and to surrender his assets. In this play, Shylock is the tragic hero because he has a tragic flaw. His fault is fairly obvious, all the way through the play, which is that his material prosperity depletes his judgments on a daily basis. One example where it is noticeable that he merely cares about his belongings is the instance when his daughter, Jessica, runs away. He says, “O, my ducats! O, my daughter! Fled with a Christian! O, my Christian ducats” (Shakespeare 2.8.15-16). He incorporates his daughter right in between as if she is one of his assets. Near the conclusion of the play, Shylock is humiliated. Shylock experiences disgrace when Portia, masked as a man, employs his personal remarks and bond in opposition to him. This occurs because in the beginning of the trial, Portia devotes him for being clever and honorable, but then he learns that in reality, she is not on his side like she portrays to be. Shylock faces anguish all over the play by being mistreated a great deal of times. Antonio spits on him and kicks him like a dog: “Thou call’dst me dog before thou hadst a cause; But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs” (Shakespeare 3. 3. 9-10). An additional instance is when his daughter, Jessica, runs away from him; moreover, this bothers him wholly because she runs away with a Christian. Furthermore, Shylock is mistreated when Antonio is liberated from the agreement. The means, by which Shylock is acted towards, by the Christians, is pretty appalling and tragic.

The Merchant of Venice can also be in the category of a tragedy because Antonio goes through human distress. He is a tedious character who arises in Act one as a austere, mournful human being who has trouble identifying the source of his downheartedness and who, for the duration of the play, transfers into a maudlin tumescence, not capable to assemble the liveliness crucial to secure himself against punishment. Shylock is adequately portentous to critically cause danger to the bliss of Antonio and by this being the foremost motivation, Antonio agonizes. Antonio is extra cheerful to bid his fine credit status so that Bassanio can depart to Belmont in the newest styles with the intention to beseech Portia. One of the reasons why Shylock extremely dislikes Antonio is because Antonio obtains Shylock's beggars by loaning them currency at the very last minute to reimburse Shylock; in addition, Antonio on no account requests for credit. Antonio proposes that Bassonio loan currency from Shylock, with Antonio’s excellent bond as security. Shylock accedes to lend but requests for a pound of Antonio’s flesh as an agreement. All throughout Act three, Shylock repetitively continues to utter “I’ll have my bond” (Shakespeare 3.3.5). This portrays how Shylock would relatively accept a portion of Antonio’s flesh than to have three times the quantity of currency he owes.

Furthermore, this illustrates how Shylock desires to cause Antonio a great deal of hurt. A further way to acknowledge Shylock’s wish for a portion of Antonio’s flesh is to reckon the conditions under which Shylock stresses his agreement. As soon as Shylock becomes conscious of the information about Antonio’s penalty, he, additionally, apprehends news that his daughter, Jessica, runs away to wed a Christian. Shylock’s answers saying, “I’ll plague him [Antonio]; I’ll torture him” (Shakespeare 3.1.13).

Perhaps, Shylock is trying to reimburse for the defeat of his own flesh and blood (Jessica) by means of commanding to have a little bit of Antonio’s flesh and blood. Since Antonio is incapable to compensate back his lend, Shylock agonizes him and desires to have him lifeless by resolutely nagging to get the portion of Antonio’s flesh. 

In Antigone, the two protagonists, Antigone and Creon can equally declare the title tragic hero. In the story of Antigone, Oedipus already died and his two sons, Polyneices and Eteocles, are left to contend for the throne of Thebes. During their conflict for the throne, the two brothers slay one another, leaving Creon to be the King of Thebes. He issues a ruling allowing a memorial service to one of the brothers, however, not to the other. He respects Eteocles for protecting the city, but leaves Polyneices elsewhere to rot. Nevertheless, as being a part of his family, it is Antigone’s responsibility and right to inter both of her brothers, and she does this. In Creon’s decree, he issues the death penalty for Antigone. During this time, Creon progressively becomes obstinate and will not listen to anyone, not even the Gods. Creon imprisons Antigone lively.The mystic Teiresias approaches Creon and he ultimately, apologizes and agrees to free Antigone. He finds that it is too tardy and sadly, Antigone commits suicide by hanging herself, his son also commits suicide by falling to his foil, and his wife also kills herself abruptly following, leaving Creon with nothing. 

Creon’s tragedy and tragic flaw is his obstinacy and unwillingness to observe anyone else’s outlook. He follows the rule of the city and as well, as a King, by maintaining to his edict. While Antigone attempts to replace the constraints of the edict with her own, Creon becomes obstinate and provincial. He verbally abuses Hades by means of degrading the decease, Aphrodite in ending the matrimony of Haemon and Antigone, and the Earth by punishing Antigone lively; in addition, Creon does not pay attention to Antigone’s viewpoint and discounts his son’s begging request for rationale and compassion. This results in Creon being brought down by the Gods and his wife and son committing suicide. In the end, following when Creon gets together with Teiresias, Creon becomes aware of his fault and as well, how he will endure if he wrongly gives ruling upon Antigone; yet, for him, it is long overdue.

Antigone’s tragedy results from her firm devotion to her brother Polynices and her willpower to provide him with a suitable interment, regardless of the individual harm that she may obtain. Her insolence and disregard to Creon results in him chastising her lively in a tomb, where she kills herself. Antigone's collapse has cosmic importance to the exterior world; this is a further mark of the tragic hero. As a representation of the populace, Antigone’s fatality is a corporeal mistake through Creon. Antigone’s death not only resulted in the death of Creon’s son, Haemon, it slowly ended in the final devastation of Creon himself. Antigone's defeat is from her personal hasty measures, but there is a feel of misfortune for her because of the consciousness of her circumstance, of her shabby faithfulness, and her obvious deficiency of additional alternatives. Her collapse demolishes Creon, however this itself causes Antigone's defeat to be no less catastrophic. Antigone’s destiny is unquestionably disastrous but it is quite palpable starting from beginning that she is destined for fatality. Antigone exclaims, “If I die for it, what happiness” (Sophocles 136). This portrays how Antigone is certainly a tragic character with a tragic destiny. 

Both Antigone and The Merchant of Venice are examples of tragedies. The Merchant of Venice is noticeable by a pungent and ostracized Jewish moneylender, Shylock, who looks for vengeance in opposition to a Christian mercantile who fails on credit. Shylock and Antonio together experience personal distress which can categorize these plays as tragedies. Antigone is a story distinct by true misfortune as Creon is overpowered by his individual measures and Antigone's individual tragic fatality notes the start of that collapse. Antigone and Creon mutually have vital tragic flaws that eventually end in their tragedies, therefore, Antigone and The Merchant of Venice equally compare in making these two plays tragedies. 

Works Cited: “Tragedy.” Dictionary.com. Dictionary, 2011. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.  Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice. New York: Washington Square Press, 1992. Sophocles, . Antigone. Clayton: Prestwick House, 2005.

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If it weren’t for an overlap of appointments at a San Francisco art dealership, we might never have the cache of extraordinary films—43 in all—made by Merchant Ivory Productions from 1961 to 2007.

In 1956, James Ivory had just completed a short film, a documentary about Venice. Enamored of the city’s art and hoping to give himself a little present for a job well done, he sought out prints by Italian painter Canaletto and arrived at the office of art dealer Raymond Lewis just as Lewis was finishing up with a previous client. On display was a collection of Indian miniature paintings. It was Ivory’s first encounter with this art form, and, as the Oscar-winning filmmaker says in An Arrested Moment , a new 30-minute documentary about Indian art, was comparable to the rush of that first exposure to falling madly in love.

Ivory’s next film, The Sword and the Flute , used Indian miniatures to investigate the Mughal Empire and its advancements in art and philosophy. At a screening at the Indian consulate in New York in 1959, he was approached by an admirer—an upstart film producer named Ismail Merchant. They went to see a Satyajit Ray film and soon formed a partnership in movies and life that lasted more than four decades.

Initially, Merchant Ivory Productions set up shop in India with the idea of making films there for the domestic and world markets. Over time it expanded, eventually bringing us celebrated classics such as A Room with a View , Howards End , and The Remains of the Day .

In anticipation of the upcoming release of a new feature-length documentary about Merchant Ivory Productions directed by Stephen Soucy (called, simply, Merchant Ivory ), 96-year-old Ivory has also opened his archives and lent his curatorial eye to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A small exhibit, Ink and Ivory: Indian Drawings and Photographs Selected with James Ivory , is on display in the museum through May 4, 2025, and boasts about a dozen pieces that Ivory acquired during his early travels to India as well as 25 or so works he selected from the museum’s permanent collection. It’s a one-of-a-kind opportunity to go straight to the source of where this man’s remarkable career all began.

Gallery 458 is not unlike a great many of the characters from Ivory’s films—it aims to be discrete. After getting lost in the maze of the outer wings of the Met, and ultimately admitting I needed to ask a guard for orientation, I finally found the right room tucked in the farthest corner of the massive building. Once explored, however, the detail, craftsmanship, and beauty are extraordinary.

Helena Bonham Carter and Julian Sands in A Room With a View , Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson in Howards End and The Remains of the Day , and James Wilby and Hugh Grant in Maurice. Merchant Ivory films via Alamy

Merchant Ivory Productions is without question one the most successful independent film companies in history, with no shortage of devoted fans. If you live in a city with repertory cinemas, you don’t often have to wait long for a screening from their deep resume.

A “Merchant Ivory movie” is its own genre for many people—shorthand for lavish, quintessentially British period pictures with an impeccable eye for detail and an ear for searing dialogue. By the end of its run, the partnership had adapted three novels by Henry James and three by E.M. Forster and achieved 24 Oscar nominations and six wins.

Not everyone, however, was a fan of the brand. Tilda Swinton, in a 2002 essay for the Guardian that cheered on the punk rock attitude of her early collaborator Derek Jarman, referred to the Merchant Ivory corpus as “Crabtree and Evelyn Waugh.” Director Alan Parker, in one of his newspaper doodles, called the partnership’s work “the Laura Ashley school of film-making.” What’s amusing—and front and center of Soucy’s Merchant Ivory —is how a closer look at Merchant Ivory Productions reveals it was far more than its critics realize.

First, despite the extravagance on screen, only during the last few years and a partnership with (of all places) the Walt Disney Company did any of these movies have real money behind them. For years, the productions, despite regularly bursting with opulence, were put together on favors, extended credit, and prayer. Second, Merchant and Ivory didn’t just make those British costume dramas. Indeed, their whole first wave were movies shot and set in India. Last, not one of the three key creatives in the group that made some of the most British movies in history—neither Ivory, Merchant, nor writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala—was British. Indeed, this outsider positioning was probably the secret ingredient for why Merchant Ivory Productions’ movies about British society were so good. (When I floated this theory in a 2016 interview , the soft-spoken Ivory urged me not to read too much into it, saying that the creative partnership “just got on.”)

Producer Ismail Merchant drives James Ivory while filming The Deceivers in Madhya Pradesh, India, in 1988. Mikki Ansin/Getty Images

Ivory, the laser-focused artistic center of the group who directed 27 of the 43 films, was born in Oregon to a family with roots in Louisiana and Texas. His father owned a lumber company and Ivory’s original interest was architecture and interior design. Ivory went to USC to study set building for movies. (His father’s company had a contract with MGM Studios, which meant many Hollywood classics already had part of Ivory in their bones.) Time and again in Merchant Ivory , actors including Emma Thompson, Simon Callow, and Hugh Grant talk about just how calm and patient Ivory is as a director, even though a single wasted frame of film was often money the company didn’t have.

Merchant was born Ismail Rahman in Mumbai (then Bombay) to a conservative Muslim family. His father was a textile salesman, and it was in the milieu of the bazaar where Merchant learned the art of the hustle. During the period of partition, Merchant’s family refused to leave for Pakistan, and young Merchant was witness to a great deal of street violence. He soon befriended a Bollywood star named Nimmi, and later left for New York University to study filmmaking. Though he would occasionally direct throughout his career—a high point being the 1993 film In Custody , a humorous and weary look at the preservation of Urdu poetry—his true métier was as wheeling and dealing producer. He was an explosively charismatic man who could convince actors to work for nothing, cities to open their parks, wealthy people to lend their homes, all based on smiles and handshakes until somehow it was opening night at the Cannes Film Festival.

From left: Merchant, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and Ivory sit onstage after Prawer Jhabvala received the first first Julius J. Epstein award for outstanding achievement in screenwriting, seen in Boston in September 1989. Mikki Ansin/Getty Images

Jhabvala, the screenwriter for 23 Merchant Ivory films and responsible for some of the most biting lines of dialogue in all of cinema, didn’t even speak English until she was 12. She was born in Cologne, Germany, to a Jewish family who fled to Britain during the war. (Forty members of her father’s family, many of whom fled to the Netherlands instead of Great Britain, were ultimately killed during the Holocaust. Upon learning this, her father committed suicide.) In England she met the architect Cyrus Jhabvala and, after they married, the couple relocated to India. There Jhabvala began writing novels. When Merchant and Ivory came to India (first with a commission from New York’s Asia Society to make a documentary about Delhi) they asked her to adapt her third book, The Householder , for a feature script.

The Householder starred Shashi Kapoor as a young teacher new to marriage and responsibility. Filmmaker Satyajit Ray, whose work Merchant and Ivory saw on their first date, advised the young duo during post-production and kept the movie to a relatively lean 101 minutes. The Householder isn’t a masterpiece, but it has some great performances, music, and details.

In the early 1960s, foreign entertainment companies doing business with India were forced to keep their money in the country. (“Blocked rupees,” this was called.) As such, Columbia Pictures, which had funds it could not extract, ended up buying The Householder for international distribution. Merchant Ivory Productions put that money directly into its next production, Shakespeare Wallah , which ended up being a surprise hit.

Shakespeare Wallah , also starring Shashi Kapoor, focuses on a band of British actors roving through India, loosely based on tall tales from the film’s co-stars Geoffrey Kendal and his daughter Felicity Kendal. The fun and freewheeling vibe of the script, an Ivory-Jhabvala original, is right there in the title. “Wallah” is a suffix in several Indian languages that is the rough equivalent of “meister.” One goes to a chaiwallah to buy a cup of tea, for instance. So a pack of classics-minded showfolk, even if they are roughing it, could cheekily be called Shakespearewallahs. The movie, released in 1965 and filmed in black and white, has a jazzy snap to it. It was in dialogue with other new wave movies of the time such as John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar , Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless , and John Cassavetes’s Shadows , but was still, to non-Indian audiences, a look at a distant land. The movie won Madhur Jaffrey a surprise best actress award at the Berlin International Film Festival, and helped put the movie, and Merchant Ivory Productions, on the map.

Shakespeare Wallah clicked so well for everyone because it was almost a group autobiography. Like the characters in the film, Merchant Ivory Productions was something of a traveling circus, making art on the run. (In Merchant Ivory , Felicity Kendal explains how she had one chance to nail her final shot in the movie. If she flubbed it, that was it; they were literally out of film.)

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After some more features and short documentaries—including a colorful look at Bollywood called Bombay Talkie —the group made their first film outside of India, an allegorical comedy about social evolution called Savages . It was shot partly in England, partly in upstate New York and, though released in 1972, has a very “late ’60s” sensibility. (The plot follows a group of grunting, primitive “mud people” who follow a croquet ball and end up at a Westchester estate in the 1930s.) It was an important development in that it was the company’s first movie to showcase Western high society, even with a jaundiced view—though a close reading of their upcoming work, particularly the E.M. Forster adaptations, would say the partnership never lost that, just tamped it down. Savages did not involve Jhabvala, but it holds a great bit of bar trivia, as the screenplay was cowritten by Michael O’Donoghue, the rather coarse comedy writer from the early days of Saturday Night Live .

Merchant and Ivory’s output during the 1970s is their least known, though the company produced a few winners as it moved between India and the United States. (In time, Merchant, Ivory, and the Jhabvalas would all live in the same Manhattan apartment building.) In 1975, Merchant Ivory Productions completed the hourlong film Autobiography of a Princess , a mix of fiction and documentary and one of my favorites in the catalog. In it, Madhur Jaffrey is an exiled Indian princess living in London receiving company for the afternoon—an old friend played by James Mason. She shows him old home movies (much of which was footage Ivory shot in India years before) and narrates about what her life used to be. It’s simple; it’s elegant; it’s perfect.

The following year the company produced a short documentary called Sweet Sounds about the Manhattan music school in which Jhabvala enrolled her daughter. It was directed by Massachusetts-born Richard Robbins, who soon entered the Merchant Ivory Productions sphere and became the composer for nearly all the company’s remaining work. And though the specifics are a little vague, Merchant Ivory dishes a little about how Robbins became Ismail Merchant’s lover and was also, for a spell, attached to Helena Bonham Carter, who would star in many of the company’s films. Later, the whole company, Robbins included, moved to several homes on a large chunk of land in the Hudson Valley, with room for editing suites and summer parties by the lake. As Shakespeare Wallah represented the company during the early years, once it achieved a level of success its players began to mirror some of the complicated lives of the characters from their “sophisticated” films.

In 1977, popular culture was swept up by Saturday Night Fever , a contemporary dance exploitation picture set in Brooklyn, New York. That same year, however, Merchant Ivory Productions released a curious gem, Roseland , set in a vast Manhattan ballroom frequented by ghosts of a different era. This marvelous movie, based on an original Jhabvala script, is essentially three short films in a shared setting with a vision of 1970s New York attuned to disappearing styles and behaviors. It’s a real treasure. In addition to spectacular performances from older actors such as Teresa Wright, Lou Jacobi, and Lila Skala, there’s also a great turn from a young Christopher Walken as a gigolo. The other main star is the Roseland Ballroom itself, with its colorful saloon and enormous ladies’ room parlor. The film (and Autobiography of a Princess ) features the Merchant Ivory hallmark of melancholy characters in an exquisite setting, yearning to connect.

Actors Shashi Kapoor and Greta Scacchi in a still from Heat and Dust . Merchant Ivory film via Alamy

Skipping ahead seven projects to 1983, we come to another Indian film, Heat and Dust , based on a Jhabvala novel that moves between contemporary and historical settings, featuring a young woman (Julie Christie) investigating the life of her great aunt (Greta Scacchi) who lived in India in the 1920s. The film is absolutely dazzling in its design and rich characters, so it was amazing to learn in Merchant Ivory just how much of a mess this seemingly refined production actually was. Stories are told about how money was so tight the cooks threatened to stop feeding the crew, and how actors’ agents in London and Los Angeles would send telegrams to the hotel in Hyderabad, India, telling their clients to stop working until promised checks were delivered. Merchant would get up early to yank these telegrams out of mail slots before anyone could see them. When the actors found out, they were furious, but Merchant was so charming they couldn’t stay angry for too long.

In 1984, Merchant and Ivory headed back to the United States for The Bostonians , an adaptation of Henry James’s novel starring Vanessa Redgrave (who was nominated for an Oscar), Madeleine Potter, and Christopher Reeve. It’s a story about the early days of the women’s rights movement that emphasizes what was always left ambiguous to readers on the page—the same-sex longings of its lead character. The movie’s ending isn’t quite the progressive victory or doomed tragedy we would expect today, so contemporary audiences may scratch their heads a bit. Still, for its time, this was chancy material.

Though Merchant and Ivory’s romantic companionship was known to many for years, it was only very recently that Ivory ever confirmed it publicly, with the release of the gay coming-of-age film Call Me By Your Name , a post-Merchant Ivory writing gig that won him an Academy Award. (Merchant, who died in 2005, did not want to trouble his family with specifics of his sexuality.) After The Bostonians , the pair would, however, make a much more explicitly sympathetic gay film with Maurice in 1987, but before that came their first bonafide smash, A Room With a View , in 1986.

Starring the fetching, wide-eyed Helena Bonham Carter (only 19 at the time), a twerpy Daniel Day Lewis, the blindingly handsome Julian Sands, plus Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliot, Judi Dench, Simon Callow, and the always photogenic city of Florence, Italy, Jhabvala’s adaptation of E.M. Forster’s novel is a supernova of erudite badinage fixated on delicate social mores and set against gorgeous images and a mix of Puccini arias and Richard Robbins’s original score. While it was far from the first film about upper class British people in beautiful vistas worrying about love, it had a delicious, almost self-aware quality that said, “If we’re going to do this silly thing, we’re going to do it right.” The elevated quality of the production (still strung together by Merchant’s beg, borrow, and steal methods) led to nominations for five Oscars including best picture and won awards for Jhabvala’s script, the production design, and the costumes.

After the international success of A Room With a View —a movie that broke out of the arthouses and played mainstream theaters—Ivory urged the company to adapt Maurice , Forster’s work on forbidden gay love that wasn’t published until after his death in 1971. Merchant was hesitant but agreed. Jhabvala was working on a novel so did not adapt the book, but did offer suggestions for the structure and a key added storyline. It is a heartbreaking film about two gay men (James Wilby and Hugh Grant) terrified by the illegality of their true nature, released at the height of the AIDS crisis. It was condemned in some corners of Britain for not taking the health epidemic seriously, as if watching this drama set in Cambridge rooms and country estates would somehow turn audiences gay and expose them to HIV. The health angle was just an excuse some critics took to dismiss something that made them feel uncomfortable.

Perhaps Jhabvala wished she could have taken a crack at Maurice , because it was she that first suggested “climbing the mountain” of E.M. Forster’s richest work of all, Howards End . A few films later, they did just that, and if you want to say that this is the greatest costume drama ever made, I’m not going to stop you. Starring Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Anthony Hopkins, Vanessa Redgrave and the most symbolic bookshelf in cinema, the movie is a rich and meaningful look at people trapped in their social classes, but it is also funny and accessible. It won Emma Thompson the Oscar for best actress, plus another for the production design and Jhabvala’s screenplay.

Merchant Ivory immediately went back into action with The Remains of the Day , in which Thompson and Hopkins played opposite one another again, but this time as servants in a great house. It’s one of the most powerful odes to repressed feelings and missed opportunities, a portrait of self-doubt and the inability to break loose of social constrictions. (Put bluntly, they’ve got the hots for one another for years, but just can’t seem to make a move.) Eight Oscar nominations followed, and the one-two punch of Howards End and Remains of the Day meant “a Merchant Ivory film” was a known quantity to everyone, even if they’d never actually seen more than a television commercial. Forget that along the same stretch of time they released Slaves of New York , a contemporary piece of underground antics based on Tama Janowitz stories with music by Iggy Pop and Neneh Cherry, and were also producing films by up-and-coming directors in India.

Actors Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet in Call Me by Your Name . Sayombhu Mukdeeprom / Sony Pictures Classics

While the company continued to do good work, The Remains of the Day was the end of an era. After that success, they signed a deal with Touchstone Pictures, a subsidiary of Disney. Raising money wasn’t an issue anymore, but the increased budgets didn’t really jibe with Merchant’s handshake style or the office’s streamlined culture. After decades of doing it their way, there were adjustment issues. The next few films, like Nick Nolte in Jefferson in Paris and Anthony Hopkins in Surviving Picasso , left many critics cold. The movies from this period and after are probably due for a second look. I’ll confess that I never made it out to the cinema for some of these later ones. James Ivory’s final film as a director was The City of Your Final Destination , which Jhabvala adapted from Peter Cameron’s novel shot after Merchant’s death and long after the dissolution of the Disney deal. It wrapped production in January 2007, but wasn’t released until April 2010. It co-starred Anthony Hopkins and was a bit of a boondoggle, resulting in Hopkins suing the company for back wages. I never saw it. They say the location photography in Argentina is magnificent, and I’m sure that’s true.

But even with Merchant, Jhabvala and Robbins now gone, Ivory remains busy. His adaptation of André Aciman’s novel Call Me By Your Name for director Luca Guadagnino in 2017 won him his first Academy Award at age 89, making him the oldest recipient to do so. He recently adapted Édouard Louis’ novel The End of Eddy for a yet-to-be-produced television series, and co-directed the 2022 documentary A Cooler Climate , in which Ivory looks back at diaries and images he took in Afghanistan during an early pre-Merchant Ivory trip he took there hoping to make a short film. He is also an executive producer on Merchant Ivory , subjecting himself to many interviews, and is seen chatting about art and strolling through the Metropolitan Museum in the short film An Arrested Moment , which is screening on a loop at the current Met exhibition. A reminder that the guy is 96!

It would be too easy to say “there’d be no Downton Abbey without Merchant Ivory.” BBC productions like Upstairs Downstairs have plenty to do with chumming those waters. But certainly the bar for excellence was raised by the high standards of Merchant Ivory. As one clearly enamored of their work, my hope is that Ivory’s busy schedule at the end of his life renews an interest in people who may otherwise shrug away their films as being stuffy or snooty costume dramas. While one does need to meet these films on their level—an early scene in Maurice is devoted to the aesthetics of Tchaikovsky—there’s much more going on than simple snobbery. Beneath each line, no matter how frilly they sound, is a person bursting at the seams, an outsider like Howards End ’s Leonard Bast hoping desperately to make his mark—the voice of three artists who are still, all these years and awards later, at risk of being misrepresented and misunderstood.

Jordan Hoffman is a film critic and entertainment journalist living in Queens, New York. X:  @jhoffman

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