The Merchant of Venice

• Overview of the merchant of Venice

  Bassanio, a poor nobleman in Venice, needs money to woo the beautiful heiress Portia. He asks his friend Antonio for a loan, but Antonio has invested his funds in ships overseas. The moneylender, Shylock, offers the cash on the condition that he will take a pound of Antonio's flesh if the loan is not repaid within three months. Antonio goes bankrupt and Portia steps in, disguised as a young male lawyer, to save the day.
• Bassanio asks Antonio for what? (1.1)

  money to impress Portia
• Portia is bound by her fathers


  Will and cannot marry who she chooses
• Shylock lends money to

  Antonio with some slightly gory conditions
• Jessica runs away from Shylock to

  Be with Lorenzo ( a Christian)
• Antonio's investments are


  Sunk and Shylock demands his bond
• Bassanio wins


  Portia as his wife
• Portia disguise herself as... and

  A lawyer and saves Antonio from his death
• Bassanio and Portia argue over


  A wedding ring
• Portia summary


  an extremely wealthy heiress, who is bound by her father's will, which states she can only marry the man who chooses correctly from three caskets. One of the caskets is made of gold, another silver and the final one, lead.
• Attributes of Portia


  Witty, intelligent , ruthless
• Portia friends


  Nerissa, Bassanio, Antonio
• Changes in Portia character

  Seems to be tied by patriarchal society at first but she shows her freedom when she is the lawyer

  She gives Bassanio a ring for love and he gives it away. She forgives him but said she wouldn't

  She takes risks to defend Antonio in court and later she gives him a letter to show that his money was safe but it isn't clear how she found it out
• Shylock summary


  a Jewish moneylender in Venice. He is unpopular with other characters who accuse him of practising usury. This means lending money with outrageously high rates of interest
• Attributes of Shylock


  Greedy , stubborn and victimised
• Shylocks friends


  Tubal and Jessica
• Shylocks enemies


  Antonio and Portia
• Changes in Shylocks character

  Shylock is quick to reject Bassanio's invitation to dinner on the basis that he will not be friends with Christians. However, later he delivers a powerful speech about the common humanity that Jews and Christians share.

  Initially he seems entirely concerned with money and material wealth, yet later when he learns that Jessica has sold a turquoise ring we see a sentimental side to this character.

  Shylock takes the bond that he strikes with Antonio more seriously as the play progresses. He becomes increasingly obsessed with claiming the pound of flesh that he has been promised.
• Antonio summary


  Antonio is the merchant of the title and is the first character we meet in this play. He has invested all his money in cargo that is currently on numerous ships. When his best friend Bassanio asks for a loan of 3000 ducats, he is unable to offer cash, but agrees to act as a bond. He enters a contract with the moneylender, Shylock, which says Antonio will owe Shylock one pound of his flesh if the loan is not repaid within three months.
• Antonio shows his love for bassanio by


  Agreeing to the bond and saying that he will sacrifice his life for him
• Attributes of Antonio


  Loyal, honest and generous
• Antonio's friends


  Bassanio and Portia
• Antonio's enemies


  Shylock - Shylock want to murder Antonio
• Changes in Antonio's character

  Antonio is melancholy at the start of the play but cannot name the cause of his sadness. Later, he behaves aggressively towards Shylock who claims that Antonio curses him in public.

  Antonio declares his love for his best friend, Bassanio, and seems prepared to even die for him.

  Although he berates Shylock for being merciless, he doesn't really show much mercy to the moneylender at the end of the play. Antonio insists that the moneylender give up his faith and convert to Christianity.
• Summary of bassanio


  Bassanio is a nobleman in Venice and Antonio's best friend. He asks to borrow 3000 ducats from Antonio so that he can go to Belmont and try to win Portia's hand in marriage. Some interpretations of this character suggest that he only wants Portia for her money. Others suggest that he has a homosexual relationship with Antonio.
• Attributes of bassanio


  Spendthrift and light hearted
• Gratiano summary


  Gratiano is Bassanio's friend who accompanies him to Belmont and to the courtroom. He is light-hearted and often makes crude jokes and comments. He marries Portia's lady-in-waiting, Nerissa.
• Gratiano attributes


  Good humoured and cheeky
• Nerissa summary


  As Portia's lady-in-waiting, confidante and advisor, Nerissa shows loyalty and love. She listens to Portia's complaints about her suitors and later accompanies her to the courtroom in Venice disguised as the lawyer's clerk. She and Gratiano's relationship seems to parallel that of Portia and Bassanio's. Both couples marry and quarrel at the same time.
• Nerissa attribute


  Clever and loyal
• Jessica summary


  Jessica is Shylock's daughter. However, she is very unhappy at home and is even prepared to become a Christian in order to leave. She sneaks away one night to marry Lorenzo, taking a casket of Shylock's money and jewels with her. Her father is upset when he learns of the way she has squandered his wealth. She and Lorenzo eventually make it to Belmont and stay with Portia.
• Attributes of Jessica


  In love and determined
• Lorenzo summary


  Lorenzo, like Bassanio, is a gentleman of Venice. He is in love with Jessica for her beauty, intelligence, and commitment to him. With no income of his own, Lorenzo is delighted when Jessica elopes with him (bringing with her plenty of Shylock's cash).
• Key themes in merchant of Venice

  Money, justice and love
• Money theme in merchant of Venice

  The title itself refers to the merchant Antonio who trades in the Rialto. Each of the characters is connected in one way or another with money - either through a lack of it (Bassanio), a love of it (Shylock) or an excess of it (Portia). The question of worth and value is also raised. Shylock is upset about the loss of a turquoise ring that was given to him by his beloved Leah. It is the sentiment rather than the monetary loss that he is sad about. Later, when Balthazar/Portia asks Bassanio for his ring as a gift he replies that he would rather find the most expensive ring in Venice than give away his love token.
• Justice theme in merchant of Venice

  Antonio does not like the way Shylock makes his money because he thinks that charging excessive interest on loans is unjust. When Shylock agrees to lend 3000 ducats to Antonio he asks for a pound of flesh as his insurance. We might think that this is unjust as it places a financial value on human life. When Antonio's ships sink, he is unable to repay his loan, and so by the strict laws of Venice he must stick to his contract. However when Bassanio offers to pay double the original loan, Shylock still insists on his pound of flesh. As an audience we are invited to think about whether it is always right and fair to stick to a contract or, in certain cases, mercy and flexibility are best.
• Love theme in merchant of Venice

  This play deals with different types of love, often by comparing it to its opposite - hate. We see the love between friends with Portia and Nerissa and in particular with Antonio and Bassanio. Parental love is presented through Portia's father and Launcelot and Old Gobbo. Then, of course there is the romantic love that we see in the relationships between Bassanio and Portia, Nerissa and Gratiano, and Jessica and Lorenzo. All of these can be contrasted with the hatred between Shylock and Antonio.
• Rhythm and rhyme in merchant of Venice

  The mood and social status of a character can often be determined by the rhythm of their speech. Those with a higher social status often speak in lines of 10 syllables (or blank verse) whereas servants, such as Launcelot Gobbo, speak in prose. However, prose is also used to show that higher status characters are angry or upset.
• Imagery and metaphor in merchant of Venice

  Several of the images and metaphors in this play have become so popular that they are used in everyday talk. Shylock's 'pound of flesh' is used to represent unethical or unrealistic loan terms, and the name Shylock is often used to represent a person who is determined to claim their rights, however miserly. Portia's speech about the quality of mercy has also been used repeatedly over time.
• "My ships come home a month before the day"

  Antonio - his life relies on his ships return. He is very confident that they will come back at this point the rhyming couplet shows his confidence