The Merchant of Venice
Shakespeare is Britain's the most outstanding Renaissance masters.Shakespeare's play, "The Merchant of Venice" explored the timeless topic of money and love. Money is the world's most valuable things .There is something even more precious than money? Rich and moving story of family ties, witty dialogue, the plot turn, exaggerated the circumstances of Comedy, romance and legend is full of color. Is intertwined with friendship, love, love the world and lead us to understanding what is important in life.
The play tells a story that happens in Italy. A moneyless young Venetian, Bassanio, is making preparations to propose to Portia, a rich beauty of Belmont. He needs money and appeals to his friend Antonio, a merchant of Venice, for help. But Antonio’s money is invested in ships at sea. To help Bassanio in his courtship, he borrows money from Shylock the Jewish usurer. Shylock, who has been insulted by Antonio and other Christians, however, agrees to lend the money on the condition that if the loan is not paid in time, he may cut a pound of flesh from Antonio’s body. With this money, Bassanio goes to Belmont and succeed in the marriage with Portia. But news comes that Antonio’s ship sank and can’t return on time so he ca nnot pay the loan. Shylock demands his pound of flesh. The case is brought before the court. Antonio is in danger. At the critical moment, a young doctor of law arrives at the court. He appeals to Shylock for mercy with a moving speech, but in vain. Then the doctor admits the validity of Shylock’s claim, but warns him, under pain of death, that he must fulfill the every letter of his bond, taking no more and no less than one pound of flesh, and spilling no drop of blood. Seeing himself thus cornered, the Jew has no choice but to obey the verdict of the court. To everyone’s surprise, the young doctor of law who saves the life of Antonio is Portia in disguise. Finally they live together happily. The story has a happy ending in theory. But I don’t think the end is really happy and is a kind of “grave comedy”.
In this single-minded pursuit of a pound of flesh, his frequent mentions of the cruelty he has endured at Christian hands make it hard for us to label him a natural born monster. In one of Shakespeare’s m ost famous monologues, for example, Shylock argues that Jews are humans and calls his quest for vengeance the product of lessons taught to him by the cruelty of Venetian citizens. On the other hand, Shylock’s coldly calculated attempt to revenge the wrongs done to him by murdering his persecutor, Antonio, prevents us from viewing him in a primarily positive light. Shakespeare gives us unmistakably human moments, but he often steers us against Shylock as well, painting him as a miserly, cruel, and prosaic figure. But I think Shylock suffers much discrimination for he is a Jew. It‘s unfair. All men were born equally.
We can learn much from the play. Money is important, but there are many far more important things in this world. Do not be fooled by the surface. In our real live we should threat everyone equally and do not have color vision to look at other people. And when we meet with unexpected difficulties, we should keep calm and solve it skillfully just as Portia does......
