Religion in “The Merchant of Venice” by Shakespeare

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Religion in The Merchant of Venice is the main aspect that gives a node to the vices of ultimately estrangement, persecution, and discrimination that is depicted in the play. Religion in itself is not portrayed in the book as a cause for spiritual paradigm or a spiritual belief system. Religion in the book is observed to be almost like a club, where the club members are illogically included or excluded and due to religion some characters in the book are simply doomed to be out of this “religious club”. Interestingly enough Mr. Shylock, the Jewish man in the book is an outcast and more prone to giving references to the bible to justify or disapprove of anything that he does. He does this simply because he thinks that his religion is superior and that he must do everything possible to justify his Jewish religion. Christianity seemed to have dominated the place and Christians enjoyed the status quo that existed because of the way Christianity had been rooted. Due to this the Christians in the book needed not to defend or uphold their Christianity stances. In the play, religion takes to be used as a powerful weapon as depicted from the way Shylock’s daughter Jessica takes to disapproves of his father’s beliefs and wishes when she decides to marry Lorenzo. The most powerful potency of religion as depicted in the play was not to build “Berlin walls” or bridges for people but to enhance and reinforce hatred among the people (Weis, Theodore pp127).

We can see a distinct division between the Christians and the Jews. The Jews with an example of Shylock who is the most outstanding character in the book, always finds himself mentioning biblical references which he must justify or defend given that his religion requires that he has to justify what he says. This is in contrast to the Christians who do not necessarily have to justify their religion. The Christians are said to be enjoying the way the status is at that time as they are not held to justify their stands in their religion. It is therefore clear that religion has been used as a weapon to attack others. If we take Shylock’s daughter Jessica as an example, she gets married to a Christian irrespective of her being brought up by a strict Jew. With this, she is using the religion to attack her father who is a very staunch Jew. This act by Jessica therefore forces her father Shylock to turn to Christianity not because he wants it or because of revelation, but because he is receiving punishment from Jessica who has gotten married to a Christian thus he is forced to shed off his Judaism and turn to Christianity.

Apart from the role of religion being a weapon to a source of attack to other people in this play, it has also been used as a source of collision. As we can see in the book when Shylock to his disbelief, tables turn on his face and he has snatched his faith and is forced to become a Christian. He therefore does not join Christianity out of his will but because of being punished for his bad deeds and his unjust economic principles.

Shakespeare in his book “merchant of Venice” depicts Jews to be evil through the roles and actions of the book’s characters especially Shylock and Antonio who are the main characters in the play (Weis, Theodore pp127). In his writing he was attempting to condemn the Christians who he considered to be errant as compared to the Jews, in terms of their ethical values and moral issues. Religion in this book is not portrayed as a matter of faith, spiritual or belief but it’s seen to be a point where discrimination is based on terms of whether one should be part of one religion or not. It happens that religion is the core thing that is discussed in the book as it is used as an opening towards practicing discrimination or even persecution. We can see a distinct division that exists between the Christians and the Jews. The Jewish way of life is depicted through the roles played by Shylock the most outstanding character in the book, who always finds himself mentioning biblical references which he must justify or defend given that his religion requires that he has to justify what he says. This is in contrast to the Christians who do not necessarily have to justify their religion. The Christians are said to be enjoying the way everything goes on and they are not held to justify their stands in their religion. The religion we, therefore, find has been used as a weapon to attack others given that Shylock’s daughter Jessica gets married to a Christian irrespective of her being brought up by a strict Jew. With this, she is using religion to attack her father who is a very staunch Jew. This act by Jessica therefore forces her father Shylock to turn to Christianity not because he really wants it or because even because of revelation, but because he is receiving punishment from Jessica who has gets married to a Christian. Shylock is therefore forced to shed his Judaism and turn to Christianity.

Apart from the role of religion being a weapon to a source of the attack on other people in this play, it has also been used as a source of collision. As we can see in the play Shylock who is the Jewish moneylender is hated by a society that is very anti-Semitic (Tacitus, Publius p321). He has been stereotyped in a bad way, and he is described by people as an individual with red hair which is used to refer to the devil in the ages of the seventieth century, he is said to have very little compassion for other people, he dresses in very dirty clothes and also more to that he has a big nose (Tacitus, Publius p321-322). This kind of description presents a person who is unwanted or looks abnormal according to the society that he lives in. It’s a manner that is not well accepted in society as such kind of a person is not compatible with others as he always looked strange even in the company of other people. Thus apart from his controversial way of describing him, Shylock is caught in another controversy when his daughter gets married to a Christian. The daughter moves into marriage with Lorenzo taking away with her a considerable sum of money that belonged to his father Mr. Shylock. With this turn of events, Shylock is caught in a dilemma as the daughter is in an away trying to punish him. It makes Shylock be very desperate and undecided.

In the merchant of Venice, two characters have been the center of attraction in religious issues of the play. These two are Antonio and Shylock; they have been portrayed in their views of both religion and moneylending rules. They are two people who seem to contrast in all aspects given that Antonio was a staunch Christian whereas Shylock was a staunch Judaism believer and each one of them believed that his own religion was much more superior to the religion of the other. Antonio was a business person and he owned valuable goods and ships, he was also a very generous person, and when compared to Shylock who was a very greedy man for he used the bible as his source of income given that he could make references to the bible to satisfy his own personal interests of collecting and lending money to borrowers. Thus we can say that Antonio and Shylock are two people that are each the opposite of the other. Antonio is a good man but just because he is a Christian, Shylock hates him. This is because of his belief that all Christians hate Jews which is not the case for Antonio. This makes Shylock have a very negative attitude towards Antonio just because of his religion. Therefore we can say that in this aspect religion has been used as a tool of spreading hatred among the people as we can see from the words of Shylock, “I (Shylock) hate (Antonio) for he is a Christian…. (Antonio) hates our sacred nation” this just shows the beliefs that both the Jews and the Christian had towards one another in the play (Victor Hugo, p224).

Antonio too is not an exception in this case given that he too thinks that all Jews are not kind. This is because of what he is seeing from Shylock who was once his friend and one day turned to be an evil man. When he now finds that Shylock is becoming generous given that he was always selfish, he believes that no Jew can be generous so he thinks that Christianity is much more superior to Judaism. This he illustrates by saying that, “the Hebrew (Shylock) will turn Christian; he grows kind” (William Shakespeare pp15). Another depiction of the enjoyment of dominance that Christianity owned at that time in the play, is when Shylock is made to join Christianity not because of the fact that he had experienced a revelation, but because of the turn of events that worked against his wish that made the initiation to Christianity to be the only remaining thing to do after he received a punishment. The daughter had in some way punished him by getting married to a Christian thus making Shylock conform to Christianity. When Antonio found out this he then believes that his religion of Christianity is much more superior to that of Judaism.

Although Shylock is a greedy man, he too is a wise businessman this can be seen when he said this, “Mark what Jacob did… and in the doing of the deed of kind [Laban] struck them up before the fulsome ewes, who then conceiving did in earning time full particolored lambs, and those were Jacob’s. This was a way to thrive, and he was blest; And thrift is blessing if men steal it not” (William Shakespeare, pp12). He had given Antonio a loan which he was waiting for Antonio to repay with interest. When he had given Antonio the loan he had charged him interest by justifying it using the story in the bible of Jacob and Laban. Shylock loved using the bible to justify the references as a way of doing his business and collecting cash repayment from his debtors. Therefore in this case he is comparing Antonio to Laban as he puts himself in the shoes of Jacob, who was a righteous man as he says that both of them must be givers of interest. This thus portrays the personality of Shylock as being that of a greedy character. From this we can say that in a way Shylock and Antonio are similar and also very opposite kinds of people as they both believe that their own religion is much superior to the others and different in the sense that Antonio is a generous person and is ready to pay the amount of interest that Shylock asked for which is three times the loan amount that was given to him by Shylock, whereas the greedy characteristics of Shylock and his “wisdom” is seen in using the bible to justify his asking for interest that is three times the loan that he gave out to Antonio. It thus shows that though people may look good from the outside their inside may contain very negative traits.

Although in this book the Jews were ever considered to be very cruel people, Shakespeare has contradicted the view of the audience with the trend to the Jews given that at some point he has portrayed them as seeking empathy. This is seen when Shylock is maligned by Antonio with some of his Christian doctrines, this is seen when he says that, “hath not a Jew’s eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions… if you prick us do we not bleed…?” (William Shakespeare, pp36).

In this book we find that the Christian characters like Antonio and Bassasio do consider worthiness of a person in terms of what that person has in monetary terms (Rowe, Nicholas, pp24). As they believe that money is what constitutes a man or a woman. These are the same Christians that force Shylock into the money lending business and in making him believe that revenge is the only way out in the field of business that is the reason why Shylock is seen as a character that has a lust for revenge and greed in money.

In the play, it is quite evident that Christians have created a very hostile world for the Jews; this is the reason why Shylock believes that the only way to survive in a hostile Christian place is to use the bible to conduct the hi business of money lending. Another reason is that Christians are not regarding Shylock as a human being as they are using very bad terms to refer to him. They do not call him by his real name, but they fabricate names such as; the devil, the villain Jew, infidel and so many others (Weis, Theodore, pp127). Thus we see that there is a magnitude of reasons as to why Shylock should have a passion for money and accumulate wealth. “He tells Antonio that, I breed money as rams and ewes breed lambs”. He also informs his daughter called Jessica of his love for money. He tells Jessica that, “I always dream of money bags”. It therefore happens that when Jessica stole the money bags and runs away with Lorenzo who is a Christian, Shylocks couldn’t believe this event and it is clearly depicted from how he acts after the actions of her daughter as he shouts, “My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter! Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats! Justice! The law! my ducats and my daughter!” (William Shakespeare, pp31). Through this utterance, we learn that Shylock is much more worried about his money than he is even worried about his daughter. Shylock is angered that despite his daughter Jessica stealing his ducats, she even goes with it to join Lorenzo in marriage yet Lorenzo was a Christian. Shylock considered Christians to be his religious enemies. This just increased the amount of anger he had towards the Christians and this broke his heart a great deal.

In his writing Shakespeare was attempting to condemn the Christians who he considered to be errant as compared to the Jews, in terms of their ethical values and moral issues. Religion in this book is not portrayed as a matter of faith, spirituality, or belief but rather it’s seen to be a point where discrimination is based in terms of whether one should be part of one religion or not. It happens that religion is the core thing that is discussed in the book as it is used as an opening towards practicing discrimination or even persecution.

Works Cited

Hugo, Victor. Analysis of William Shakespeare’s works. Translated by Melville B. Anderson. Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1970.

Rowe, Nicholas. Quoted in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1939.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius. History: Classics of Roman Literature. Wedeck, Harry E., ed. Trans. Anonymous. Paterson, N.J.: Littlefield, 1964.

Weis, Theodore. The Breath of Clowns and Kings. New York: Atheneum, 1971.

William Shakespeare. Merchant of Venice. Leipzig Bernh, Tauchnitz, 1843.

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Religion in “The Merchant of Venice” by Shakespeare

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