The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice contained numerous material that would be considered against common belief in today's world. This play has left the world thinking that Shakespeare may have been the greatest writer in the English language, but also still bound the society around him. The antagonizing of Jews was prevalent during that age and is also very present in the book. The main conflict is between a Jewish man and a Christian. Shylock, the name of the Jewish man, fits and portrays many of the stereotypes that we think of to be Jewish. This could be to the times, because Shakespeare thought Jews were like that, for the audience so that they know that he was Jewish, or a mixture of all of these ideas or more. This has led to a debate on whether or not the bard himself was anti-Semitic. Shylock's speech that tries to ask what is the difference between a Jew and a Christian and why they are seen differently when they are the same is used to help in the argument that Shakespeare is not. But it could be debated that Shakespeare was just adding a counter argument not his own belief into his play. We may never know how the bard felt regarding the Jewish people since all we have are his plays and sonnets, which its is common for there to be exaggeration, and some believe that he may never have existed.

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