The Unity Of Opposites In The Merchant Of Venice

It is not accidental that The Merchant of Venice can be popular and be the controversial topic for four hundred years. Of Shakespeare's four mature comedies, The Merchant of Venice is certainly the most outstanding, though the earliest in its date of composition. It is essentially different from the other threes in its much more serious themes. The play displays the general nature of human by its characterization. It mirrors the historical religious and economic background of the Elizabethan period through the confrontation of characters. Although the settings of the play is the far away Venice, it reveales Shakespeare's ever-present, strong sympathy for the Jews. Besides it unfolded Shakespeare's Utopian world through the contrast of the space arrangement, and displays women's rising status in family and society through the portrait of Portia.The introduction provides a brief literary review of The Merchant of Venice. The classification of play is controversial during the past years. While definitely most earlier critics considered it as a comedy, there are also many scholars defined it as a tragedy or problem play. These divergences of views are greatly due to its opposites in characterization, space and plot, the confrontation between religion and capital, and the image of female, with the representative of Portia's.Chapter One focuses on the balance of opposites in Shakespeare's characterization. According to Samuel Johnson, Shakespeare is the poet of nature; his characters are the genuine progeny of common humanity. In this play, Shakespeare, while influenced by the literary tradition and historical stereotype of the Jews, molded Shylock as a mean, cruel and money-scrubbing usurer, he also cast on this character much sympathy through his eloquent pleading for racial and human equality. In other words, Shylock in Shakespeare's writing is a human, rather than a cold and cruel monster. The duality in Shylock's charaterization obviously shows Shakespeare's humanism, and his condemn of the hypocrisy of the Christian's. This part also interprets Antonio from a more objective perspective. Antonio, the revered royal and generous merchant, has a tendency of anti-Semitic, homosexual and morally smug.Chapter Two tries to survey not only the unity of opposites between the two settings, Venice and Belmont, but also the paralleling plot development and morality corresponding in the respective locale. Shakespeare's Venice, is a city with its exotics, persecutory component, luxury, and sodomy, while his Belmont is defined as his Utopian world full of music, moonlight and harmony. There are two primary plots in the play, with at least six subplots woven into. Generally, while the stories darken in Venice, the story brightens up in Belmont. This pattern of plot development, together with the complex plot and the rich content which were smoothly linked by the repeated altering and comparing of settings reveals Shakespeare's discontents for the real life similar with Venice and his longing for the ideal life similar with Belmont.Chapter Three means to reveal the opposites between silence and voice. By demonstrating the confrontation between Antonio and Shylock, the silence and voice of Christianity and Judaism, and the confrontation between usury and commercial capital in Shakespeare's age is thoroughly viewed. Besides, this part tries to discover the relationship between male and female in the Elizabethan England, mainly through Shakespeare's portrait of Portia. Portia is a female of self-awaken. While she obeys her father's will, she knows what she really wants. She at first conceives perhaps tricks to let the incorrect person choose the incorrect casket, then pretends to submit herself to control her husband, and later on appears as the rivalry of Antonio to win Bassanio's love. In the courtroom, where female are forbidden to tread on, she disguises as a male and successfully save Antonio, which can not be done by the male Venetians. Her image is the brightest one Shakespeare ever created.The Conclusion claims that Shakespeare's balance of opposites in the play was the result of his humanism, his mirror of the reality and demonstration of his ideal world, and his demonstration of social conflicts and his praise towards the female.