Why Is Shakespeare Anti Semitic

Most Jews were stereotyped with having witch-like features such as, “a long, hooked nose and a swarthy complexion and were believed to worship the devil” (Alchin). This interpretation of Jews offended their culture immensely because the association with witches most commonly led to execution. We can connect this unfair treatment back to Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice through the Jewish character Shylock. Shylock is a moneylender in Venice that receives continuous badgering from his Christian clients whenever he makes a mistake. One example of the criticism that Shylock received was when Launcelot says, “Certainly the Jew is the very devil incarnation” (. This is one of the many ways that Shakespeare connects his theatrical

The “Merchant of Venice” by William Shakespeare was considered a comedy because it was viewed as mockery towards jews. The story surrounds Shylock a jewish money lender accused of usury betrayed by his daughter and servant. Hated by all because of his religion and beliefs, in order to achieve mercy and sympathy for his sins he calls out a speech referred to as the humanity speech. The speech is seen as a mocking form. But I believe Shakespeare wrote the speech to stop the prejudiceness against jew because of the way he incorporates logos and pathos to develop sympathy for the jews during the elizabethan era.

Jewish people have been treated unfairly many times in history, including when Merchant of Venice was written. MOV is about a Jewish moneylender, Shylock, who lends money to a Christian man, Antonio. Antonio isn’t able to pay the money he received and faces the punishment of death. In the end, the Jewish man gets in trouble and loses everything. Discrimination against Jews had been going on for many years before the time MOV was written. They have had their temples damaged, unjust laws imposed on them, and were even killed. During the time MOV was written, they were forced to live in a certain part of a city and they weren’t allowed to be citizens of some major cities. The anti-semitic laws and opinions were easily seen in the MOV. The way Shylock was treated was one of the most obvious examples of beliefs and laws against Jews. Shakespeare’s play can be seen as anti-semitic to some or supporting the jews to others. During the time period Merchant of Venice was written, hostility between Christians and Jews was

The victimization of Shylock for being a Jew makes the reader sympathize with him and for the fact that he is Jewish. It lends an understanding as to how Shylock cultivated a hate for Christians and his justification in doing so. In contrast, Shakespeare makes no mention of Shylock’s past and uses his Judaism as the sole means for his distinctive torment of Antonio.

Shakespeare has also presented Shylock as a hateful and revenge-driven character when Shylock says ' I hate him for he is a Christian.' The verb 'hate' Shows that Shylock detests, loathes, anathematizes, and scorns upon Antonio. However, Shylock hates Antonio, because of all the bad things he's done to him, like spit on him and call him a dog, so his hate is out of his hands. The noun 'Christian' in the quote shows that Shylock hates Antonio just because of his religion. Another way to interpret this is by saying that Shylock is discriminating the whole Christian religion due to one man. This links to context because in the Elizabethan era, Jews detested Christians because of their religion and vice versa.

Shakespeare skilfully demonstrates religious intolerance towards Jews in the Elizabethan era automatically emphasising the kindness of Christians through the discerning use of evidence from the text of The Merchant of Venice. Christianity was the centre of society for Elizabethans, this resulted in discrimination against Jews. The character of Shylock, a Jewish money lender is portrayed as immoral, thirsty for Christian blood and is dehumanised by other characters in the play whereas the Christians were drawn as the moral and righteous human beings of the Elizabethan era. This is depicted through the quote commenting Shylock as, “The Hebrew [who] will turn Christian. He grows kind.” (1.3.175), a metaphor insinuating that Jews were unkind and

Racism seems to be a big concern in Shakespeare’s tragic play, Othello. Because the hero of the play is an outsider, a Moor, we have an idea how blacks were regarded in England, in Elizabethan times. There are many references that bring about the issue of racism from the very beginning to the end. In the tragedy, where Othello is coming from is not mentioned, yet through the descriptions the reader is informed that he belongs to one of the Eastern nationalities such as African, Ottoman Turk or Arab. In this paper I am going to analyze some episodes involving a prejudicial, racist attitude and try to discuss whether Shakespeare was a racist or not. Even though the play is full of offensive definitions of black

Have you ever thought about how much Othello’s race and the racism around him affected his life? Othello struggled a lot during the play because of his dark skin color. He was called several racist names like “the Moor,” “old black ram,” “Barbary horse,” and “thick lips” (Shakespeare 1.1.40; 1.1.88; 1.1.111; 1.1.66).The term “racism” has been around for several years; it started in the twentieth century (Bartels 433). By the way the Elizabethan era viewed black people was similar to how racism is today with all of the racial comments, and stereotypes. Being a black person in a mostly white ethnicity area at that time had to be challenging based on Othello’s experience. Othello was the black sheep crowded around a herd of white sheep, he

   The Merchant of Venice features a Jewish character that is abused and slandered by nearly every character in the play. Throughout the play the behavior of these characters seems justified. In this way, The Merchant of Venice appears to be an anti-Semitic play. However, The Merchant of Venice contains several key instances, which can be portrayed in a way that criticizes anti-Semitism. The first instance occurs in Act 1, scene 3 when the audience realizes that Shylock has every right to be extremely angry with Antonio. The second instance occurs when Shylock breaks out of his one-dimensional character form in Act 3, scene 1 in an extremely powerful speech that attacks the

Shylock can be seen as a victim of anti-Semitism and discrimination. He has long suffered at the hands of the Christians, who seize any opportunity to torment him. Shylock has been spat upon merely because he is Jewish and has been called nasty names such as "cutthroat dog". This dehumanising language demonstrates how poorly the Christian society views Jews as being outsiders and filthy people who do not belong to the world. Shylock has also been called ‘Jew’ twenty-two times and ‘Shylock’ only six times in the play. Shakespeare helped maintain the anti-Semitic meanings of the term

The Merchant of Venice was created between 1596 and 1598, it was published as a comic, romantic, tragic in 1600. The play has many struggles in it but the main ones are Bassanio's quest to marry Portia and his attempt to free Antonio from Shylock's deal. The idea that Shakespeare's representation of Shylock is unquestionably Anti-Semitic will be impacted in this essay because thought this book Shakespeare portrayed Shylock as Anti-Semitic.

Shakespeare still had to please the crowd with the insults and anti-Semitic feelings the people loved. He did this by adding flaws to the characters that they are now known for. Shakespeare gave Shylock his deep hatred for Antonio and all Christians, shown constantly by Shylock himself as he rants how Antonio constantly wrongs him. Another flaw in Shylock's morals is seen in his "Hath not a Jew eyes" speech. There he believes he has the right for revenge when a Christian wrongs him, saying, "If a Jew wrongs a Christians, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrongs a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge." (III, i, 63-66). Antonio too shows flaws, both through Shylock's stories of Antonio's persecution and through the insults he offers Shylock throughout the play. In the courtroom scene, Antonio tells Bassanio he might as well go stand on the beach and tell the waves to stop their endless beat upon the shores than try to get the Jew to change his mind. He also jokes that Shylock is turning into a Christian with his kindness to lend Antonio the 3,000 ducats, saying "The Hebrew will turn Christian: he grows kind." (I, iii, 170). Not only does this add the necessary conflicts for humor that the audience wants, but it provides the backbone for the story, showing the background of the

Throughout William Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice, there is a strong theme of prejudice. Portia has to deal with prejudice against her sex, the Prince of Morocco has to deal with prejudice against his race but the character that is most discriminated against is Shylock. He is hated for being a Jew and a money-lender, but Shakespeare has not made Shylock a character easy to sympathise with. He appears to be mean and cruel and it seems as though he loves money above all things. However during the play there are moments when Shakespeare gives Shylock speeches which show his humanity. In these moments, the audience is made to feel sorry

Many would argue that Shakespeare was not prejudice. He just wanted to make his plays more entertaining for the audience, so he purposefully depicted people’s flaws through comedy. But, deep down Shakespeare was not prejudice. He saw everybody as equal. This is shown in the speech Shylock gave to Salerio:

Whoever chooses the right one may wed Portia. The Prince of Morocco chooses the gold casket because “never so rich a gem was set in worse than gold.”(2.7.60-61) He says that no one is more beautiful than Portia and compares her to gold. Based on that comparison, he chooses the gold casket.. However, when he opens the casket he reads that “All that glitters isn’t gold...had you been wise as bold, young in limbs, in judgement old.”(2.7.73-79) These quotes show that the casket story directly supports the message (one must not judge by the cover to have pure judgement) and supports the motive that Shakespeare has in mind for this play. Also, Bassanio is one of the protagonists of the play, and he tries to wed Portia. He chooses the lead casket because it had an inner beauty, though the outside was ugly. Obviously, the lead casket is the right one and the casket inside has a message that says “You that choose not by the view chance as fair and choose as true.”(3.2.135-136) This further shows that Shakespeare wants the audience to learn to not judge by appearance, and to be humble because one who judges thinks highly of themselves. Thus, this play is not Anti-Semitic because all the characters act abusively towards Shylock just because he is a Jew. They judge him by the outside and do not look at the inner qualities of Shylock. Also, if Shakespeare used this theme as his main motive then he is trying to indirectly demote Anti-Semitism. If