Merchant of Venice
Thursday, November 25, 2010 x 5:32 PM
Personally, I prefer Shylock to Antonio. Antonio is simply put, a hypocrite. Indeed, what Shylock says is rather true. Antonio has always insulted him, called him a dog for using usury, spat on him, kicked him and basically trashed Shylock's faith, so why should Shylock lend him the money? In fact, personally, the whole book, I don't see why all the other characters seem to favor Antonio and treat him as a higher being? Again, this is probably to do with their faiths. These Christians believed that their religion was purer than the Jews and therefore, forced the Jews to live in dirty ghettos and restricted their lives and earnings. This of course led the Jews to do usury in order to earn money. So, in a way, the Christians were the ones that caused all the trouble in the first place.Secondly, I seriously cannot stand Jessica. Her thinking that love is blind and that she has the right to do whatever she wants sucks. Number one, all the money were earned by her father who did usury and was a Jew. So now, just because she wanted to marry Lorenzo, she stole all his hard earned money and run away from home. And then, she proceeded to spend his money ruthlessly. In one case, she exchanged 80 ducats to buy a freaking monkey. She renounced her Jewish faith to become Christian but she used money that was earned from usury to finance her Christian life. That doesn't make sense does it? By right, she should be distancing herself from the money. Frankly, she is just an empty headed bimbo. Unlike Portia who learns to accept circumstances and to fight independently. I admire her for her courage to defend Antonio although I am on Shylock's side.
muackies<3
