common mod

Question 1

major theme

Answer 1

Love and Wealth

• authenticity of the way individuals react to their prejudicial challenges and moral dilemmas of selfishness and selflessness
• these embed representations of moral hypocrisy

Question 2

Appreciation

Answer 2

• invites responders to appreciate their cultural and contextual landscape that shape their interpretation of the text
• value of authenticity across cultural and contextual landscapes
• stories willing to reclaim a sense of victimhood

Question 3

Connecting theme to TMOV

Answer 3

• construction of ambivalent “good” and “bad” individuals
• mercantile relationship as a guise for the ethnocentric Judeo-Christian
  conflict
• female search for autonomy under the patriarchal oppression of the traditional family.
• Merchant uses its morally ambiguous individuals to conflict between acting for personal gain or to address societal inequalities
• the moral hypocrisy of their imperfections are illuminated in the process of dealing with their prejudicial challenges

Question 4

Shylock and Antonio

Answer 4

• Judeo-Christian Conflict and their transgressions are hidden under a challenging business relationship
• authenticity of acting as themselves, can often get confused as acting for themselves as their communication between each other is muddled with te guise of personal gain

Question 5

Jessica and Launcelot (influence of Shylock)

Answer 5

• The search for female autonomy from patriarchal oppression shows the inner conflict of her selfishness as it expands upon whether authenticity is just
• Within the familial relationship they are hypocritical as they act according to the oppression that affects them the most
• The marriage is very transactional, as Launcelot is for Shylock’s money and Jessica for freedom
• Jessica is an anomaly as she marries into Christianity and is still shamed for she is a Jew, a shared experience as later Shylock is forced to convert alongside his daughter

Question 6

“if you prick us do we not bleed?”

Answer 6

• first time Shylock is introduced in the play he is seen immediately as a villain in the eyes of the audience and Venetian Christians of the 16th century
• one of many extended monologues posing rhetorical questions cumulatively
• direct address to the audience, thus the stereotypes of moneylending that often derail the humanity of a character as they are connected to so much material wealth
• weaponises christian behaviour
• language highlights pain which illuminates suffering, a shared human experience
• pursuit of self-identity is synonymous with love for oneself

Question 7

Shakespeare uses this construction of a villain as motive for Shylock’s demands for a “pound of flesh”

Answer 7

• metaphorically extremifies the usury of Jewish people
• does so to supplement his own emotional trauma for that of Antonio’s physical pain

Question 8

condemning Christian doctrine as “a Jew”

Answer 8

• put simply as a matter-of-fact statement
• historically biblical transgression in an Elizabethan era
• ownership of identity appreciates authenticity of character, vengeance is heroic

Question 9

misleads Antonio to loan “as a friend”

Answer 9

• deconstructs authentic appeal he built up
• by using both “good” and “bad” connotations, Shakespeare incorporates paradox of selfishness and selflessness (whether someone is doing something for oneself or for others
• imperfect
• uses Judeo-Christian conflict for self-indulgence

Question 10

Shylock compromises after Antonio wishes for a loan “not as to thy friends” turns into an insistent offer of “your fair flesh”

Answer 10

• individual revenge to hurt Antonio
• continues the moral dilemma of selfishness and selflessness

Question 11

the “fawning publican” Antonio

Answer 11

• biblically alluding to someone offering loans without tax, an accepted feature in the Christian church of Venetian society and not Shylock’s banned usury
• considers how those who preach morality are often hypocritical as Shylock’s loses a sense of his victimhood as he ironically insults Antonio in a similar manner

Question 12

Jessica’s plans to “become a Christian and thy loving wife”

Answer 12

• reinvigorates the paradox of selfishness and selflessness as her search for freedom and autonomy proves helpful for Launcelot (he gets Shylock’s wealth)
• rejection of Shylock’s moral conflict
• uses betrayal of her father

Question 13

Lorenzo questioning if “Jessica stole from the wealthy Jew”

Answer 13

• indicates the value of wealth over love from Shylock’s position
• their is a sense of material possession that can be more acquainted with the themes of deception and betrayal

Question 14

Shylock ends “not well”

Answer 14

• tragically forced into Christianity by his own daughter, inflicts an shared experience of an anomaly
• the anomaly of converting to Christianity and still being mocked for being a Jew is shared with her father as a “most sweet Jew” that is affectionate while still stereotype in renaissance Venice

Question 15

Portia still proving “the prettier of the two”

Answer 15

• representation of her crossdressing to indicate the embedded nature of female beauty standards on a patriarchally oppressed society
• consistent Shakespearean trope
• mocks current thought
• comments on the ability to speak freely as a man in a male hegemony
• To Jessica’s inner problems, this monologue strengthens the villainisation of Shylock as she searchs for autonomy
• Elizabethan audiences grow to understand intimacy of unacceptance and its emotional concerns of the complications of love