“The Merchant of Venice”:Comedy or Tragedy?

“That's what led me to the decision that we should present the play as if it concerned events that occurred in-between the two world wars. Why? Because it was that very period when anti-Semitic thought and anti-Semitic behavior was becoming current and even -- it's ghastly to think it -- voguish and the subject of wit and amusement. I wanted to put the play there so it couldn't in any way shrink from the reality of the Holocaust, which was just coming down the pike. ”

Trevor Nunn

Based upon all of the negative and dramatic things that are said and that occur, we all think that the play, The Merchant of Venice, is a tragedy.

Act I Scene iv

Antonio: Hie thee, gentle Jew. [Exit Shylock.]

This Hebrew will turn Christian: he grows kind. Scene iii

Shylock: I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you.

Act II Scene ii

Launcelot: to be ruled by my conscience, I should stay with the Jew my master, who, God bless the mark, is a kind of devil and then he says a little bit after in that same speech: certainly the Jew is the very devil incarnation

Shylock: But yet I’ll go in hate, to feed upon the prodigal Christian

Language

Act IIIScene i

Salanio: Let me say ‘amen’ betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer, for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew

Shylock: … The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

Act IVScene i

Portia: What mercy can you render him, Antonio?Gratiano: A halter gratis! Nothing else, for God’s sake!Shylock: So can I give no reason, nor I will not, more

than a lodges hate and a certain loathing I bear Antonio, that I follow thus a losing suit against him.

Act VScene I

Lorenzo: In such a night, did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew, and with an unthrift love did run from Venice, as far as Belmont.

Jews are greedy

Christians hate Jews

Most rich people are arrogant

Everything is based upon

appearances Jews are

persecuted

Stereotypes

Characters

The character viewpoints of the anti-Semitic characters helps contribute to our opinion as to the play being a tragedy because we feel like persecution against another religion isn't funny now in the present, whereas people back then, in Shakespeare's time did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAcIzPmOhBQ

Video

SARAH SPECKERChristine AnnekenAnna McGowan