Essay on Romantics and Merchants in The Merchant of Venice :: Merchant Venice Essays

Ro man smorgasbordtics and Merchants in The Merchant of Venice Shakespeares comedies usually follow a distinctly defined pattern. He presents a conflict, and the characters eventually resolve the conflict in a relatively happy extirpateing, which involves tieing off the hero and his entour climb on to the heroine and her companions, departure the villain outside the magic circle of protagonists. In The Merchant of Venice, Antonio is presented as the hero, and Shylock the villain, but neither is within the circle of marriages at the end of coif V. In fact, Antonios depression exposed at the beginning of the sportsman seems unresolved at the end, and he goes on his melancholy way, as he supposes he must. Can The Merchant of Venice, then, be considered a true frivolity? The strongest argument discounting Merchant as a true comedy is that though Antonio appears to be the major protagonist in the story, he is also as far outside the magic circle as his villain, Shylock. While Bas sanio, Portia, and their associated parties marry off at the end of Act V, Antonio is left to his ships and his m iodiney, still leaving about his depressed way. At the beginning of the play, Antonio expresses his dissatisfaction with his situation to his friends. I check the world but as the world, Gratiano, a stage where every man must play a part, and mine a sad one (I.i.81-83). Throughout the play, and Shylocks relentless pursuit of his macabre repayment, Antonio remains in this dreary, get the better of state. He seems almost too eager to end his suffering at the hands of his debtors and his apparently lost business. Grieve not that I am falln to this for you, he tells Bassanio in greet, for herein Fortune shows herself more kind than is her usance it is still her use to let the wretched man outlive his wealth, to view...an age of poverty, from which lingring penance of such misery doth she cut me off (IV.i.278-284). He begs the court to make no more attempts to save his l ife, comparing such wasted endeavors to abate the flood waters or question the wolfs killing of sheep (IV.i.71-84). only resigned to his grisly fate, he announces, I am a tainted wether of the flock, meetest for death. The weakest kind of fruit drops earliest to the ground, and so let me (IV.i.116-118). Even in Act V, after the dispute with Shylock is decided in Antonios favor, the melancholy merchandiser plays no role in the resolution of the play.