There has been much controversy and disagreement about William Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice, especially concerning the question of its treatment of its Jewish moneylender antagonist, Shylock. Is he a greedy and scheming comic villain, the scourge of Victorian anti-Semitic audiences? Is he a tragic hero, prodded on in his vengeful actions by enduring years of hypocritical, dehumanizing, and unjust exclusion and persecution? Although it is classified as comedy, modern audiences cannot help but feel that its supposed happy ending is truly nothing short of tragic. Considering that Shakespeare’s culture was deeply anti-Semitic, it is possible that Shylock’s often sympathetic portrayal may have been a subtle critique of the hypocrisy of the Christians’ unmerciful treatment of Jews. What is more relevant, though—regardless of what exactly his true views were regarding the treatment of Jews—is that Shakespeare finds in Shylock an opportunity to illuminate one of the most prominent themes of the play: the prioritizing of money and love. Shylock makes a living lending money with interest, a practice condemned by early modern Christians because of its association or identification with the sin of greed (the love of money). In The Merchant of Venice, then, Shakespeare critiques the ways that people can prioritize money over relationships with others. The villain Shylock illustrates the destructive nature of self-interest and greed. However, at times he also is shown to be motivated not by money but by his feelings in a way that illuminates the places where Christian characters have valued money and self-interest over love and mercy.

From the very beginning it is apparent that, although the love story of Bassanio and Portia is an integral to the plot of the play, Bassanio’s plan to win Portia and his speech to Antonio about her show that her money plays a large role in his pursuit of her. Although it is true that Bassanio expresses romantic love for Portia—for her beauty and her character—it is clear that his love for her is based on and inseparable from his desire for her money. In his first appearance, he admits to recklessly spending money on luxuries, which has left him gravely in debt: “I have disabled mine estate / By something showing a more swelling port / Than my faint means would grant continuance” (1.1.122–25). In other words, Bassanio loves spending money on himself, on his own self-interested enjoyment, even money he does not have. He asks his friend Antonio, to whom he already owes money, for another loan that will function as an investment in order for Bassanio to gain enough profit to settle his accounts. This is the preface to his plan to win Portia’s hand in marriage. In fact, the very first thing he says about her is: “In Belmont is a lady richly left” (1.1.161), revealing that the prospect of marrying Portia is more foundationally a solution for his financial worries. In fact, after talking about her money, he continues: “And she is fair, and fairer than that word, / Of wondrous virtues” (1.1.162–63). Beginning with “And” immediately after introducing her wealth suggests that her goodness and beauty are secondary qualities, qualities that perhaps would not matter as much if she not been “richly left.” In addition to money being the primary motivator for his love, monetary terms also invade the loving way he talks about Portia. He says that she is not “undervalued / To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’s Portia. / Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth” (1.1.165–67). “Value” and “worth” are the terms he uses to express his thoughts about her, the admiration and longing he feels for her. This suggests that money is what has shaped his idea of love, that his desires and emotions are inextricably tied to the money that allows him to enjoy a spendthrift life. Shakespeare includes Bassanio’s backstory and his speech to reveal the extent to which money and love had become intertwined, showing that the greedy moneylender is not the only one whose values are skewed by money.

As mentioned before, it is because of his unscrupulous spending habits that Bassanio is a penniless noble, so he needs money to appear wealthy enough to win Portia and her estate. Thus his desire to appear wealthy in addition to his plans to marry into money are the things that put his friend Antonio in mortal danger. In short, this is another way that Bassanio’s inordinate love of money is illuminated in the very first act of the play. If he prioritized his love of Antonio over his own materialistic pleasure—if he loved Antonio more than his insolvent playboy lifestyle—he would not have even taken advantage of Antonio’s love-motivated generosity in the first place. Though he does protest Antonio’s willingness to agree to a collateral pound of flesh, it is Bassanio’s previous debt that leads him to take out more debt in the first place. Bassanio knows that Antonio would give him anything. When asked to listen to what is effectively Bassanio’s loan application, Antonio says, “And out of doubt you do me now more wrong / In making question of my uttermost / Than if you had made waste of all I have. / Then do but say to me what I should do” (1.2.135–138). Antonio would give his riches and his life for Bassanio, and Bassanio cannot be talked out of accepting them. Of course, this is all to appear wealthy to Portia, which is to say worthy of acquiring her estate. Bassanio’s priorities appear to be the pleasures of wealth and the appearance of wealth, with the underlying purpose being to marry into wealth. Thus, when the play’s viewers later condemn Shylock’s love of money, they must also consider the role that Bassanio’s money-tinged love plays in setting up the conflict in the plot. The astute viewer cannot help but see that Bassanio is perhaps even more money hungry, although in a less obvious way that is veiled by love, than Shylock the usurer villain.

While Bassanio’s mixed up priorities are veiled, Shylock the moneylender’s disordered priorities are illustrated in a more obvious way—that is, in a way obvious to an audience of Shakespeare’s contemporaries. While of course Shylock is troubled by Antonio’s repeated cruel and anti-Semitic behavior, Shylock appears to be more offended that Antonio lends people money without interest. Others in the play are also anti-Semitic and cruel, but it is only Antonio whose pound of flesh Shylock demands. Speaking of Antonio, Shylock admits, "I hate him for he is a Christian, / But more for that in low simplicity / He lends out money gratis and brings down / The rate of usance here with us in Venice" (1.3.36–39). In this way, Antonio represents a loss of income, suggesting that a loss of money is a worse offense to Shylock than others, that costing him interest is worse than insulting his faith and heritage. Shylock in this regard is admitting to being the play’s villain, displaying the greedy attitude that Shakespeare critiques. Another obvious example is that, when learning of his daughter’s theft and escape to marry a Christian, Shylock appears equally or perhaps even more concerned with the loss of his ducats than the loss of his daughter. Though it is revealed to the audience in a second-hand report by Solanio, the audience is led to believe that Shylock’s response is: “My daughter, O my ducats, O my daughter! / Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats! / Justice, the law, my ducats, and my daughter! (2.8.15–17). There is a troubling implication here, namely that Shylock’s sorrow seemingly can be equally divided between the loss of his daughter, her betrayal of her father and faith, and the monetary loss of his wealth. Even if it is not the case that he cares for his daughter less than or equal to his money, the very ambiguity itself—that it would even be a question to be brought up—is telling in itself. For a parent, there is perhaps no worse or unnatural mistake than to value money over one’s own child. This no doubt is meant to reinforce Shakespeare’s critique of the love of money, especially for audiences in his own time.

However, while it is hard to argue against the assumption that Shylock really does love money in a disproportionate and obvious way, it is clear that in certain instances his motivations are not all monetary. These situations serve to show how the Christian characters are not immune from the love of money for which they criticize Shylock. When the viewer actually sees Shylock’s response to his daughter’s actions—that is, when it is not a second-hand report by a biased and interested party—he shows how much he values his deceased wife’s heirlooms in a sentimental and certainly romantic way. Speaking of the ring that Jessica has stolen, which he learns she has traded for a monkey, he says, "I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys" (3.1.101–102). The ring represents for him the love he still has for his deceased wife, and as such it is invaluable, irreplaceable, and priceless. For Bassanio, gold, riches, and even love all represent his ability to fulfil his desires unimpeded. Money is what enables him to see that his self-interested will is done. For Shylock on the other hand—a Jew for whom there were likely strict rules outlining all that he could not legally buy—gold cannot in the same way represent the free exercise of his will. While a prejudiced over-hearer of his mourning might think that he was equating his daughter with his stolen property, the stolen gold can also represent the loss and betrayal of his daughter, which comes after and is added to his sorrow at the tragic loss of his wife. The ring, something that for many can be a symbol of riches, represents instead Shylock’s cherished relationship with his wife. This is a direct contrast to Bassanio and Gratiano who give away the rings their wives had given them. Spelling out what her gift-ring symbolizes, Portia says, “I give them with this ring, / Which when you part from, lose, or give away, / Let it presage the ruin of your love / And be my vantage to exclaim on you” (3.2.171–174). Her ring—as wedding rings are supposed to do—serves as a symbol of their love and commitment to each other. Bassanio makes it sound like it is generosity that leads him to give away the ring to the lawyer. In other words, the ring functioned simply as currency for him, the means to something he wanted, the just payment for a service well rendered. He loves money but in a way that acknowledges that money can be replaced—he can just buy another ring, after all—but Shylock does not think about money in the same way as Bassanio. His love of money is different. What his ring represents cannot be replaced. What his stolen money represents cannot be replaced. He cannot get his wife back; he cannot get his daughter back. So while Shylock the villain is supposed to represent greed, and he certainly does at times, it is actually he who values relationships and their symbols more than Bassanio the hero. While he loves money in an obvious way, in other ways his sentimentality shows how much the Christian characters actually love money.

Shylock’s portrayal also illustrates, in the terms of his loan, the extent to which money has encroached on human value. If Antonio defaults on his loan, he owes Shylock a pound of his flesh. Even the human body has a monetary value in the Venetian market, and since a pound of flesh removed would surely kill Antonio, it is implied that his very life has a price. Shylock’s loan, then, shows that not even human life is free of the market’s influence, and it sets up Shylock as the example of such greed. But at the same time, Shylock’s loan serves to point out the hypocrisy of Christians who treated human life as a product or a piece of property with a price. This is the most troubling way that Shakespeare shows the disordered prioritization of money and people. Defending his gruesome right to a pound of flesh to the Duke, Shylock compares his desire to own Antonio’s flesh with the Venetian institution of slavery upon which their economy depended. He says, “What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong? / You have among you many a purchased slave, / Which like your asses and your dogs and mules / You use in abject and in slavish parts / Because you bought them” (4.1.89–93). If Christians can own people—if monetary value can corrupt their view of humanity’s moral worth—then Shylock does not see how owning just a pound of one person can be any worse than owning a whole person. Shakespeare writes this to illustrate how money and the marketplace have warped people’s priorities in such a way that people can be seen as “so many pounds of flesh; no more, no less” (Bloom 189). It is also another way in which Shakespeare uses the villain’s bad character traits to show how the Christians are also complicit.

The poet Wallace Stevens said, “Money is a kind of poetry” (qtd. in Kennedy & Gioia 117). In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare explores what money means to different characters, what money is, metaphorically, for them. He explores the Venetians’ obscured lines between money and self-interest and love. On a surface level, Shylock is an example of greed because of his usury—making money off of other people’s debts—but his sentimental ties to his wealth at the same time shows the lack of that type of sentiment in Bassanio and Gratiano, who are persuaded part with their own wedding rings. Money is not always for Shylock what it is for Bassanio. For Bassanio it is an extension of his will, the means for his desires to be fulfilled, the power to do whatever pleases him. Shylock no doubt cherishes this aspect of money as well, but at times money has a deeper meaning for him. There are things that are invaluable to him, and they are things that symbolize the family he loves and for whom he mourns. Shylock also points out the hypocrisy of Christians’ participation in slavery, showing no doubt the most striking and troubling way that Venetians valued money over people. Money plays such a big role in the life of these characters, and in present times this theme is still important. It is much more than relevant to consider the importance of money in society, how much of people’s lives it regulates and mediates. The Merchant of Venice asks the very important questions of how money affects human relationships and to what extent it influences the very concept of love.
 

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 1998. Print.

Kennedy, X.J. & Danny Gioia. An Introduction to Poetry. 13th ed. Boston, MA: Longman, 2010. Print.

Shakespeare, William. “The Merchant of Venice.” The Norton Shakespeare. 3rd ed. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Suzanne Gossett, Jean E. Howard, Katherine Eisman Maus, & Gordon McMullan. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016. 1339-1393. Print.
 

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