How far can Shylock be considered a case of racial discrimination in Shakespeares Merchant of Venice?
Shylock is a complicated character. We can see him as a victim of discrimination perhaps more clearly than viewers in Shakespeare’s day would have, though clearly Shakespeare himself has some — but only some — sympathy for him. He is a moneylender, a job that Jews held because it was necessary in the growing mercantile economy of the renaissance, but which Christian doctrine at the time though immoral. (Now every bank does it.) This meant he was necessary but hated. His daughter was being taken from him (by marriage) and converted from his religon. He was mocked, largely because he was a Jew. All of this is evidence of discrimination. His famous speech is a moving expression of his feelings about this. Nonetheless, his actions in the play are vindictive, mean and cruel, and the message of forgiveness and mercy and comic rejuvenation are alien to him (that this is so is the deepest sense in which he is a stereotype.) While this may be evidence of Shakespeare’s thoughts about Jews (or
