characters of Portia with 1000 words
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Portia is one of the most mature and prominent heroine of Shakespeare's play, The merchant of Venice. She is decribed rich, beautiful, intelligent, and a girl with high standards who follows the rules of his father's will and also was in love with Bassanio.
She was bound to marry with the man who could find her portrait and a scroll in one of the three caskets which were made up of gold, silver and lead. There was a condition for the people who would come there and it was that they will never seek to any other women after they lose.
Prince of Morocco and Aragon lose the challenge and get unsuccessful in seeking Portia's hand. Portia wanted to marry Bassanio who was a Venetian noble but couldn't help him as per the will. Later on in the play she also helps in saving life of Bassanio's friend Antonio.
Portia is a lady with a cheerful and optimistic disposition. She has a strong sense of humour and a sparkling, scintillating wit which she shows in the very beginning and then continues to show till the very end. It is only on one occasion in the whole play that she feels melancholy, and even sick of the world. When she is first introduced to us, she tells Nerissa that she is feeling weary of the world. But this melancholy mood lasts only for a few minutes, and is dispelled as soon as Nerissa begins to talk to her about the various suitors who have arrived at Belmont to try their luck at the caskets. Portia has something very amusing to say about each of these four suitors. Her comment on her English suitor is perhaps the most amusing. This comment ends with her saying that the Englishman perhaps bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere. Subsequently she shows her sense of humour in setting the Rings story afoot and bringing it to an end which gives rise to plenty of mirth and laughter. Portia’s comments on her various suitors show also her powers of minute observation and her penetrating judgment of human character.
Portia is genuinely devoted to the memory of her father who, while dying, had devised a kind of lottery for the purpose of her choice of a husband. She is determined to carry out the terms of her late father’s will. Of course, it is possible for her to disregard her father’s will and to marry a man on the basis of her own judgment. But she has implicit faith in her father’s wisdom, and she is convinced that her father’s will would prove to be the means of her getting the right man as her husband. In this belief she is greatly encouraged by Nerissa who tells her that good men are sometimes divinely inspired when they are dying and that they then take sound decisions. Having fallen in love with Bassanio, Portia could easily have married him without subjecting him to the test laid down by her father in his will, but she does not follow such a course. Even the man, with whom she has fallen in love, must prove his worth by passing the test before she would marry him; nor does she give him any hint as to the casket which he should choose.
Portia shows her wisdom in other ways as well. Her conversation with Nerissa at the very outset of the play contains some valuable remarks which are well-worded maxims. For instance, she says that it is a good divine who follows his own instructions. She also says that she can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than be one of the twenty to follow her own teaching. In fact, her speech to Nerissa on this occasion is a series of aphoristic statements containing gems of wisdom. Later in the play, she again makes similar remarks which show her wisdom and her vast knowledge of the world and of human nature. For instance, she says that a good deed shines in a naughty world just as a candle shines in the darkness of the night. She also says that nothing is good if it is not seen in its proper context. She makes a similar remark when she says that many things appear to be praiseworthy and perfect when they are looked at in the right perspective. But her wisdom appears in a most striking manner in the Trial Scene in the course of which she is able to turn the tables upon Shylock and defeat him with the same weapon with which he wanted to take Antonio’s father.
Portia has essentially a compassionate nature. Her famous “Quality of Mercy” speech is a proof of that. This speech depicts mercy as a sublime quality which is twice blest: it blesseth him that gives, and him that takes. Mercy, she says, is an attribute to God Himself. It is unfortunate that the Jew pays no heed to Portia’s plea. At the same time, we must acknowledge the fact that, in pronouncing the punishment to which Shylock has rendered himself liable, she tends to forget her own ardent plea for mercy. She allows the Christians to have their own way with him. She allows them to force him not only to part with all his wealth but also to be converted to Christianity. However, in this connection we should not forget that in the Elizabethan times such punishment to a Jew was not thought to be inhuman or brutal.