How does portia want the person to appear in defeat and in victory? Why does she want this person to appear like this?
Answers
Answer:
Portia asks whether Antonio is able to pay the money, and Bassanio offers Shylock twice the sum owed. If need be, Bassanio says, he is willing to pay the bond ten times over, or with his own life. ... She looks it over, declares it legal and binding, and bids Shylock to be merciful....
Answer:
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Explanation:
INTRODUCTION
The Merchant of Venice (c. 1596–1597) ranks with Hamlet as one of William Shakespeare's most frequently performed dramas. It is a puzzling play. Many critics debate if the play is anti-Semitic in and of itself or if it is a play about anti-Semitism. There are several lines in the play that are hard to listen to because of the hatred, the Christian and Jewish mistrust and dislike of one another, that is portrayed on both sides of the issue. The plot line, as well as the complexity of some of the major characters, draws producers and audiences alike to this drama. Rather than creating stock characters that are easily mocked, Shakespeare has positioned his characters so that empathy is aroused. His characters have flaws; but that is what makes them human.
Although Antonio, the Christian shipping merchant whose flesh is at stake in this drama, is often referred to as the title character of the play, it is Shylock, the Jewish moneylender who is the source of much of the critical discussion. Some of Shylock's speeches point out the same prejudices that were alive in Elizabethan times and are still alive today in any culture that creates stereotypes of a particular race or religion and then establishes laws that discriminate against them. This is one of the elements that makes this play not only controversial but timeless.
The date that Shakespeare wrote this play is not certain. Scholars generally try to place it somewhere between 1596 and 1597, after Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar and Romeo and Juliet, but before he wrote Hamlet.
This play is said to have been based, in part, on Il PecoTone (1378), a collection of tales and anecdotes by the fourteenth-century Italian writer Giovanni Fiorentino. One of the stories in this Italian collection focuses on a rich heiress who is living at Belmont. She marries a man who has a friend who owes money to a Jewish man, who demands a pound of flesh in payment. The young woman saves the day in court. The plot is the backbone of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. There is another story contained in this play, that of a riddle that suitors of the beautiful heiress Portia must solve in order to win her hand. This part of the play might have come from another collection of fairy-tale type stories—a book, whose author is unknown, called Gesta Romanorum. The English translation of this book was very popular in Shakespeare's England. Another possible influence might have come from one of Shakespeare's contemporaries, the popular play The Jew of Malta (1589) by Christopher Marlowe. Critics are quick to point out, however, that Marlowe's Jewish character was more ruthless and much less human than Shakespeare's Shylock.
In spite of the controversies caused by The Merchant of Venice, it continues to fascinate its audiences. The characters are complex, leading to several interpretations of their personalities and actions. The play is harsh but fascinating, exposing some of humanity's greatest shortcomings.