Question

In about 500 words prove that Merchant of Venice as a romantic and thematic appeal

Answer 1

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Shakespeare's comedies usually follow a clearly defined pattern. He presents a conflict, and the characters eventually resolve the conflict in a relatively happy ending, which involves marrying off the hero and his entourage to the heroine and her companions, leaving 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 Act V. In fact, Antonio's depression exposed at the beginning of the play 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 comedy?
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 Bassanio, Portia, and their associated parties marry off at the end of Act V, Antonio is left to his ships and his money, still going about his depressed way. At the beginning of the play, Antonio expresses his dissatifaction with his situation to his friends. "I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano, a stage where every man must play a part, and mine a sad one" . Throughout the play, and Shylock's relentless pursuit of his macabre repayment, Antonio remains in this dreary, defeated 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 fall'n to this for you," he tells Bassanio in court, "for herein Fortune shows herself more kind than is her custom: it is still her use to let the wretched man outlive his wealth, to view...an age of poverty, from which ling'ring penance of such misery doth she cut me off" . He begs the court to make no more attempts to save his life, comparing such futile endeavors to abate the flood waters or question the wolf's killing of sheep . Completely 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". Even in Act V, after the dispute with Shylock is decided in Antonio's favor, the melancholy merchant plays no role in the resolution of the play. While Portia and Nerissa play trickeries with their respective grooms, Antonio despairingly states, "I am th'unhappy subject of these quarrels". Even at the end, when in barely passing mention Portia informs Antonio of the favorable fate of his merchant fleet, he simply thanks her and falls silent once more. No customary "happy ending" awaits Antonio at the end of the play, as it does the rest of the Christians in Venice.
The argument against Merchant's comedic nature loses sight of the parts of the play which do fit Shakespeare's customary pattern. Bassanio and Portia, the subjects of Merchant's other major plot, do experience the happy ending fit for a Shakespearean comedic hero and heroine, and are at the center of the magic circle at the end. Their meeting and marriage in Belmont traces a fairy-tale-like path through the minefield of disputes over Portia's father's conditions for her marriage. Bassanio's almost whimsical (but successful) attempt at the three chests is a fantastical, romantic tale which plays itself out far removed from the troubles in Venice. When those characters return to the city, that magical, fantastic atmosphere comes with them, providing for Antonio's sudden rescue by the wily Portia and Nerissa. Both of these women from Belmont fit Shakespeare's common "strong woman" archetype, which he uses in other comedies (like Viola in Twelfth Night). The magic circle does form around most of the protagonists, and Shakespeare throws six bachelor characters at each other and ends up with three married couples with the full intention of living happily ever after.