1. Klassen 1
Corinn Klassen
ENGL 4476
Professor Jacob Claflin
12/3/2016
Shylock’s Historical Progression from Villain to Victim
Stereotyping is a construct of society’s need to label in order to make them feel better
about themselves. Just one horrible consequence of this need to stereotype is, in the act of
labeling, to lower the people who are different from the norm to an “other” or marginalized
group, stuck on the outskirts of what is deemed accepted by popular belief. The act of pushing
people who are different from the norm to the margins of society has become more and more
recognized today, but in all actuality it has been prevalent since before the time period of
Christ’s crucifixion in the Bible. Among the many types of labels society has decided to impose
on certain races, genders, and religions, there are not many stereotypes more abhorrently
blatant—not to mention still widely held—than that of the Jewish peoples. The stereotype of the
evil, money-hungry and sacrilegious Jew has origins in certain ideologies of thought that have
progressed over time through popular storytelling and myths that people accept simply because
they are popular belief. The Christian belief that the Jews killed Christ in the story of crucifixion
in the Bible, as well as the later rise of Christianity in Europe, especially contributed to popular
hatred for the Jews. This same kind of popular belief is exactly what has marginalized certain
races, classes, and genders through the ages in people believed to be the “other;” that is, not
upper class, male, white, and Christian. This is exactly the type of thinking that Postcolonialism

2. Klassen 2
and Critical Race theory seek to explain by looking from the perspective of marginalized society
and investigating the societal ideologies that have contributed to that marginalization. In addition
to drawing from certain concepts of Postcolonialism, a discussion of “ideology” would not be
complete without certain theories from contemporary Marxism, including Louis Althusser’s
theory of the ideological state apparatus, which can be used to explain the continuation of the
stereotypes that marginalize certain groups of people; specifically, the Jews. The ideological
state apparatus can be used to explain how Jews—specifically, Shylock—have been
marginalized to the “other” by showing how society buys in to popular belief without
questioning the validity to the origins of those beliefs. The ideology surrounding society’s
tendency to place marginalized races and religions in the category of the “other” illuminates how
Shylock in Merchant of Venice has been received by people over the centuries, in determining
whether to deem him villain or victim.
The character of Shylock in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice seems to have been
shaped by the embodiment of Renaissance stereotypes of Jews, drawing from other plays and
characters that fully exemplify the greedy and evil Jew of lore such as Barabas in Marlowe’s The
Jew of Malta, as well as the bloodthirsty Jew in Giovanni Fiorentino’s play Il Pecorone, which
Merchant of Venice is said to be based upon. However, Shylock complicates these stereotypes in
many ways that other plays about Jews from the same time period do not. The way in which
audiences have perceived Shylock’s character through time has changed based upon the shifting
ideologies of society. Where he may have been considered an evil villain from the sixteenth
century on through the nineteenth century, the postmodern society of today sees Shylock as more
of a victim of the extremely unjust treatment caused by that society’s overwhelming hatred for
the entire Jewish nation and their religion. I maintain that Althusser’s theory of the ideological

3. Klassen 3
state apparatus, as well as the Postcolonial and Critical Race theory concepts of the “other” and
essentialization of races and religions help to demonstrate how society’s shifting views on
Shylock, from villain to victim, are shaped by the changing societal ideologies which inform
popular belief about marginalized races.
Critical Race theory and contemporary Marxism work to explicate this change in
society’s view of Shylock by creating the ideologies that carry on essentialization of particular
races of people on the margins of that society. In order to fully explain this, one must be clear on
the definitions of these various ideas. First, Althusser explains ideology as “the imaginary
relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence” an unconscious process that
subjects individuals to society’s unspoken rubric. Given this definition, an ideological state
apparatus could then be defined as a system which recruits its subjects unconsciously into an
action or belief which they imagine they have chosen themselves, when in all actuality that
system has chosen said beliefs for them (Parker 234). Not only does this relate to the hatred of
Shylock in Merchant of Venice with Antonio and other’s subjugation to the rubric of society’s
norm for hating Jews, but it also relates to society’s view of Jews throughout history.
Stories have been carried on through history regarding the Jews as a lesser, “other”
people whose past consists of a series of blaming acts which people then believe and tell to
others. In fact, Sinsheimer states in his book Shylock: The History of a Character that “Up (until
the Crusades) the history of the Jews knew nothing of accusations of ritual murder or profanation
of the Host, and very little of the Jewish usurer” (Sinsheimer 32-33). After the Crusades, the
Jews were made to pay for said “profanation of the Host” by enduring massacres in great
numbers “especially near the Rhine, on the Crusaders’ route to the East…(the Crusaders)…made
the agency of the Jews, hitherto so important, of negligible value” (Sinsheimer 33). From then

4. Klassen 4
on, the Jews were made to be a part of lesser society, whose only way to make a living was that
of the illegal act of usury.
If one were to ask what is the most common thing assumed about the Jews, it would
probably be that of the money-hungry, greedy, and stingy usurer which we see played out with
the character of Shylock. However, what many do not know is that the Jews were forced into
their position as usurers and pawnbrokers because they had little other way to make money, and
were unable to own their own land. “The uncertainty of [the Jews’] own position led them to
invest in securities that could most easily be carried away in the event of persecution—namely,
money and jewels” (Sinsheimer 33). The persecution of the Jews as usurers is similar to that of
prostitutes, and indeed in early modern England practicing usury was likened to the practice of
prostitution, both in degree of punishment and in the disdain of the general populace for such an
action. James Shapiro states in his book Shakespeare and the Jews “If early modern English
writers came to recognize that illicit and unproductive usury, like illicit and nonreproductive sex,
could not be eliminated from society, they also understood that the blame could nonetheless be
projected onto those who provided the service rather than those who sought it out” (Shapiro 99).
Shylock is a product of this kind of disdain likened to that of prostitution. He is shunned from
regular society and his services are rendered in secrecy. He is shamed and spit upon for his
money-lending by Antonio, yet he provides a service which the populace is still willing to take
advantage of. Not only does this binary demonstrate the two-sided point of view in early modern
society of the Jewish population, it is an explanation for the changing perspective on Shylock’s
character as ideologies on racial discrimination change through time. This is not to say that
racism no longer exists today, and Shylock can no longer be considered villainous. Only that,
through areas of study such as Contemporary Marxism, such discrimination is now finally being

5. Klassen 5
brought to the light of regular study and exposition, and Shylock’s villainy can be illuminated
through the realization of the ideological state apparatus, which forces people to believe a racial
stereotype like the moneygrubbing Jew, and consequently helps to show how society’s ideas
about Shylock have shifted. Instead of being viewed only as bloodthirsty villain, Shylock’s
actions can now be viewed as just in understanding the unjust essentialization of his people.
In the same vein as Althusser’s ideological state apparatus, an additional term that must
be defined in order to further analyze Shylock’s character is “internalized racism.” This term
describes when a person is made to believe essentialist assumptions about their own identity
because others impose those ideologies on them. This definition aptly describes Shylock’s
enacting a certain amount of villainy over Antonio with his cruel demand for a pound of flesh.
As Sinsheimer states, “Those who know themselves to be damned irrevocably cannot be
expected to be angels” (Sinsheimer 32). It is no wonder that Shylock develops aggression toward
Antonio, who spits on him and calls him a dog on more than one occasion. The idea of
internalized racism leads to another similar Marxist ideology of “interpellation,” which “is the
process of being passively, unconsciously drawn into dominant social assumptions” (Parker
234). As one can tell, these ideas point to very similar ways of thinking, both connected strongly
to the bonds of the racist ideologies that have subjected Jews to unjustified hatred for centuries.
The development of the hatred of the Jews has advanced since the Crusades to create an
extremely long-lasting stereotype, which is still implicit to an extent even today. The Crusaders
truly believed that, because the Jews acted differently and obviously worshiped a god other than
their own, then it is most likely the Devil that they are worshiping (Sinsheimer 31). The case can
then be made that, because the Jews were always a mysterious minority, the majority began to
embellish the myths about them that created the stereotypes that are still known today. Such is

6. Klassen 6
the case throughout history, as is shown in Postcolonial theory, that the white European man
upholds himself in the elite status of the one who knows best, and marginalizes the rest of the
population who fail to uphold some aspect of his beliefs. Perhaps some of the worst myths
circulated about the Jews were that of poisoning the wells during the Great Plague (Sinsheimer
34-35). This myth was rooted in the fear generated by the Plague in those who wished to blame
their tragedy on something tangible. However, there is no known proof that the Jews were ever
guilty of such a crime, “This monster lie absorbs all lesser lies and transforms them into a
sentence imposed by the highest and most unapproachable authority—namely, the
mythological—and ingrained in the consciousness of the populace and the peoples” (Sinsheimer
35). Many other assumptions about the Jews were rooted in the origins of fear and ignorance,
and have been carried on through history by way of storytelling, projecting and recreating the
stereotype in the mind of all who hears.
The representation of Jews over the years by way of storytelling in plays, books, and oral
folktales has done much in the way of carrying on the villainous and evil Jew stereotype. Indeed,
some of the most prominent plays which have carried on such essentialist ideas about Jews are
those which Shylock’s character was based upon. The Jew of Malta by Marlowe is one of these,
and in it is depicted Barabas, the ultimate evil Jew who no one could aptly claim to be much of a
victim due to his villainous acts. Rather, he exemplifies all that is assumed to be evil about the
Jews. One of his most famous speeches goes, “As for myself, I walk abroad a-nights | And kill
sick people groaning under walls: | Sometimes I go about and poison wells” (2.3.177-179). If this
is Marlowe reproducing a popular fantasy, he creates a strong case of interpellation for those
who see the character of Barabas and assume that he is exemplifying “true” Jewish actions. The
similarities between Barabas and Shylock are quite a few; namely, they both have daughters

7. Klassen 7
whom they are tormented by due to the daughters’ conversion to Christianity, and they are both
witty characters who seem to dominate their plays while still acting the villainous part. “The Jew
of Malta offered Shakespeare the precedent of a Jew who was articulate, who dominated the
action, who had his own point of view and his own grievances” (Gross 20). However, the two
characters’ difference lies in the fact that the evilness of Shylock’s character is much more
justifiable. One is able to see how he is victimized when Antonio entreats him for the loan which
he is to give to Bassanio, and he replies:
Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys and my usances.
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
For suff’rance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me misbeliever, cutthroat dog,
And spet upon my Jewish gaberdine (MV 1.3.103-109)
To the society of Early Modern England, Antonio would have had every right to spit on such an
infidel as Shylock, whom they would have seemingly believed to worship the Devil, force-
circumcise children, poison wells, and cheat people of their money. These assumptions about
Jews may have been more popularly believed in Shakespeare’s day; however, in today’s day and
age when more people are aware of the lies used to marginalize Jews, Shylock emerges a victim
of an unjust system and a victim of interpellation in the evolution of a stereotype carried on
through storytelling.
As James Shapiro so aptly states, “Storytelling has important consequences for how a
culture imagines itself in the act of imagining others” (Shapiro 91). Storytelling is truly one of

8. Klassen 8
the most important ways through which popular knowledge and history is carried on through
time. Without the human tendency to come up with oral folk tales and carry them on through
generations, many wonderful stories told in the comfort of the home would not be known to us
today. Unfortunately, storytelling also carries on popular myths which many assume to be true,
such as the case with the Jews. The way which Jewish characters have been translated by actors
on the stage is another example of how essentialization of the Jew has progressed in history.
Such choices in translation of the characters by the actors most likely had much to do with the
reason Shylock was perceived as decidedly villain, rather than victim, for many years. In 1775
Charles Macklin portrayed Shylock on stage as a man who “suffices to awaken at once, in the
best regulated mind, all the prejudices of childhood against this (the Jewish) people,” which
certainly begs the question “what effect this early exposure to myths of Jewish villainy has had
upon the English psyche” (Shapiro 89). Associating Jews with the Devil was common by this
time, as stated earlier, simply because the Jews purportedly do not believe the same things as the
Christians. This unjustified association occurs visually in many depictions of Shylock in various
performances of Merchant of Venice. As John Gross states, “To an Elizabethan audience, the
fiery red wig that [Shylock] almost certainly wore spelled out his ancestry even more insistently
than anything that was actually said. It was the same kind of wig that had been worn by
Marlowe’s Barabas, and before that by both Judas and Satan in the old mystery plays” (Gross
27). Surely the way which Shylock’s character is depicted, as well as depictions of other Jewish
characters from the time period, serves to support such an ideological state apparatus as
believing the Jews worshiped the Devil. The hatred for the Jews already felt in the minds and
hearts of the English people is re-integrated into popular belief in seeing Shylock enact such a
devilish role.

9. Klassen 9
Of all the arguments in favor of Shylock as a ruthless villain and un-deserving of pity, it
seems that Shylock’s demand for a “pound of flesh” from Antonio is the most widely used as
evidence of his cruelty. However, there is much history in this phrase, and it may be that such a
demand does not have the malice behind it which one may first assume. To start, as was stated
previously, Merchant of Venice closely resembles a handful of other plays, and some to such an
extent that it can be supposed Shakespeare directly based Merchant of Venice off of them. One
of these plays is The Jew of Malta by Marlowe, mentioned earlier, and another one of these is Il
Pecorone, “The Simpleton,” the tale of Giannetto. Il Pecorone is an Italian collection of plays
from the fourteenth-century. “The Simpleton” follows nearly the exact same plotline as
Merchant of Venice, and especially so in the “pound of flesh” scene (Gross 15-16). Shakespeare
deepens the plot considerably in Merchant of Venice from this original story. Most significantly
however, is a further adaptation thought to be taken from Il Pecorone, found in the biography of
Pope Sixtus V and written by Gregorio Leti, who was known for his misinterpretations of history
in favor of the person whose history he was telling (in this case, the Pope) (Sinsheimer 75). In
the biography, Leti comes up with an anecdote glorifying the just-ness of the pope, in which
describes the following scenario: Sir Francis Drake was said to have conquered San Domingo,
and a Christian (named Secchi) and a Jew (named Ceneda) argued until the latter wagered a
pound of flesh that the news was false. When Secchi found out he was right, he demanded flesh
from the Jew. The whole matter was settled when the case was brought before Pope Sixtus who
declared that Secchi must not cut a whit more or less than a pound, or otherwise be hanged
(Sinsheimer 75-76). This scenario is particularly significant because the role between the Jew
and the Christian is switched, and it is the Christian who demands flesh from the Jew. Not only
does this place the Jew in a distinctly victimized category rather than the villain, but it also

10. Klassen 10
shows that the history of the pound of flesh fable is not distinctly in favor of the Christians or the
Jews; rather, it can be thought of as a way of expressing the gravity and seriousness of such a
deal.
In looking more deeply into the play itself, the instance of the pound of flesh connects
with a term defined earlier: internalized racism. Looking at these together brings new light to
Shylock’s motives, thereby also shedding light on what could have been Shakespeare’s purposes
in writing a play that has provoked such controversy through the ages (even though there is no
way of really knowing Shakespeare’s true intentions.) In order to further understand the
juxtaposition of Shylock as villain or victim, one must question his intentions behind demanding
the pound of flesh from Antonio. One answer which would most likely be assumed by anti-
Semitists is that all Jews are inherently greedy for money and bloodthirsty against all Christians.
This is the only answer they would need, with no further question. However, in asking that same
question through the lens of what is known today about internalized racism and the effect of
ideological state apparatuses, the answer could then be that Shylock is only going after Antonio’s
pound of flesh because he has internalized what society expects from Jews, and therefore enacts
the very ideology that he feels victimized by. The way that Shakespeare re-creates the classic
bloodthirsty Jew into a character much more complicated and justifiable in his actions provides
evidence that perhaps even Shakespeare could have been questioning the ideological state
apparatus of hatred for Jews in his day. A specific piece of evidence for this is when Shylock
refuses the immense amounts of money offered him and demands the pound of flesh instead as
justice for Antonio’s ill-treatment of him: a very uncharacteristic action for the stereotypically
greedy Jew. “If every ducat in six thousand ducats | Were in six parts, and every part a ducat, | I
would not draw them. I would have my bond” (MV 4.1.85-87). By doing this, Shylock is in a

11. Klassen 11
way casting off his stereotyped role, consequently leaving a bad taste in the mouths of audiences
who observe the injustice of Shylock’s treatment throughout the play.
The way that Shylock is treated in The Merchant Venice does not seem to provoke much
empathy from modern English society, who, for the most part, would have been happy at his
forced conversion to Christianity and thought he got what he deserved in the other characters’
terrible treatment of him. Even though during the Elizabethan era the Jews were banished from
England, there were plenty of usurers during a time in which usury was extremely frowned upon
(Grebanier 87). This would have added even more contempt for the character of Shylock in a
stage production of Merchant of Venice in the Elizabethan era. In fact, because the audience may
not have been familiar with many Jewish people in their lifetime, they would have had even
further cause to believe whatever stereotypes that they were fed about them. However,
perception by the audience of Merchant of Venice seems to have changed significantly after
World War II and the Holocaust. Indeed, society’s view of Jews as a whole became significantly
transformed as they felt empathy and pity for the millions of slaughtered Jewish people—people
who were slaughtered because of the very reason that Shylock was so hated: society’s own racial
intolerance.
In conclusion, by looking through the open-minded lens of Postcolonial studies and
Critical Race theory, along with that of contemporary Marxism, one is enabled by using the
concepts of the ideological state apparatus, internalized racism, and the Postcolonial idea of the
“other” to perceive Shylock in a new and objective light. This light allows the character of
Shylock to be free from the stereotypes caused by society’s interpellation and ideological state
apparatuses, and values his character as a piece of art which still continues to perplex and disturb
readers centuries after Shakespeare’s time. Because of the changing ideologies in society over

12. Klassen 12
the years, including evolving views of race, the character of Shylock the Jew conjures up a much
different picture in the minds of today’s postmodern society as opposed to Shakespeare’s
Elizabethan society. Scholars today seem to encourage people to question everything regarding
popularly accepted belief, and to consistently interrogate our own selves in to how we know
what we know. Because of this, the character of Shylock is able to evolve into a character much
too complex to be known as a “villain.” As stated in Alan Dessen’s essay “The Elizabethan
Stage Jew,” “Perhaps another reason for the discomfort caused by Shylock is our own
unconscious awareness of our own failure to answer [Shakespeare’s challenge against Christian
hypocrisy and complacency]” (Dessen 245). Society’s hypocrisy and complacency as a whole is
challenged when one looks into the terrible treatment of a very complex and changing character
such as Shylock. By looking at past prejudices through the eyes of a Jew, we see internalized
racism, interpellation of ideology, and racial prejudice as a mirror of today’s society. It is, then,
in recognizing these malpractices that one can discover the true character of Shylock.

13. Klassen 13
Bibliography
Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” Literary Theory: An Anthology
2nd Ed., edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan, Blackwell Publishing, 2004, pp. 693-
702. Print.
Dessen, Alan C. “The Elizabethan Stage Jew and Christian Example: Gerontus, Barabas, and
Shylock.” Modern Language Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 3, 1974. PDF.
Grebanier, Bernard. The Truth About Shylock. New York: Random House, 1962. Print.
Gross, John. Shylock: A Legend and Its Legacy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. Print.
Marlowe, Christopher. The Jew of Malta. The Complete Plays. Penguin Books, 2003, pp. 241-
338. Print.
Parker, Robert. How to Interpret Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Print.
Sinsheimer, Hermann. Shylock: The History of a Character. New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc.,
1968. Print.
Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice. New York: Signet Classics, 1965. Print.
Shapiro, James. Shakespeare and the Jews. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. Print.

14. Klassen 14