Thanks to CLIFFS NOTES ON SHAKESPEARE'S MERCHANT OF VENICE

1. DRAMA
The merchant of venice by william shakespeare
PNU | College of Arts | Department of English Language and Literature | Second Year | Drama | Sarabdulaziz

3. The Mid-Term Exam
I - The gold, silver, and lead caskets symbolize certain facts of life. Explain and give
reasons why Portia’s father made it obligatory for suitor to choose correctly before
proposing to his daughter. Also, what positive traits are revealed in Portia?
II - What idea does Bassanio express when he discusses his boyhood experience with his
bow and arrow and why is this idea so relevant to his request to Antonio?
||I - It is surprising that both Antonio and Portia are first introduced to audience as sad
melancholic characters even though they have many privileges in life. Discuss.
Compare between Bassanio’s and Portia’s point view about money with Shylock’s.
both of Bassanio and Portia recognize the necessity money, but neither of them considers
money to be of any value in itself. In their world of romantic and civilized cultivation, they
feel that they don’t need yo be unduly concerned with money. For Shylock the
moneylender, money constitutes his only defense against his oppressors.
Why does Shylock hates Antonio?
at the beginning of the play, he has only two real reasons for hating Antonio -he hates
Antonio because he is a Christian, but more important, he hates Antonio because Antonio
lends money to people without charging interests.
to these is added a shattering personal loss-he has lost his daughter, his only child, to a
Christian, a friend of Antonio- making plausible his implacable desire for revenge against
all Venetian Christians in the person of man whom he has legally concerned: Antonio.
What idea does Shylock express when he told Antonio and Bassanio about the biblical
story of how Jacob increased his herd of sheep?
citing the Book of Genesis, Shylock shows how different interpretations are the basis of his
religious and personal differences with the Christians. The Christians believe that usury is
immoral because it is unnatural to breed money from money. But Shylock interprets the
Bible to say that charging interest is no different that Jacob's breeding of animals, which
Christian law would permit as totally natural.
(Jacob was working as a shepherd for his uncle Laban, He cut a deal with Laban in
which he got to keep any sheep that were born with a “streaked” color. Then he employed
a magic trick to get all the sheep to breed streaked lambs, which he
was, by contract, entitled to keep for himself)
Why is Jessica sad?
she expresses her sorrow that Launcelot decided to leave his position as her father’s
servant. “Our house is hell,” she says.
Why Shylock wants the pound of flesh?
he wants the pound of flesh for no rational reason. He wants it only because of “a lodged
hate and a certain loathing” for Antonio. He reveals clearly that his real motive has nothing
to do with right or wrong, justice or injustice, but with his desire to destroy another human
being -a Christian who has publicly scorned and spit upon him.

4. What do the choice of casket made by the Prince of Morocco show about his fitness to
marry Portia?
Morocco is a straightforward soldier prince and rightly self-assured. He rejects the lead
casket as being not worth the high stakes or which he gambles. He ponders a long time
over the silver casket. The words ‘get as much as he deserves” intrigue him. He is quite
sure that he deserves Portia; he deserves her “in birth,” “in fortune,” “in grace,” “in qualities
of breeding,” and, in most of all, “in love.” Yet, ultimately, he rejects the silver casket
because he refuses to believe that Portia’s father would “immure” a portrait of his
treasured daughter in a metal “ten times undervalued [as] tried gold.” The prince reasons
that a portrait of Portia -a “mortal, breathing saint,” a woman whom “all the world desire” -
could only be within the golden casket. He chooses, therefore, the golden casket, hoping
to find an angel in a golden bed.” But he found the skull and the scroll.
What do the choice of casket made by the Prince of Arragon show about his fitness to
marry Portia?
reviewing the inscriptions, he rejects the lead casket immediately because he thinks that it
is no beautiful enough to give and risk all his possessions for. He also rejects the gold
casket because “what many men desire” may place him on the same level with “the
barbarous multitudes.” He thus chooses the silver casket, which bears the inscription,
“Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.” Arragon reviews his worth and
decides that he “will assume desert” -that is, he feels rightly deserves Portia. When he
opens the silver casket, he finds within a picture of a fool’s head.
A factor that we should be aware of in this entire scene is an absence of any evidence that
Arragon has any love or even any affection, for Portia. Portia is “deserved.” Nowhere can
we discern even an inkling of any craving for her. The prince is rather bloodless.
What do the choice of casket made by Bassanio show about his fitness to marry Portia?
Bassanio rejects the golden casket; it is a symbol for all “outward shows”; likewise, he
rejects the silver casket, calling it a “common drudge/ “Tween man and man.” Yet
Bassanio, who does love Portia, will choose the casket which appears to be the least
valuable; in reality, it will turn out to be the most valuable. Thus the ability to choose and
and to distinguish between what appears to be valuable and what really is valuable
depends not so much on intelligence -Shylock is far more intelligent than Antonio or
Bassanio- but on something deeper and more intangible. In this play, that certain
intangible is love; it is not glory (Morocco), nor nobility of social position (Arragon), nor
wealth (Shylock), but love for another human being, which Bassanio and Portia clearly
offer to one another.