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The Cost of Comedy: Or, Equity Strained

Explore the complex themes of wealth, marriage, and equity in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice." Delve into the implications of money, love, and mercy within a cultural context where human worth is quantified.

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The Cost of Comedy: Or, Equity Strained

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  1. The Cost of Comedy: Or, Equity Strained Cat Zusky May 24, 2007

  2. The system of civilized wealth (mercenary exchange) and its discontent • The system of marriage (social exchange) and its discontent • The Trial Scene- Is there mercy? • What is the ultimate COST of comedy?

  3. Civilized Wealth and its Discontents • TheMerchant of Venice exhibits the beneficence of civilized wealth, the something-for-nothing which wealth gives to those who use it graciously to live together in a human-knit community. • Commercial Venice as a prototype of cultured prosperity

  4. The first two scenes, though seemingly incidental talk, establish the gracious, opulent world of the Venetian gentlemen and of the "lady richly left" at Belmont. As we discussed in the first lecture, Antonio generously opens his "purse" and "person" to Bassanio, money is necessary for Bassanio's pursuit of his love interest (Portia), human relationships rely upon the graciousness of monetary exchange. • see Salerio, 1.1.8-14 (Page 3) • see Salerio 1.1.29-36 (Page 4) • Love=money, money=risk, risk=anxiety

  5. The Discontent • In the first scene, though Shylock is not in question yet, the anxiety that dogs sociable wealth is suggested. • Shylock is the "stony adversary" they fear (Duke, 4.1.4) • pages 14-15; 1.3.1-27; Film clip of Lawrence Olivier as Shylock (1973; set in Edwardian London)

  6. Shylock identifies holes in Antonio’s financial plan: • Foolish speculation • Fallibility of ships and of men • Nature • Thieves • Shylock's "stony," mechanistic view of wealth and human relations, as well as his refusal to take risks, are what most distinguish him from the Christians of the play.

  7. BUT Shylock also embodies anxieties within this culture about money: about its impersonality as well as about its power to breed unsociably and set men at odds. After all: • Shylock and Antonio seek profit • Both Antonio and Bassanio need Shylock’s money • Both Shylock and Portia equate their marriage partners with possessions (rings), echoing the repeated conflation of love and money

  8. This quantification of human worth has a long tradition in Western Civilization, pagan and Christian: • Roman Law - creditors could claim the body of a defaulting debtor and divide it among themselves • Anglo-Saxon wergild (payment to kinsmen for killing one of their kin); modern-day life insurance • Contemporary civil law cases: • -September 11 deaths

  9. In effect, then, Shylock, while the opposite of what the Venetians are, is at the same time troublingly like them. • hence Olivier's skullcap lies hidden under his Edwardian top hat

  10. In effect, then, Shylock, while the opposite of what the Venetians are, is at the same time troublingly like them: • hence the Puritan connection in Macklin's costume and Shylock's speech might well elicit sympathy from Shakespeare's audience

  11. In effect, then, Shylock, while the opposite of what the Venetians are, is at the same time troublingly like them: • hence also the uncanny similarity between the skullcap Macklin toted and the skullcap of another Christian group, Roman Catholic cardinals: for example, Cardinal Thomas Winning

  12. In this light, the play may not at all be about Jew versus Christian but--in more ways than one--Christian versus Christian. • Shylock seems to point out the very contradictions and anxieties inherent in the Venetian system of value. • Shylock threatens Venetian civilized wealth and festivity, and as such must be faced and defeated.

  13. Marriage as Exchange and its Discontent: • Bassanio's conquest of and marriage to Portia represents a parallel system of exchange, a financial endeavor (funded by Antonio and by extension, Shylock) to risk his fortunes (emotional, financial) in "winning" Portia • Casket test = the father’s “will” • Bassanio’s financial gain

  14. Portia as DISCONTENT • See 1.2.1-26 PAGE 10-11 • Portia’s vow: “If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as/ chaste as Diana unless I be obtained by the manner/ of my father’s will” (1.2.105-107). • After Bassanio wins the casket test, Portia accepts him as “her lord, her governor, her king” (3.2. 165). PAGE 56-57

  15. Three Happy Couples? • Letter from Venice- reminder of Shylock, “every word in it a gaping wound” (3.2.265). • Shylock as threat/discontent within mercenary world AND world of marriage, two worlds that are inextricably linked in this play

  16. The Trial Scene: Equity Strained • A boiler room! • Shylock feels justified in keeping the word of the bond • PORTIA: “Then must the Jew be merciful.” • SHYLOCK: “On what compulsion must I? Tell me that.” • PORTIA: “The quality of mercy is not strained.” (4.1.180-182).

  17. Portia ruthlessly turns the rigor of the law against Shylock • Based on a quibble • Portia instructs Shylock to “beg mercy of the Duke.” • Antonio only pledges to restore half of Shylock’s goods after Shylock’s death and further stipulates that: • All Shylock’s remaining goods go to Jessica and Lorenzo upon his death • Shylock converts to Christianity

  18. This is not unconstrained, but CONSTRAINED mercy • FILM CLIP: Michael Radford 2004 (with Al Pacino)- trial scene.

  19. Where’s the mercy? • Could Antonio have felt “merciful” in his concern for Shylock’s soul? • Does the word of the law have any breathing room? • Does Portia practice what she preaches?

  20. Outcomes • Shylock stripped and forced to “convert” • What happened to Portia’s “conversion”? • Portia as hero, arbiter of justice, hinge upon which decisions are made • She reveals her role as Balthazar, gives the ring back to Bassanio, everything is forgiven???

  21. New anxieties and ambivalences arise: • Bassanio and Gratiano, having been tricked into breaking their marriage oaths not to part with their rings, are exposed by Portia and Nerissa as unfaithful once they return home • Portia’s jokes about laying with the doctor: the threat of cuckoldry and the power to humiliate • Does Portia regain control as “queen o’er” herself? • A melancholy and taint hovers over the final act- FILM CLIP from Olivier of our return to Belmont in Act 5.

  22. What is the cost of comedy?IT’S ALL RELATIVE: • Jessica and Lorenzo banter about traitorous lovers and accuse themselves of the same (5.1.1-25) • To succeed in marriage is to open a new set of anxieties about cuckoldry and control • love=$=risk=anxiety=love • What happens to Antonio? Is he just the “tainted wether of the flock” (4.1.114)? • Shylock is expelled: Jews who are opposites of Christians are in certain lights just like them. Do defeat the Jew is to defeat a part of yourself • Four versions of the ending

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