The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare. The main characters in The Merchant of Venice are men, the only woman in the play being Portia who lives in Belmont and who has no lines. The female characters in The Merchant of Venice provide mostly love interests for male leads and they seem to lack individuality. The story behind The Merchant Of Venice is that a rich man called Antonio borrows money from Shylock, The Merchant Of Venice’s Jewish-American character.
The Merchant of Venice follows two plots: The first plot deals with Antonio and Shylock’s struggle, while The Second Plot has Portia trying to get Bassanio (a man) to love her by disguising herself as a boy and entering an arranged marriage. The characters in The Merchant of Venice are beautifully crafted and each one serves its purpose to the play; however, there is very little about the female characters worth noting.
The female characters in The Merchant Of Venice seem almost like props; ‘woman’ should be included in the keywords because it would seem unnatural not to include it [additionally, you could include ‘female characters’ as a seperate keyword]. The female characters are given little development and the only thing they contribute to The Merchant Of Venice is love interest.
The female characters that do have dialogue share a few lines together, but apart from that, The Merchant of Venice seems to lack strong female leads – something Shakespeare has addressed in his other plays which feature intelligent women such as Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing and Rosalind from As You Like It. The strongest female character in The Merchant of Venice is Portia who disguises herself as Balthazar so she can enter an arranged marriage with Bassanio because he cannot pick between three caskets. The female characters in The Merchant Of Venice serve their purpose perfectly The female characters are used to supply love interest for male leads, The Merchant of Venice’s main focus is the romance between Bassanio and Portia.
The female characters in The Merchant Of Venice can be described as almost props, they do not have much development and seem more like objects rather than individuals. The female characters serve their purpose well but are nothing special. The female characters would have had little impact on The Merchant Of Venice had Shakespeare not created them because The Merchant of Venice seems less about its women and more about the relationships between men.
Shakespeare has addressed this issue before in his other plays where he features strong-willed women who stand up for themselves such as Beatrice from Much Ado About and Rosalind from As You Like It. The female characters in The Merchant Of Venice are necessary to the plot of The Merchant of Venice but they do not have much development and lack individuality which is something Shakespeare has addressed in his other plays. The female characters do their job perfectly, however there is nothing special about them, they can be described as almost props or objects rather than individuals.
The play The Merchant of Venice is more focused on the relationships between men than perhaps it should be, therefore The Merchant Of Venice would be less effective if Shakespeare did not include female characters. The strongest female character in The Merchant of Venice is Portia who disguises herself as Balthazar so she can get Bassanio to love her by entering an arranged marriage with him because he cannot pick between three caskets. The female characters are nothing special but they serve their purpose perfectly, The Merchant of Venice would be less effective without them.
Shakespeare uses The Merchant Of Venice’s women to supply love interest for male leads, The Merchant of Venice’s main focus is the romance between Bassanio and Portia. The female characters lack development and seem more like objects rather than individuals which The Merchant Of Venice would not be as effective if it were not for these two things because The Merchant of Venice focuses more on the relationships between men than perhaps it should. The female characters do what they are expected to do perfectly, however, there is nothing special about them, they can be described as almost props or objects rather than individuals.
The main character in the play is Antonio, who is a young merchant of Venice. The action takes place in Venice between November and February during which period three different women play significant roles in his life. The two servants are also very important to the story because they not only help Antonio but also influence his decisions throughout the book. The play alludes to the international trade that took place during this time period.
The primary theme seems to be identity since it appears that Antonio’s personality changes many times through out the book after he commits himself to certain visions or plans for his future business prospects . Woman characters in The Merchant of Venice are the women in the life of Antonio. The primary female character is Portia, who is a wealthy woman living in Belmont. The second female character is Nerissa, also known as Jessica, who helps get Antonio out of debt by eloping with Lorenzo and taking Shylock’s money with her.
The last female character is Shylock’s daughter, Jessica. These three women play different roles throughout The Merchant of Venice . The main role that each one of them plays seems to be that they either save Antonio or help him get out of his debt. – Portia saves him because he owes so much money to various people including Antonio’s friend Bassanio who is in love with Portia’s hand maid named Nerissa (Jessica) . The way Antonio gets out of his debt is by winning a special, or odd, court case in which he has to retrieve a casket from the sea and pick it up without looking inside.
The one who retrieves this casket will be allowed to marry Portia. The twist is that there are three different caskets: gold, silver and lead. The person that gets the right casket will get Portia’s hand in marriage. – Nerissa (Jessica) , Jessica helps him get out of his debt by eloping with Lorenzo and taking Shylock’s money with her. The reason they do this is that Jessica tricks Shylock into thinking she wants to convert to Christianity so that he will allow her to marry Lorenzo. The plan works and the newlyweds elope leaving Shylock with his daughter but no money to give Antonio.
The way that they leave the city is because the Duke decides to forgive all of those who owe Shylock money if they convert. – The last female character is Jessica, Shylock’s daughter. The only thing she does in The Merchant of Venice is help convince her father not to take all of Antonio’s property after he sues for three times the amount owed. Why she helps him is because he saved her life when she was about to be married off by her father to a man she hated named Gobbo (he was kind of deformed).
