Summary The Merchant of Venice Grade 11 (Various textbooks)

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, Table of Contents
Characters ...................................................................................................................................... 2
Themes ........................................................................................................................................... 5
Motifs .............................................................................................................................................. 8
Symbols .......................................................................................................................................... 9
Chapter summary ........................................................................................................................ 10
Additional information ................................................................................................................. 19
Frequently asked questions & answers ..................................................................................... 23




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, Characters
Shylock
 A Jewish moneylender in Venice.
 Angry by his mistreatment by Venice's Christians, notably Antonio, Shylock plots to get
revenge by cruelly demanding a pound of Antonio's flesh as recompense.
 Despite being viewed by the other characters in the play as an inhuman monster, Shylock
occasionally deviates from stereotype and displays himself to be extremely human.
 Shylock is one of Shakespeare's most memorable characters because of his contradictions
and lyrical displays of hatred.

Portia
 Belmont's wealthy heiress.
 Only Portia's intelligence matches her beauty.
 Portia is able to marry her real love, Bassanio, despite being bound by a stipulation in her
father's will that binds her to marry whichever suitor picks correctly from three caskets.
 Portia, disguised as a youthful legal clerk, is by far the most astute of the play's protagonists,
and she is the one who saves Antonio from Shylock's knife.

Antonio
 The merchant who, in his love for his friend Bassanio, signs Shylock's contract and nearly dies.
 Antonio is a mercurial figure, often gloomy for no apparent reason and, as Shylock points out,
possessed of an incorrigible hatred of Jews.
 Nonetheless, Antonio is well-liked by his peers, and he shows mercy to Shylock, albeit on
certain terms.

Jessica
 Jessica, despite being Shylock's daughter, despises life at her father's house and marries
Lorenzo, a young Christian nobleman.
 Her soul's fate is frequently in doubt : the people in the play wonder if her marriage will be able
to transcend the fact that she was born a Jew, and we wonder if her selling of a ring given to
her father by her mother was unduly heartless.

Bassanio
 A Venetian gentleman who is Antonio's kinsman and close friend.
 Bassanio borrows money from Shylock with Antonio as a surety because of his love for the rich
Portia.
 Bassanio, an ineffective businessman, proves himself a respectable suitor by properly
identifying the casket in which Portia's portrait is kept.

Gratiano
 Bassanio's friend who travels with him to Belmont.
 During the trial, Gratiano, a rude and garrulous young man, is Shylock's most vociferous and
caustic critic.
 Gratiano falls in love with and finally marries Portia's lady-in-waiting, Nerissa, while Bassanio
courted her.




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