The Merchant of Venice - Form, structure and language - CCEA

Comedy in Shakespeare’s time was something more like a modern audience’s understanding of a rom-com, or romantic comedy – it mostly revolved around love and marriage, with the main characters getting married or at least engaged by the end. Comedies often began with a problem (such as Portia’s casket riddle and Bassanio’s money worries) and ended with a happy resolution. Disguise and confusion would also be involved, and these elements can be seen in The Merchant of Venice.

Shakespeare’s tragedies often centred around the ruin or destruction of a single character who had a fatal flaw, or character trait that ruined them. The character usually began in a strong position, but their fatal flaw combined with the events of the play would lead to his or her downfall.

The Merchant of Venice was first classified as a comedy, but it has tragic elements too – most obviously the downfall of Shylock, who is seen both as a victim of terrible prejudice and as a villain or antagonist. Shakespeare makes Shylock a complex character who is neither all good nor all bad, and the audience may feel sorry for him but also recognise his wrongdoing at the same time. The combination of comic and tragic traits in this play leads many to class it as a tragicomedy.

The play raises many questions about prejudice, justice, mercy and revenge, and it does not offer the audience any easy answers or tell them exactly how to feel about these questions. Because of this, The Merchant of Venice is sometimes referred to as a ‘problem play', where the playwright has highlighted issues to make us think but not included solutions to the problems.

Can you tell comedy from tragedy? Test your knowledge with this quiz…

The play is divided into five acts, although it is probable that Shakespeare himself didn’t organise it in this way for performance and that editors imposed this structure on the play when first publishing it.

This five-act structure is fairly standard for a Shakespearean comedy, starting with exposition introducing the main characters and situation; rising action taking in Portia’s suitors, Jessica’s elopement and the loss of Antonio’s ships at sea; the dramatic climax in which Antonio is arrested and brought to court; the falling action in which Portia saves Antonio by disguising herself as a lawyer and defeating Shylock; and the dénouement or resolution, which restores everything back to order and brings forth a happy ending for most of the characters.

The five-act structure in detail

You will need to comment on language and dramatic methods in your controlled assessment, and analyse how and why they are used. Consider your topic carefully and analyse the most relevant scenes to that topic – below are some more general ideas to help you write meaningfully about the use of language in the play.

The structure of the language simply means the different types of speech used for different characters. The lines of most significant Shakespearean characters are mainly composed in blank verse – unrhymed iambic pentameter. You may be familiar with iambic pentameter from poetry as it is a commonly used poetic metre (arrangement of rhythmic beats). One ‘iamb’ is a two-beat combination: an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed (emphasised) syllable, making a ‘da-DUM’ pattern, like a heartbeat. Pentameter means five of these two-beat units per line, making 10 syllables altogether. Antonio’s first line in the play is an example of this:

|In sooth | I know | not why | I am | so sad |
|da-DUM | da-DUM | da-DUM | da-DUM | da-DUM |

Blank verse was used to show a character of importance and worth and to give weight to significant moments – much of the courtroom speech between Shylock, the Duke, Antonio and Portia uses blank verse to elevate it.

Portia and Nerissa’s dialogue in Act 1, Scene 2 is in prose (unarranged or disorganised rhythms, akin to normal speech), allowing them to show their closeness with informal, familiar chat that allows them both to make witty observations about Portia’s situation.

In this example, prose allows them casual freedom and shows their closeness. Prose is also used for less important characters like Launcelot Gobbo, the former servant of Shylock who goes to work for Antonio.

Can you tell verse from prose in The Merchant of Venice? Test your knowledge with this quiz…

A soliloquy is a speech given by a character which reveals their inner thoughts. It is usually done when the character is alone, or at least speaking in an ‘aside’ that is not overheard by other characters, meaning it is a way of the writer showing the truth of a situation from that character’s perspective. Soliloquys can be important in enabling the audience to see what really motivates the characters. This often helps to create dramatic irony in the play, allowing the audience to see things that the other characters do not – Shylock’s deep dislike of Antonio, for example, which he initially hides when speaking to Antonio directly. Shylock's aside in Act 1, Scene 3 (when Antonio enters and he details his hatred of him) is an important soliloquy in The Merchant of Venice because it helps the audience understand the sinister motive behind his “merry bond” – to get revenge on Antonio. Jessica also gives a pair of short soliloquys during Act 2 to help the audience understand her love for Lorenzo.

Remember a soliloquy is only heard by the audience. There are other examples of important speeches in the play which are monologues – spoken by a single character but heard by one or more of the other characters. Famous monologues in The Merchant of Venice include:

• Shylock’s address to Antonio in Act 1, Scene 3, recounting Antonio’s antisocial and antagonistic behaviour towards Shylock;

You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine

• Shylock’s speech in Act 3, Scene 1, comparing the body and needs of a Jew to those of every other human being;

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,
senses, affections, passions?
…
If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?

• Portia’s courtroom speech on “The quality of mercy” in Act 4, Scene 1.

Don’t confuse soliloquys and monologues!

The main symbols used in the play are the caskets of Portia’s father’s riddle and the rings given by Portia and Nerissa to their husbands Bassanio and Gratiano. The purpose of the caskets seems to be a symbol of the difference between inner reality and outer appearance; only those who understand the value in a casket of humble lead could understand the value of inner beauty, it suggests. The rings represent the traditional elevated and ideal side of marriage – eternal commitment and faith – but are also linked to female genitalia. This is hinted at earlier in the play when the eloped Jessica is said to have traded a ring she stole from Shylock for a pet monkey and is shown again in the final scene when Portia and Nerissa pretend to have slept with the lawyer and clerk to regain their rings and when Gratiano makes his final metaphorical joke of the play. This can be seen as a comment on the relationship between human relationships and financial transactions which links into the wider themes of materialism, greed and generosity in the play.

There is a further dimension to the symbolism of rings – the fact Shylock is so upset by the loss of the particular ring Jessica stole, given to him by someone named Leah (presumably his dead wife), adds a human dimension to him – the ring clearly had sentimental value as well as a monetary one, and with the loss of it as well as his daughter, Shylock seems to become ever more isolated, warped by hatred and set on vengeance.

Repetition features heavily in the speeches of Shylock. In earlier scenes, such as when Bassanio keenly discusses the terms of a loan with him, his repetition of Bassanio’s phrases suggests he is thinking carefully over the terms – perhaps even scheming.

Later, he repeats “I will have my bond”, showing his fixation with revenge on Antonio. At the trial, his praise of Portia in disguise as a lawyer – referring to her intelligence and nobility and alluding to the Jewish prophet Daniel, known for his wisdom – uses repetition to show his approval of her judgement when he believes she will get him what he wants. Gratiano also uses repetition when he mockingly repeats Shylock’s own praise of the lawyer when her judgement starts to favour Antonio.

Imagery of demons and evil: The Christians dislike and distrust Shylock as a Jew; he is frequently verbally abused, and when they discuss him, they frequently associate him with the Christian devil and the concept of evil.

• The idea of him as a “misbeliever” and a “faithless Jew” indicates the characters (and indeed most of Shakespeare’s audience) would have believed that any religion aside from Christianity was blasphemous and wrong.
• Shylock is referred to as a “devil”, a “fiend” and an “evil soul” at various points. His disagreement with Antonio over a Bible story leads Antonio to exclaim how “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose!”, suggesting Shylock is not only evil but also misleading and deceptive in using Christian scripture against Christians.
• Later, when Portia’s courtroom speech claims that mercy is like “gentle rain from heaven” and “an attribute to God himself”, it is clear that the ‘merciful’ Christians are associated here with the side of goodness and God; the ‘vengeful’ Jew is suggested to be the opposite.

Imagery of animals: Shylock is frequently dehumanised and metaphorically compared to an animal, most often a dog: “cut-throat dog”, “dog Jew”, “inexecrable dog”.

• Shylock notes that he has been spat on and kicked by Antonio in public as if he were a “stranger cur” or stray dog.
• Later, when he has the power to deny Antonio mercy, he turns Antonio’s slur back on him, saying: “Thou call’dst me dog before thou hadst a cause, / But since I am a dog, beware my fangs.”

As he loses hope during the trial, Antonio calls himself a “tainted wether of the flock”, meaning a castrated and diseased ram ripe for slaughter – this metaphor shows both his sense of hopelessness and an idea that his lack of family or heirs means he is not worth saving in lieu of a young married man like Bassanio.

During the trial, Shylock uses the image of animals and slaves as things Venetians purchase in order to illustrate his ‘ownership’ of Antonio’s life, dehumanising him. He makes a speech in which he explains to the Duke that he intends to pursue his bond against Antonio simply because it is his “humour” or mood; in it he uses the imagery of a “a gaping pig” and “a harmless necessary cat” as creatures a man might hate for no real reason; he is using these examples to associate them with Antonio and further dehumanise and debase him.