Weekly ELA Blog Post #17

In this blog post I'd like to write about something I didn't get a chance to discuss before: how willing Portia was to leave Basssanio's choice up to luck. It seems odd that while she was fine using tricks to fool other suitors into choosing the wrong chest, like placing wine on top of one to tempt a suitor, dhe did no such thing to help Bassanio. Surely there were ways she could have swayed his choice towards the right chest, so the question is: did it not occur to her, or did she believe in Bassanio to choose right? While thinking about this, I realized something. It seems clear, as demonstrated throughout the story, Portia is cunning enough to get her way and not willing to break some rules to get it. I figure that Portia knew she could help Bassanio, but was testing him, because she wanted to be sure he really had what it took to choose right. This would make sense, too, considering it's not the only time she tried to test him, there was also the time she tried to get him to break a promise to her.  This is very interesting to me, because it seems to show that as much as she says she knows Bassanio is the one for her, perhaps she's not that sure, and feels she needs to make sure he's right for her.

Weekly ELA Blog Post #16

In the Merchant of Venice, the character Shylock recieves a harsh punishment for conspiring to murder a Venician citizen. As a modern reader, I find it hard to say his punishment, having to give away half his money to Antonio and promise the rest of it to his daughter upon death, should have been harsher or lighter. I'd say instead it seems it should have been different entirely. Ignoring the absurdity of the court deciding not to take its cut of his money and not to consider the death penalty, I just don't think the punishment was right. As bad as it all seems, Shylock really didn't do anything wrong in his eyes. Surely Antonio could have put something other than his own flesh up as collateral.  Also, its clear the court was very biased against Shylock as a Jew. The way I see it, Elizabethian readers who happened to be anti-Semitic would say his punishment should have been harsher, but those who didn't hate Jewish people probably would have agreed the results of this court case were absurd. After all, this book was written to grab reader's attention and be interesting, not detail a real court case that the author thought was fair. I'd think that as a good author, he probably made the case in the story controversial because that would spark discussion about the book.

Weekly ELA Blog #15

I recently read Act 3 of The Merchant of Venice. In it, Shylock gave a short speech to prove Jews are equal to Christians. This seems odd, seeing as there was such strong anti-Semitism in Shakespeare's time. It seems, though, that this is not Shakespeare trying to make a case in defense of Jews. Rather, it seems he just meant to give the villain a good argument. I think he still meant for Shylock to be portrayed as the bad guy. However, he gave Shylock a strong argument because he didn't want one-dimensional characters. When charactets are "good" and "bad" with no motives, the story is often boring.

Weekly ELA Blog Post for week of 1/30

This week, our ELA class started reading Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". There were a lot of interesting characters we were introduced to right off the bat in chapter 1, but the one that stood out to me the most was Portia, the maiden. In my opinion, it was very refreshing to see a woman standing up for herself in an old novel. It was especially interesting seeing as when we look at how Antonio treated Shylock, it seems Shakespeare wasn't afraid to include discrimination in his story. Therefore, the fact that he decided to have Portia actively try to discourage suitors was interesting. Of course, the fact that Bassanio says he loves her adds another interesting twist to the story. It seems like perhaps interactions between the two will later become central to the story. Either way, from her inclusion and role so far, it seems Portia will definitely be a character to follow as the story progresses.