Free Merchant of Venice Essays: The Villainous Shylock :: Merchant Venice Essays

Many people are wicked in the way they act, and their villainous acts may be rooted in the desire to destroy others, or in the hopes of elevating themselves. Many people may only act "villainous" in reaction to the way they have been treated in the past. usurer the Jew is the villain or antagonist in the play The Merchant of Venice. loan shark mistreats Antonio the Christian, his daughter, Jessica and Launcelot.   The first person Shylock mistreats, is Launcelot. He mistreats this servant by live off behind Launcelots back of his laziness. Shylock says, "The patch is kind enough, plainly a huge feeder, Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day More than the wildcat. Drones lay in non with me.. ..His borrowed purse." 1   Shylock alike acts villainous towards Launcelot by performing belligerent towards him."Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call." 2 Shylock mistreats this man because of his poverty, and because Launcelot is soc ially beneath him. You also start to admiration about how fair Shylock is, when Launcelot is deciding whether or not to deviate him.   Shylock also mistreats his own daughter, Jessica. He mistreats her by keeping her as a captive in her own house, not letting her out, and not letting her hear the Christian music around her. He orders her to " run up my doors and when you hear the drum... ..But stop my houses ears-I mean casements. Let not the sound of shallow foppry enter My sober house." 3   Jessica considers her home to be hell, and she calls Launcelot, a "merry little devil". She even states that her father is Satan. Shylock also mistreats his own daughter, by not loving her enough, even to the point where he complains about all of the money hes spending in a hunt club to find her. "Why, there, there, there, there A diamond gone cost me ii thousand ducats in Frankford The curse.. ..ill luck stirring but what lights o my shoulders no sighs but o my breathing no tears but o my shedding."4   Salerio makes the audience rarity about Shylock, when he raves about when Shylock was calling out, "Oh my ducats, my daughter, my ducats, my daughter.