The Role of Women in Shakespeares Merchant of Venice

A detailed Summary of The Role of Women in Shakespeares Merchant of Venice


In Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, there are many controversies over religion and friendship, but the idea of the play that interested me the most was the role of women. The two women that are in this play take on the role of the saviors of the men who seem helpless and hopeless compared to them.

From the first time we meet Portia, we see that she is a very smart woman and that she is looking for a man that has more thoughts in his head than those of money and beauty. She and Nerissa talk of the stupidity of all her suitors and it is very clear that she is looking for a respectable man who will love her for who she is and not for her money. This separates her from the men from the beginning. All the comments that she makes about the men put her on a pedestal compared to them. Just by speaking of men this way she shows that she is just smarter than they are. "God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but he!" (Act I. Scene ii. 56-58). The scenes in which she meets with the suitors to choos


Another show of her dominance in this play is the entire last scene. The trick that she and Nerissa pull on Bassanio and Gratiano makes the men look like idiots compared to the women. As the men are trying to plead with the women to forgive them, the women are laughing internally because they both know that they have the rings and that they are intentionally causing the men grief: "Now by mine honor which is yet mine own,/ I'll have that doctor for my bedfellow" (V.i.248-49). She says these things intentionally to make him feel bad only to take out the ring and make him feel silly.

The thing that really got me onto this topic is that Portia saved Antonio's life. She came to the court in disguise and used her knowledge to save him. The fact that she did this is amazing. First, she had the idea to dress up and go save them in the court when I would think that women in Shakespeare plays usually do not have the intelligence or the initiative to do something like that. She arrives in the court like a king would arrive in his kingdom. And laid down the

Some common words found in the essay are:
Act Scene, Merchant Venice, Bassanio Gratiano, Venice IVi361-63, Tarry Jew/, Portia Nerissa, choose caskets, suitors choose caskets, laws venice, suitors choose, shakespeare play, play role,

Approximate Word count = 717
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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