Portia's choices in Th Merchant Of Venice by Shakespeare
I believe that the foolish sense of judgement that both the Prince of Morroco and the Prince of Arragon have, lead them to choose the wrong casket. Portia also played a role in influencing the princes' choices by her manner. How she spoke to them and how she treated them may well have tainted their choices. First, the Prince of Morroco looks over all the inscriptions. After a second looking over, the Prince decides that the lead casket is too threatening and not worth risking Portia's hand in marriage on. He then moves on to the silver casket, but already seems to have his mind made up. This is shown by his comment "A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross" (2.7 line 24). Gold already seems to be his choice. The silver casket, he feels, is too common or lowly of a metal to hold the prize. He then moves on to the gold casket which reads "Who chooseth me shall gain what men desire". He immediately thinks that gold and the desires of men symbolize Portia's beauty. Therefore his "love" for Portia is sensual which is a blind and foolish love since "all that glisters is not
The Prince of Arragon, on the other hand seems very intelligent but proves to be another fool. He immediately passes over the lead casket because of it's ominous warning. He also rejects the gold which he, due to the inscription, believes means that whoever chooses it is ordinary. He is a great man of high status so he does not want what men desire as promised by the gold casket since he "will not jump with common spirits" and be ranked with the "barbarous multitudes" (2.9 34-35). Also, he certainly does not want to "hazard all he hath" as the lead casket promises. From this we can see that his "love" is controlled by intellect. Not fully understanding the other two caskets, he instead chooses the silver in which the inscription reads "Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves". The Prince of Arragon thinks that now he will receive what he deserves to get, and he well does. Once opened he finds a "blinking idiot" (2.9 line 58) and a scroll which points out that anyone as arrogant as he deserve to be called fools and would certainly not be the right husband for such
Some common words found in the essay are:
Prince Arragon, Prince Morroco, Obviously Portia's, Morraco Arragon's, , lead casket, prince arragon, reads chooseth, blinking idiot, inscription reads chooseth, gold casket, silver casket, inscription reads, hazard hath, love portia, choose wrong,
Approximate Word count = 727
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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