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Does Shylock deserve sympathy or hostility?

“Shylock deserves our sympathy, not our hostility.”
To what extent do you agree with this statement?

One can rationally analyze whether Shylock deserves sympathy or hostility through several factors. His anger towards Antonio in the 3rd scene; his daughter’s elopement with the Christian, Lorenzo; his reaction after finding out that his daughter “fled with a Christian” and stole his wealth; Shylock’s scene with Salario and Solanio; the trial scene and his harsh sentence.
Shylock seemed rather harmless in the 3rd scene, till Antonio appears. Now, one can detect Shylock’s hatred, firstly upon the principle of religion, and secondly, hatred on behalf of his business, which is important to Shylock apart from his beloved Jewish religion. Why does Shylock hate Antonio ‘for he is a Christian’? Firstly, many people were prejudiced against Jews at that time and Shylock was a cold, harsh character, a product of the harsh mistreatment of the Christian Venetians, particular...

Posted by: Carlos Hernandez

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