ON FORGIVENESS AND TOLERANCE IN SHAKESPEARE'S "MERCHANT OF VENICE
ON FORGIVENESS AND TOLERANCE IN SHAKESPEARE'S "MERCHANT OF VENICE

Summary/Abstract: Arising from the very nature of the human being, tolerance is nowadays a more conceptthan it was in the past. The period between 1500-1700 witnessed a steady expansion ofintolerance, market by the executions for heresy or the hatred of the witches and Jews. Inthis period of religious unrest, Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice, a play inwhich the trial between Antonia and Shylock reaches a dramatic climax signaled, on onehand, by the conflict between good (love, tolerance) and evil (hatred) and, on the otherhand, the conflict between good (justice and law) and a greater good (mercy or the law oflove and tolerance). The problems of the usury and free landing, enemy and friend, safetyand risk, giving and forgiving, justice and mercy are all bound by the formulation of theflesh bond and its resolution in the trial. In The Merchant of Venice, particularly in thetrial scene, Shakespeare created a refined ideology about tolerance and human choices.The values for which Shylock stands in the trial are associated with the New Testament’scondemnation of ambition, covetousness and hypocrisy of the Pharisees. In contrast,Portia, the “puer senex” (the individual who combines in one person the best of youth andthe best of age), plays “the devil’s edvocate” to teach Shylock, and us, the need for thegrace of tolerance.

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