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The Merchant of Venice takes place on the port of Venice, a trading hub where everything has a price tag. All of the relationships in the play are mediated by wealth: Bassanio's attraction to Portia is initially blatantly grasping, as he frequently references her wealth; the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio is based on Antonio's willingness to bail his spendthrift friend out; the enmityFeelings of hate. between Antonio and Shylock is based on Antonio's competition to Shylock's services, since Antonio lends money without interest rates. Shylock's demand for a pound of flesh is iterating a dynamic which clearly already exists: that bodies, people and relationships are relentlessly monetised in mercantileRelating to trade. Venice. There is some progress towards greater humanity over the course of the play: when Portia, in disguise as Balthazar, asks Bassanio for his ring as a gift, he says that he would rather trade away the most expensive ring in Venice than give away something so emotionally precious to him.

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The Merchant of Venice is described as one of Shakespeare's most problematic plays, in that its central themes are troublingly antisemiticHostile to or prejudiced against Jewish people. . There is no critical unanimity on whether the play itself should be described as anti-Jewish, but many see the "pound of flesh" trope in the context of virulent contemporary propagandaInformation, which may be biased or misleading, used to promote a certain viewpoint. against Jewish people which depicted them as cannibalistic and bloodthirsty. Shylock's forced conversion to Christianity is a troublesome and offensive resolution to the play. The play was written in a context of intense antisemitism both in England and abroad: in England, a ban was ongoing forbidding the Jewish community to even enter at the country's borders. In Venice, Jewish people were forced to live in ghettosAn area of a town, particularly a poor area, where members of one ethnic or religious group live closely together. and had to wear attire that identified them as Jewish. On the other hand, some critics assert that Shylock is a fundamentally sympathetic character, and that Shakespeare intended that he should be read as a multifacetedHaving many sides. and complex subjectivity rather than a cheap racist caricatureAn exaggerated description or picture of someone..

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The Merchant of Venice poses the question of whether mercy should sometimes come before justice - but there seems to be no mercy within any of these characters, who are all motivated by prejudice, greed and selfishness. Some critics have pointed out that the perceived tension between justice and mercy is based on antisemitic tropes - the "superior" value of forgiveness, which Shakespeare represents as embodied by the Christian characters, is pitted against Shylock's "Jewish" desire for justice. And whilst some have appraised Portia as a representative of an ideal form of justice, others have pointed out that she makes a mockery of the legal system in posing as a judge and casting moral aspersions on the case brought against Antonio. For many critics, this is where the premise of the play falls apart, creating a false dualism of justice in opposition to goodness which is based on a fragile and redundant antisemitic stereotype.

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In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare explores a conflict between the humane qualities of love and fraternity against law and money. Portia and Bassanio's love is threatened by the revenge, commercialism and justice symbolised by Shylock. Yet this conflict is by no means straightforward. Whilst we are undoubtedly supposed to take the side of love against Shylock's relentless drive for revenge, the trial also highlights the casual prejudice and callousness of the play's Christian characters. Seeing Shylock as a one-dimensional character motivated purely by a design to destroy Christian values, they fail to understand that he is an emotionally sensitive and independent person just as complex as themselves and with just as strong a moral code. Shylock's speech in Act 3 Scene 1, in which he asks "Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? [...] If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" highlights the highly-strung emotions behind Shylock's desire for retributionA punishment given to somebody who is perceived to have done something wrong. . His heartfelt words also cast doubt on the moral code of the Christian characters who have defamed him, presenting them as insensible and bigotedA bigot is a person who hates or refuses to accept the members of a particular group..

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In this play, Shakespeare pits realisms within society - its prejudice, its entrenched legal systems, its idolatry of money and greed - against idealistic visions of higher values such as love, forgiveness, compassion and generosity. From Portia's speech extolling the virtues of mercy, to Shylock's plea to be viewed as an equal in a society permeated with prejudice, it is clear that the characters hold hopes and dreams for a better world which have yet to be reifiedMake something more concrete or real. .

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