Originally Posted by
Hawkman
What makes you think the Law is Jewish? Shylock lives in a Christian State, subject to Christian Law. Well, actually, given the context of an English play written by an English playwright for an English Audience, the law would actually be Secular, although admisnistered by Christians. Shylock is merely claiming his rights, according to the contract, or Bond, which is clearly designed to be the death of Antonio. Why does Shylock want to kill Antonio? For the reasons I have enumerated at some length in previous posts in this thread, and which can be boiled down to 'personal emnity'. The perception of "Jewish" Law, for the 16th Century Christian would be "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," because that's what it says in the Bible, despite the fact that the law of a Christian state would have been derrived from the same source.
As I keep pointing out, Shylock is over the top. He seeks Antonio's Life which is far in excess of an eye for an eye. He's not just a Stock Evil Jew, he's an individual man with his own agenda. No other Jew in the play is so villified as Shylock, especially by Antonio. Were the play to be truly Anti-Jewish in general, all Jews would be depicted as Evil, trecherous and foul. They are not.
What I would say is that the play displays some measure of ignorance as to what being Jewish actually means. This is not surprising, given the fact, as previously outlined by myself and several other posters, that few Englishmen would ever have knowingly interacted with any Jews. As I indicated by my citation of the case of Rodrigo Lopez, Jewishness might have be seen to be something easily cast off for the pragmatism of exisiting within a Christian State. Perhaps there is a parellel here with Catholicsim in a Protestant State, particularly that of Elizabethan England. The issues informing the text from a historical perspective are complex.
As for Jessica, Shylock's daughter, she doesn't seem to like her father very much, but is she any more than a flighty teenage girl who elopes with her lover? Well, there been plenty of those before and since. What isn't made clear is how she got acquainted with Lorenzo in the first place, given the reluctance of both religious groups to mingle or socialise. But the beautiful daughter of a villain who runs off to spite her father is another stock character from the dramatist's box.
That the play's characters conform to popular, contemporary 16th Century sterotypes has never been disputed. What is under discussion is the spin Shakespeare has placed on them and the skill with which he has done it. The play contains Anti-Jewish characters, but it also clearly, unequivocally and repeatedly within the text, calls those Anti-Jewish attitudes into question.