{"id":26349,"date":"2024-02-23T07:02:05","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T01:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aplustopper.com\/?p=26349"},"modified":"2024-02-23T15:43:21","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T10:13:21","slug":"merchant-of-venice-act-3-scene-1-short-summary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aplustopper.com\/merchant-of-venice-act-3-scene-1-short-summary\/","title":{"rendered":"Merchant of Venice Act 3, Scene 1 Short Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary of Merchant of Venice Act 3, Scene 1 ICSE Class 10, 9 English<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

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Summary Act 3 Scene 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Venice, Salanio and Salarino are discussing the latest news on the Rialto, the bridge in Venice where many business offices are located. There is a rumor that a ship of Antonio\u2019s has been wrecked off the southeast coast of England. Salanio despairs twice \u2014 once because of Antonio\u2019s bad luck, and second because he sees Shylock approaching. Shylock lashes out at both men, accusing them of being accessories to Jessica\u2019s elopement. They expected as much and mock the moneylender, scoffing at his metaphor when he complains that his \u201cflesh and blood\u201d has rebelled. Jessica, they say, is no more like Shylock than ivory is to jet, or Rhenish wine is to red wine. Shylock then reminds the two that their friend Antonio had best \u201clook to his bond . . . look to his bond.\u201d The implication is clear; Shylock has heard of the shipwreck.<\/p>\n

Surely, says Salarino, if Antonio forfeits the bond, \u201cthou wilt not take his flesh.\u201d Shylock assures them that he will, for he is determined to be revenged on Antonio for many grievances, all committed against Shylock for one reason: because Shylock is a Jew. A Jew is a human being the same as a Christian, Shylock continues; like a Christian, a Jew has \u201ceyes . . . hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions . . . [is] hurt . . . subject to the same diseases, [and] healed by the same means.\u201d Like a Christian, a Jew bleeds if pricked, and since a Christian always revenges any wrong received from a Jew, Shylock will follow this example. A servant enters then and informs Salanio and Salarino that Antonio wishes to see them at his house.<\/p>\n

As they depart, Shylock\u2019s friend Tubal enters. Tubal has traced Jessica to Genoa, where he has heard news of her but could not find her. Shylock again moans about his losses, especially about his diamonds and ducats; he wishes Jessica were dead. Tubal interrupts and tells Shylock that he picked up additional news in Genoa: Another of Antonio\u2019s ships has been \u201ccast away, coming from Tripolis.\u201d Shylock is elated. But as Tubal returns to the subject of Jessica\u2019s excessive expenditures in Genoa, Shylock groans again. Thus Tubal reminds Shylock of Antonio\u2019s tragic misfortunes, and the moneylender exults once more. One thing is certain, Tubal assures Shylock: \u201cAntonio is certainly undone.\u201d Shylock agrees and instructs Tubal to pay a police sergeant in advance to arrest Antonio if he forfeits the bond.<\/p>\n

Analysis Act 3 Scene 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

This act opens with Salanio and Salarino again functioning as a chorus, informing the audience of the development of events against which the action of the scene will take place. The suggestion made earlier that Antonio\u2019s mercantile ventures at sea might founder is now made specific. One of Antonio\u2019s ships lies \u201cwracked on the narrow seas . . . where the car cases of many a tall ship lie buried.\u201d The news of the danger to Antonio also prepares us for the entrance of Shylock, the embodiment of that danger, who has by now discovered Jessica\u2019s elopement.<\/p>\n

The moneylender enters, and both we and Salanio know perfectly well what news concerns Shylock; Salanio\u2019s sardonic greeting, with its pretense of wanting to know \u201cthe news,\u201d is calculated to infuriate Shylock, for even though we have not seen Shylock since the elopement of his daughter, we know that his anger will have been fueled by the fact that Lorenzo \u2014 and, by implication, the whole Christian community \u2014 has dealt him a blow. One should be fully aware that Shylock is ever conscious of his Jewishness in a Christian community. Then at the mention of Antonio, Shylock says ominously, \u201cLet him look to his bond.\u201d Without question, the bond is \u201cmerry\u201d no longer \u2014 but Salanio has not comprehended this yet. His half-serious question \u201cThou wilt not-take his flesh. What\u2019s that good for?\u201d is answered savagely: \u201cIf it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge,\u201d Shylock declares.<\/p>\n

The malicious digs of Salanio and Salarino produce one of Shylock\u2019s most dramatic speeches in the play. It is written in prose, but it is a good example of the superb intensity to which Shakespeare can raise mere prose. Shylock\u2019s series of accusing, rhetorical questions which form the central portion of the speech, from \u201cHath not a Jew eyes?\u201d to \u201cIf you poison us, do we not die?\u201d completely silences Shylock\u2019s tormentors. In fact, this speech silences us. We ourselves have to ponder it. It is one of the greatest pleas for human tolerance in the whole of dramatic literature. But it is also something more, and we must not lose sight of its dramatic importance: It is a prelude to Shylock\u2019s final decision concerning how he will deal with Antonio.<\/p>\n

Shylock speaks of a Christian\u2019s \u201chumility\u201d with heavy sarcasm; \u201chumility,\u201d he says, is a much-talked- of Christian virtue, but a virtue which is not much in evidence. The \u201chumility\u201d of a Christian, Shylock says, ceases when a Christian is harmed, for then the Christian takes revenge. That is the Christian\u2019s solution, and that will also be Shylock\u2019s course of action, his solution to the wrongs he has suffered: \u201cThe villainy you teach me I will execute.\u201d And toward the end of the speech, he repeats, like a refrain, the word \u201crevenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shylock\u2019s speech on revenge is so powerful and so unanswerable that it is lost on Salanio and Salarino, who are none too bright anyway, but their silence on stage stuns us. Shakespeare has manipulated our sympathy. Then, just when were secure in feeling that Shylock\u2019s reasoning was just, Shakespeare shows us another facet of Shylock, one which we have seen before \u2014 his concern with possessions \u2014 and thus we must reconsider the whole matter of justice which we thought we had just solved. Shylock\u2019s friend Tubal enters, and in the exchange which follows, we realize that Shylock has become a miser in order to build his own personal defense against the hostile Christian mercantile world of Venice. But his defense has increased to such an extent that he no longer can contain it; it possesses him now. He cannot properly distinguish between the love of riches and his love for his daughter, Jessica. Shylock’s obsession for possessing has blinded him; his anger at the Christian world has corrupted even his love for his daughter: \u201cI would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! Would she were dead at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin!\u201d Thereby, we see the extent of Shylock\u2019s hatred. By the end of the scene, the audience is convinced, if it was not before, that Shylock\u2019s attack on Antonio will be absolutely relentless. If he can, he will literally take his \u201cpound of flesh.\u201d<\/p>\n

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