The following paper is focused on the movie “The merchant of Venice”. This story occurs in Venice, in XVI. During these times, people use to differentiate to other people because of their religion. The most dominant religions were Catholic and Jewish. Jewish people had to wear a red hat in order to show their religion. This paper will be focused in contextualize the situation in which Jewish people had to live and how they were treated by the existing Catholic society.
The main Jewish character was a man called Shylock. He was an usurer; someone who lend money to people and then people had give it back with some taxes. This action was not accepted by the society at all. But anyway people use to do this business with Jewish people.
During those times, people did not treat Jewish in a good way. They hit them and split them all the time. Jewish were treated as something inferior by the Catholics, even though there as human as them. Once, Shylock, who was the main Jew character in the film, decided to yell at a Catholic. He said Jewish were the same than the Catholics. They cry, laugh, blood, take revenge, feel and think as much as Catholic. He did not agree with the current society.
Antonio, who was a Catholic person, needed to help his friend Bassanio. Bassanio needed money because he wanted to impress a girl to marry her. As Bassanio did not have enough money for that, he decided to ask Antonio for some money. He did not have the amount that Bassanio was asking for, so he decided to talk with Shylock and ask him for 3.000 ducats. Even though, this action was not acceptable for Catholics, Antonio spoke with Shylock, who accepted to lend him money because he was a very good merchant.
As Shylock did not want to loose his money, he asked Antonio for a condition. Shylock asked a pound of Antonio’s flesh if he did not pay the money in the next three months. Antonio accepted the condition because he really loved his friend, besides he was sure he will receive more than 3000 ducats in one his business the next month.
One day, people knew that Antonio’s businesses were ruined. His ships got lost in the ocean. As Antonio’s money was in those ships, he would not be able to pay the bill he had with Shylock. So, Shylock decided to ask for his part of the deal. When he decided to go for Antonio’s flesh, he went into a judgement because of that action. The lawyer, who in fact was Porcia, gave Shylock the right to take the flesh but he could not drop any blood. As he could not take Antonio’s flesh without dropping blood, he could take his flesh. Later, he was discovered a conspirer and the state asked him for his positions.
Porcia wanted to help Antonio, for that reason she pretended to be the lawyer. Her plan worked and Antonio got saved.
At the end of the film, people noticed that the rumour of Antonio’s ships was false. They all landed without any problem.
After watching the film, I could realise that discrimination is something that has been present during many years. They way people behave in front of someone they consider different has not changed at all. They way society acted in film was totally disrespectful. They treated Jewish as something absolutely inferior and with different rights. They were split and hit them every day. But what people could not see was they were as human as everybody else. They feel, think, see, eat, and sleep as much as Catholics. There were not differences; the only thing they did not share was religion. That was the only reason because they were discriminated, religion.
At least, now people choose their religion freely. But even today, religion issues emerge among people. Perhaps this rivalry will never end.
