common mod Flashcards
PARA 1 TOPIC SENTENCE
Shakespeare’s comedic form celebrates female intelligence and creativity in the face of restrictive patriarchal social stucture as a means to uplift the subjugated minority.
Portia employs the metaphor of lottery to reflect her seemingly powerless fate dominated by patriarchal rulings –> Portia feigns helplessness by playing the role of the repressed woman as her father’s will means she must be won in marriage by a suitor selecting a casket he chose
‘the lottery of my destiny bars me the right of voluntary choosing’
shows her manipulation —> a display of Portia’s ingenuity as she sings a song for her chosen suitor Bassanio that both rhymes with the answer and warns against trusting superficial appearances, thus leasing him to answer without transgressing overtly.
‘tell me where is fancy bred, or in the heart or in the head? … it is endangered in the eye, with gazing fed, and fancy dies’
- ditty
- rhyme
Portia’s need to save her husband’s friend - whose death might cast a spell over their relationship. Portia’s interjection into court proceedings is thus self-interested and part of a long game for her to get what she wants (underhanded)
‘commend me to your honourable wife… bid her be judge whether Bassanio had not once a love’ - Antonio
Portia’s close reading of the law is a necessity for her as someone trying to get what she wants without overtly transgressing. Her skill lies in knowing the rules well enough to enforce them when it suits her, and contravene them with dexterity as she did in the casket game.
- contrasts with her earlier descriptions of herself as ______ (AS WHAT) –> Portia’s precise focus on the law here reinforces her necessary skill in navigating the patriarchal world hidden by facades of conformity.
- Portia’s ingenuity sees her knowing the rules precisely in order to harness and navigate them deftly, allowing her to invoke them when it suits her and subtly go around them
‘this bond doth give thee here no jot of blood. The words expressly are ‘a pound of flesh’
CONTRASTS WITH het earlier claims of herself as ‘unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractised’
Portia cleverly deceives Bassanio into exposing his own untrustworthiness by taking the ring as payment as Dr Balthazar.
- Portia’s skilful deception of Bassanio ultimately leads to her own empowerment within the marriage through her public humiliation of Bassanio, her manipulation of situations should be acknowledged as her means to gain experiences of power and control within rigid male dominance
‘if you had known the virtue of the ring, or half her worthiness that gave the ring, or your own honour to contain the ring, you would not have parted with the ring’
- dramatic irony
- the ring as. asymbol of commitment is exploited as her means to manipulate the situation to her own ends
PARA 2 TOPIC SENTENCE
Shakespeare uses the comedic form to expose the prevalence of double standards; in which deception is celebrated when positive outcomes are produced and the subjugated minority are impaired, but paradoxically condemned when harm is caused and the majority collective are afflicted.
- Shakespeare demonstrates Rene Girard’s ‘scapegoat mechanism, highlighting how the unity of the collective often hinges upon the exclusion of a perceived other
- Jessica being celebrated for her deception due to her Christian assimilation and majority gain in her affliction of her Jewish father
- shown through descriptions of her as gentle and fair
- the ironic commendation of Jessica’s thievery by her Venetian counterparts, accentuating the paradoxical acceptance of her deception provided for the service of the polis
Gratiano’s ‘Now by my hood, a Gentile and no Jew’ followed by Lorenzo’s ‘and fair she is, if that mine eyes are true. And true she is, as she hath proved herself’
- Punning of ‘gentile’ as gentle
- highlights Shylock’s manipulation, where stipulations of the bond appeared to have no foul intentions but then sees his dishonesty in. his critiques of Antonio as a ‘fool’ and ‘prodigal’
rest you fair, good signior….’
And descriptions of Antonio as ‘fool’ and ‘prodigal’
- the racial other of the two Jewish characters clearly illustrate this idea, where the contrasting reactions to Shylock vs. Jessica’s deception
- Shylock’s dishonest behaviours are ultimately legally and publicly vilified due to its impairing influence on the collective majority
- juxtaposing representations of reactions to Jewish deception shows a complex concept of justice, where simultaneously contrasting reactions demonstrate inconsistencies and the self-delusions that characterises collective identity myths
‘take thou thy pound of flesh; but in the cutting it, if thou dost shed one drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods are… confiscate unto the state of Venice’ – Portia
PARA 3 TOPIC SENTENCE
Shakespeare shows how the subsequent and incessant persecution of minorities motivates rage and revenge, driving subjugated individuals to retaliate with hatred and monstrosity.
Shakespeare innovates on the comedy form as he depicts a complex comic villain who is simultaneously victim, human, and monster in a manner that problematises audience response as moral ambivalence abounds and thus emotional identification is tenuous
- Shylock as a victim of mistreatment, which sequentially, being motivated by revenge was led to commit similar immoral deeds in fulfillment of cyclical abusive bejaviours
- shows the collective majority as malice and cruel
‘My daughter! O my ducats!’
‘dog jew’
- Mocking
- Juxtaposing Salanio’s lack of compassion and the gravity of Shylock’s situation
3 QUOTES
- Shylock fulfilling at that moment the stereotype of the bloodthirsty Jew
- Reduction of Shylock’s irrationality
- Shakespeare thus holds Elizabethan audiences responsible for the self-fulfilling dehumanisation of SHylcok, in which the fulfilment of the stereotype of the bloodthirsty Jew has been driven by collective majority persecution
‘I will have my bond, speak not against my bond; I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.’
- Triple epistrophe of ‘my bond’ suggests Shylock’s borderline obsession and irrational fixation
- Highlights his mercilessness
‘since I am a dog, beware my fangs: the duke shall grant me justice’
- Zoomorphic reference
- Non sequitur, what follows after the colon is supposed to introduce related information, the latter here doesn’t logically follow form the former and this shows a reduction of Shylock’s rationality
‘what if my house be troubled with a rat and I be pleased to give ten thousand ducats to have it banned?’
- Rhetorical question accentuates how systematic persecution of Shylock has reduced his rationality as his hatred has become potent
summarises the anger and desperation Shylcok feels due to incessant prosecution as the Jewish minority
‘he hath disgraced me… laughed at my losses…. Mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what’s his reason? I am a Jew’
Shylock’s experiences of abuse has done nothing but expedite his desires for revenge
Abuse ‘[fed] nothing else [but]… my revenge’ – Shylock
