The Merchant of Venice Movie Analysis Essay Sample

The human race as a whole cannot take on just one characteristic, people take on multiple characteristics thus creating their personality. In the movie, The Merchant In Venice, directed by Michael Radford, the protagonist, a Christian, white, male in Venice during the early sixteen hundreds goes through scenes in which his religion, sexuality, and wealth play a large role in determining his character. Antonio is a businessman that has a reasonable amount of money but the catch is that he has all of his investments at sea. A secret lover of his, Bassanio, attempts to obtain a portion of Antonio's money. With the inability to produce any money, Antonio has to go through the process of taking a loan from a local Jew named Shylock where the viewers witness the multidimensional characterization of Antonio. Although Antonio is gullible and susceptible to deception because of a false sense of love, he is still morally present enough to express strong and distasteful anti-Semitic views to the Jews in Venice.

Throughout the film, Antonio falls into the recurring trap of deception and fraud because of misleading love. Towards the beginning of the movie, Antonio and Bassanio have their first conversation on set. Bassanio begins to talk about how he owes money to Antonio for a previous loan. He also mentions what his financial state is like as he states, “Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, How much I have disabled my state… But my chief care is to come fairly off from the great debts.” Antonio then responds to this by saying, “My purse, my person, my extremest means all unlocked to your occasions.” The reaction that Antonio gives to Bassanio for losing all of his money is contradicting how any other sane person would react. Antonio's inability to recognize his financial losses is primarily because he is in love with Bassanio. Antonio's love essentially disregards the fact that Bassanio lost all the money from the previous loan and is now asking for more. As a result, Antonio says that he will give him more money. This response can only be logically backed in two scenarios; Antonio is high on drugs or that he is being conned by Bassanio for his money. Later on in the movie, Antonio visits Shylock to talk about loaning money to give to Bassanio. Antonio states, “Shylock, albeit I neither lend nor borrow. By taking nor by giving of excess, yet to supply the ripe wants of my friend, I’ll break a custom.” Antonio's act to go seek money from one of his mortal enemies just because Bassanio asked him to, exemplifies how gullible he is to fall this far down Bassanio's love trap. With just a little bit of affection from Bassanio, Antonio will do anything Bassanio wants or needs just so he can keep that sense of affection. The one-sided love is essentially blinding Antonio to doing things that no sane man would do. Antonio does Bassanio's financial bidding as a result of this love deception that Antonio falls trap to.

Even though Antonio shows this compassion bred from a gullible portion of himself because of Bassanio's deception, he still expresses’ verbal hate toward Shylock and the Jews as a whole. Towards the middle of the movie, Bassanio goes to talk to Shylock about loaning 3000 ducats to Antonio. When Shylock realizes who he is lending money to, he recalls what Antonio has said about the Jews in the past. Shylock remembers, “He hates our sacred nation, and he rails, even where merchants most do congregate, on me my bargains, and my well-won thrift, which he calls ‘interest.’ Cursed be my tribe if I forgive him.” Antonio’s hate towards the Jews explained by Shylock demonstrates the idea that Antonio is not just a secretly gay guy who is full of compassion and generosity but a hateful and anti-semitic man. Even though Antonio goes against the grain of society with his sexuality he still follows suit with the almost universal showing of disrespect towards the Jewish community in that time. One would think that if he was just a genuinely compassionate man that he would not be so disrespectful to Shylock. After Shylock officially confronts Antonio about his views on the Jews and how he has treated them in the past he responds with something unexpected. Antonio responds, “I am as like to call thee so again, to spet on thee again, to spurn thee, too.” The response given after Shylock's soliloquy is not something that one would expect from someone in need of a loan from Shylock. The fact that Antonio needs Shylock and not vice-versa exemplifies how genuine his hatred towards the Jewish people must be because he is expressing this hate in a time of need. If Antonio was truly compassionate then he would have created a kind and respectful response to Shylock despite his views on the Jews. The recurring hatred coming from Antonio expresses the idea that Antonio is not just full of compassion.

Although Antonio expresses a form of gullibility where he is forced into the trap of generosity and compassion, he still can be extremely disrespectful to the Jews and their religion. The gullibility in Antonio allows him to be entrapped by Bassanio's deception of love in which Bassanio essentially embezzles money from Antonio because they are “in love.” Even though Antonio is willing to share his money with Bassanio he still has a very dark side to him in which he hates the Jews. The aspect in which there are multiple characteristics of all humans is what forms a society and creates this uniqueness of the human species. Humankind is the one of the most dominant species ever to walk this rock we call Earth simply because people can think differently since they have different characteristics.