Hath not a Jew Eyes?

My mother was an avid reader. Something she picked up from her own father and in my case genes did the rest.

The first time I attempted to read this book was about 10 years ago now. During the summer vacation in my 8th standard, we had been to grandpa’s place. From his vast collection of books, Mummy carefully picked out “The Merchant of Venice: William Shakespeare” and handed it to me. She told me it was one of her favourite books and that I should also read it. Maybe eagerness had got the better of her because frankly the old English just put me off straightaway. Reading the book without the legends, Biblical references and Elizabethan references is really hard.

Thankfully Mummy did not press on but time did take its course. So when an year later in Standard 9 it was announced that we would be reading this very book I was somewhat concerned. I was worried that I would again be put off by the unfamiliar diction. However thankfully being a course textbook, the pace at which we progressed and the adequate references made it a lot more comprehensible. Being the prescribed book for the Class X Board examinations meant that this book was given more importance than any other English textbook I might have ever owned. Yet on the completion of the course there was something both Mummy and the teacher Fr. Thomas had said. Read this book again when you are a little older. There may be something in there you might have overlooked.

I was surprised. I mean I had read the book from ear to ear countless times. What more was there to read? I mean Antonio and Bassanio’s friendship, Bassanio’s love for Portia and Shylock’s excessive greed being dealt with were the main themes which I had fully understood.

So last week with a little time off and not much to do I decided to read it again. Tell you what there were things that I had overlooked! Last time around “The Merchant of Venice” was definitely Antonio but this time around it was unmistakably Shylock. The whole book is about him. Here is a man who is loathed for where he was born rather than what he is. His only way to command respect from people who otherwise spit at him and hurl abuse is to make sure he has got them by the scruff. The only way he can do this is by lending his money to them at the exorbitant rates he sets. But even here he is outdone by Antonio who lends money “gratis” i.e. at no interest. His daughter betrays him in the worst way possible eloping with a Christian, trading his deceased wife’s ring for a monkey and stealing a fair few ducats from him. My interpretation is that the pound of flesh he demands is initially just to keep Antonio on his toes. Yet the news of his daughter’s elopement and his subsequent ridicule leads him to a rage uncontrolled. His desire for revenge blinds just about everything else, even reason and mercy. These attributes are something only witnessed by adults in later life and hence we missed these the last time we read the book. In the end, he is denied his revenge, asked to turn to the very religion that has taken from him everything he had and is consigned to die a penniless old man.

This is actually a fantastic tragic story veiled in the elements of love, kindness and virtue. And herein lies Shakespeare’s greatness. For a man of that age to understand the reactions that the Anti-Semitic feelings harboured could ignite is just praiseworthy. Four hundred years later another Christian who believed that his father was wronged by a Jew heaped scourge never seen before on the Jews in form of the Holocaust. The country of Israel is doing the rest as we speak.