Women in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice Essay

Women in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice - Essay Example Undoubtedly, Shakespeare is the most famous and well known playwright of the English language and Merchant of Venice is one of his most performed plays even though the focus of the play is often the character of Shylock, the character of Portia remains quite important since she represents the highest values that Christian virtue could appeal to during the times. In this manner, the female characters become significantly more important than their male counterparts who may show weakness and even a defeatist attitude (Sanders, 1968). Portia outshines the men in the play particularly with regard to virtue since she remains dutiful to the orders of her dead father even though her heart tells her to do otherwise. She is divinely rewarded when the man she loves makes the right choice with regard to the lead, silver and gold boxes. Like many other Shakespearean women, Portia becomes an important character despite the presence of other strong characters such as Anotnio and Shylock. Even though the position of women in shakespeare’s times was not one which could have made this a realistic play, the approach taken by Shakespeare certainly makes Portia the strongest character. Interestingly, Shakespeare was living at a time when the most powerful ruler in Europe was a lady who founded the British Empire as it took shape for centuries to come. While the Christian dogma at the time may have seen women to be fickle, fragile and weak, a ruler as a woman meant that the qualities of Portia were completely natural since she certainly displays kingly virtues of intelligence and mercy. There is certainly some social hypocrisy in this situation since women had little rights in society at the time and even Portia was not the mistress of her own destiny, yet she saves Antonio and even ‘forgives’ Shylock after she has won her case. Portia eloquently describes the qualities of mercy which is a Christian ideal and is something heroes would show to their