Merchant of Venice Rough Draft Essay

           "Don't judge a book by it's cover"...  When first meeting someone for the first time it takes the brain less than 1/10th of a second to judge them.  Even though some people seem cruel at first it's all for a reason good or bad, either it's because they had a rough past or had a bad experience.  Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare is about judgement, greed and racism and how although you think you may understand someone, there is always more too it.  

          Things aren't always how they seem, just like how you may think that someone is nice but really they aren't.  "Appearances can be deceptive.  The world is always taken in by ornament."  Shylock a rich moneylender is portrayed as a devious bloodthirsty man, but as the story goes on it reveals that he is this way because he was always treated with hatred and just wanted revenge.  He suffered this whole time but all that was seen was the times of him being cruel.  "All that glitters is not gold."  Just because something looks like it's the truth and seems like it is, there is always that chance that it isn't.  Shlock always seemed like a very powerful man because of the money, and everyone knows that if you have money you have power but there was that small chance that the money and power wouldn't be enough... and it wasn't.  So you next time you find yourself judging someone, stop because you probably don't even know much about that person.

          Racism; it means prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race.  "I am a Jew.  Hath not a Jew eyes?  Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?  Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?  If you prick us, do we not bleed?  If you tickle us, do we not laugh?  If you poison us, do we not die?  And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"  What’s on the inside counts, not the person’s race or the way they look on the outside, Antonio and Shylock always judge each other based off of each other’s race. Just because Shylock is Jewish Antonio thinks he is hastier and greedy and vise versa.   But to many times people discriminate others because of their type of race, if their black or white or what cultures they believe in.  "Which one is the merchant and which one is the Jew?"  In the real world calling someone by his or her race is racist, but it is exactly what Portia does.  She refers to Shylock as a Jew instead of the prosecutor or another more professional term instead of the race of the person.  Even though this is the repetitive theme it goes to show that you can't be quick to come to conclusions and can't judge people by something as little as their race.

          Money like said before is power, and back then power was everything.  "When I say "a good man," you must understand that I mean he is financially sound."  The only thing that mattered was money which led to power and so, it caused everyone to become greedy.  Everyone only wanted more and more money just like Shylock; he was a moneylender and the bond that he wrote would give him more money then he lent out, making him a profit.  "When you remove my source of income.  You take my life when you take away the means whereby I earn my living."  In Shylock's life all that mattered was his money, if he had a lot of money he was happy, and so when he lost the court case which made him give up his money and belongings he was powerless and had no point in life.  Even though Shylock started out looking like devious person in the end he came out looking a little more promising.  Things ended like they should've started, Shylock humbled and everyone else more successful (financially and spiritually).

          In the end it showed the theme of Merchant of Venice that it was about greed, judgments, and racism and that no matter how a person looks or what they are that you should never judge them because you may not know everything about them.  Also that just because you may be rich you should never just want more and more money because then you are going to end up like Shylock... a broken man.  You can't ever tell what a book holds on the inside just like you can't tell what a person holds on the inside and so, don't ever make pre-judgments before you know what the person is like; because who knows that person you thought was cruel and ruthless may have just lost their loved one...