The Analysis of the Tragic Character Shylock
In The Merchant of Venice
Good morning, all appraises committee members.I am Ma Yingxiao and my supervisor is Profeor Lv Lizhen.
With her constant encouragement and guidance, I have finished my paper.Now it is the show time.I will present my efforts to you and welcome any correction.
The title of my paper is The Analysis of the Tragic Character Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.
The Merchant of Venice is one of the most representative works of comedy of William Shakespeare, and Shylock is the most impreive character among all.Before the 19th century, Shylock was regarded as an old bastard who was the symbol of selfish, vicious, greedy and ruthle by all the scholars at that time because The Merchant of Venice was listed as one of the comedies so Shylock was treated more like some kind of dramatic character instead of tragic.Until 19th century, researchers found out that Shylock was truly a victim rather than a bastard, so Shylock’ s tragedy came into being.Then it turned out that this tragic Shylock was ignored by us all for all these years, and we must bring orders out of chaos and justify Shylock.So for the above facts, I select the subject of “The Analysis of the Tragic Character Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.” as the title of my paper to analysis Shylock’ s tragedy and the causes of it under the heavy preure of family, religious discrimination and social injustice at that time.
In the main part of this paper, I divided it into four parts.
Part one presents general introduction to William Shakespeare to talk about Shakespeare’s family background and a brief account of his life.And also describe The Merchant of Venice’s story line and main idea.
Part two presents the Literature review of the former researchers to quote and elaborate my argument.I picked four scholars’ research and ideas, some of them is against my argument and others give evidence.
Part three emphasize and analysis different causes of Shylock’ s tragedy.I divided them into three parts: Family problem, Religious discrimination and social injustice.In each parts I dug in and united with story line and history problems at that age to prove strong argument about Shylock’ s tragedy and its causes.
Part four draws some conclusions that Shylock was not that bad.The family problem:his daughter’s flee drove him angry to transfer his anger to Antonio, the religious discrimination and social injustice at that age directly cause his unfair treatment and finally determined Shylock’ s tragedy.These are the main causes of his tragedy.It was his world made him act like that and his tragedy cannot be ignored.He is a victim.
OK, that’s all.Thank you.
