Shylock

I've always had a lot of sympathy for Shylock, the Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare Merchant of Venice. Shylock is a complex character, tormented by the dissapearence of his daughter (who runs away with a young Christian with part of his money), living in the periphery of a society that disregards the Jews, he is obsessed with increasing his wealth using the only art that he knows; money lending.

You may have heard me saying before that life always puts you in front on the same person at least twice, so that is why it is better to have a fiend in Hell than an enemy in Heaven. That is probably what Antonio (the prosper merchant of Venice) may think when he is forced to ask for money to Shylock, money that he will pay back as soon as any of his ships full of goods arrive back to Venice.

This is the part of the story I like. The same Antonio that disdained Shylock when he was the "big dog", is now the "small dog", and he gets smaller and smaller as the news from the wrecks and misfortunes of his ships arrive at Venice. Furthermore, Shylock has signed a quite unusual contract with Antonio, if the merchant does not pay back the money lent Shylock will take a pound of Antonio's flesh. So the tormented Shylock becomes the tormentor and Antonio the target of his ire, Shylock seeks revenge in Antonio for all the unfairness the Venice society imposes in him and his fellow Jews, so when Antonio can not satisfy the bond Shylock demands Antonio's heart.

Finally things end up well for Antonio and bad for Shylock. The wise Portia ( - beautiful, rich and wise - Shakespeare loved his female character's as much as Almovodar does) manages to free Antonio from his bond, leaves Shylock with nothing and furthermore he is forced to convert to Christianism.

Shylock is the ultimate loser, but he is the most human and more credible of all the characters of this play (comedy Shakespeare calls it). As all of us he is exposed by the society to that bi-polarity of sometimes being the servant and sometimes having to be the master and having to change from one side to the other constantly sometimes even without realizing at which side of the social scale we are.