How Does Shakespeare Build Dramatic Tension In Act
Shakespeare wrote the Merchant of Venice, it is one of Shakespeare's less known plays because the original manuscripts were lost but the play did re-surface in the 1600s. In Shakespeare's time there was only one Jew in England, he name was Rodrigo Lopez. He was the Queen's Physician and was only half Jew. He was tried and executed. Shakespeare probably never met a Jew so he may have got his attitudes towards Jews from his experiences of them; he may also have got ideas and inspiration from the one other play about Jews at the time called `The Jew of Malta'. Christopher Marlowe who was a contempary of Shakespeare wrote it. Marlowe was stabbed to death in a pub.
This play was a controversial play when it was written and it still is now. It was controversial in Shakespeare's time because Jew's were not well liked and this is supported by the fact that the only Jew in England was executed. This play is arguably even more controversial now because we live in a post-holocaust world. The holocaust changed people's views towards Jews because they were treated like sub-humans and they were massacred by the millions.
The genre of this play is hard to decide because in Shakespeare's time it would have been a comedy because people would have wanted to see Shylock lose everything because he was a Jew but now it is more of a tragedy because our attitudes towards to Jews have changed. The Merchant of Venice is also a bit of a mystery play because we do not know who sent the letter about Antonio's ships because they never did sink it was a dramatic device use by Shakespeare.
The courtroom scene is one of the most important scenes because everyone is on stage and it is the penultimate scene of the play. Act IV Scene I is a stage for Shakespeare to present his ideas to the audience, he shows the Duke using derogatory language towards Shylock to show the attitudes of Venice towards Jews and he also shows us that women were not recognised in...
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