The christening of Shylock

Abstract

Readers of The Merchant of Venice have long viewed the forced conversion of the Jewish moneylender Shylock as the most grave injustice of the play. Though no one suggests that Shylock should be allowed to kill Antonio, and therefore Portia and the rest of the Duke are ultimately right to intervene, critics frequently argue that when Shylock, a legal “alien,” is made to publicly revoke his most deeply felt beliefs, the court has overstepped. The desire for kindness and mercy, they argue, has shown itself to be a ruse, and has quickly given way to the imposition of the worst kind of revenge. Shylock, by the end of the play, staggers off the stage, humiliated, ruined, and sickened. He disappears from the fourth act as a chastened victim of a society that has neither room nor respect for religious and ethnic diversity. Indeed, in this view, the so-called Christians of the play are both unfeeling and hypocritical, for they pretend to the virtue of forgiveness, but really practice the worst possible cruelty. To subscribe to this consensus is supremely tempting because it agrees so fully with today’s values. And yet, whatever our own positions on tolerance and diversity, a close reading of both the text and its historical contexts reveals the consensus to be mistaken. Indeed, the long-standing critical condemnation of the forced conversion oversimplifies and obscures the literary and historical complexities that this moment in the play invokes and upon which it reflects. Indeed, it is much truer to both the play and its time, to think of what Shylock is pushed into undertaking as a christening. The difference between conversion and christening may seem small; but like so much in the play and its reception, a great deal depends on small distinctions. Christening, in this play, fashions a moral, religious, and social compromise that spares Shylock’s life while it contains his malice.