“The Merchant of Venice”，the well-known comedy of Shakespeare, tells us this story: in order to support his friend Bassanio’s marriage, Antonia loans money from Shylock, a Jewish merchant, and makes a contract: if he can not return money before the deadline, he has to cut one pound’s flesh as a punishment. After Antonia can’t keep the promise, Shylock demands Antonia be punished. However, Portia, Bassanio’s wife wisely solve Antonia’s crisis by asking Shylock to cut Antonia’s flesh without a drop of blood. In the end, Shylock gets nothing but losing his money, his daughter and his belief.  

In primary school, I have read “The Merchant of Venice”. At that time, without deep thinking, I definitely believed that Shylock was a cruel, mean and greedy man. Why did I think so? Maybe being a childish and inexperienced girl, I always made my judgment just from the superficial level. When I saw Shylock didn’t give up his cruel idea even if all the people wanted to emotionally move and convince shylock with reasons. I hated this bad man and worried about poor Antonio. When Portia “intended” to give out a fair judgment, Shylock spoke highly of her, I think he is shameless. When Shylock lost the lawsuit and got punished, I was pretty happy for bad guys finally got retribution. Also even Marx has written in his "French Civil War": "to make a disaster reached its peak is the Prussian Shylock support his hand-held instrument for blackmail in France, land of 50 million troops of the subsistence stores."  That confirmed me that shylock was an evil. However, when I appreciate this story again, a totally different opinion is formed about Shylock in my mind. In my eyes, perhaps he is not a good man, but he is not a bad one. As follows, I will carefully analyze this controversial person.

First and foremost, Shylock is a typical merchant. Let’s see what merchants are? They are all carefully carrying out their plans，trying to make profits，taking ventures, also they are persistent and mean. Shylock inherits all these qualities very well. He asks for interest of the loan, however we can’t condemn him; he always puts profit in the first place, however we can’t satire him, because he is a typical merchant. Additionally at that “critical” moment, Shylock gave Antonio a favor indeed while Antonio’s friends didn’t. You may say Shylock has a purpose to do this, but you must know everybody has a goal when they are trying to do something, so we can’t criticize his motive. Moreover, when Antonio breaks his promise, he shall be punished, and, of course, it’s right for Shylock to get what he wants. I think it’s fair, because Shylock just does what is legal instead of using tactics. I think the responsibility of farce is Antonio, because when he signs the deal, he must take all into consideration. Also Bassanio shall be blamed for if he doesn’t waste his fortune or doesn’t have the idea of using money to rival with other riches in the pursuit of Portia. In addition, Shylock is a poor merchant, he just does what he needs to do, but he loses all--- his fortune, his daughter and his belief. In a word, Shylock is an unfortunate merchant, he deserves our sympathy.

Secondly, as a Jew, Shylock is misery. As we know, at that period, Jews were badly treated by other people, especially Christians. And the only way to make a living for Jews was gathering money and making usuries. From Shylock’s monologue, we can clearly see how humble this Jew was in front of Christians: “he bath disgraced me, and hindered me，half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what’s his reason? I am a Jew”

As the old saying goes “where there is oppression, there is resistance”，after suffering so much, should Shylock give all enemies a big smile, and say “welcome to humiliate me”? It’s obvious the answer is “No”. I think nobody can take easy with it for there’s a limitation of tolerance. So the hatred of shylock can be understandable. Besides, what we should take into account is why Shylock, the docile goat, becomes a brutal lion. I’d like to say Shylock, having such a cruel plan, is just compelled by the society, that is to say, he is just a sacrifice .So he needs our tolerance.

Thirdly, I just want to discuss Shylock as a common person without considering his nationality and his career. I think Shylock is the most lamentable person in this drama. You can imagine how angry he is when he is rated by a younger person especially in front of public, how furious he is when his “lovely” daughter says: “What heinous sin is it in me? To be asham’d to be my father’s child! But though I am a daughter to his blood, I am not to his manners” how sad he is when his dreariest daughter carrying his fortune elopes with his enemy, how brave he is when he, standing at the court, demands what seems silly, how depressed he is when he is deprived of everything, how sorrowful he is when Antonio demands he become a Christian and Gratiano says “give him a halter gratis”. These cruel actions are done by these so-called benevolent people. What I see is that a crowd of young people corners an ailing elderly. Shylock is the victim, and we shall give more care for him instead of blaming him.

As we know, no man is perfect, so why do we gesture in a sage to criticize Shylock? As for cruelty, I think Shylock can’t conquer Antonio. Antonio always rates Shylock without caring about Shylock’s feelings, and when he escapes the punishment by a fluke, he tries to revenge, even puts the last straw which breaks camel’s back –demanding Shylock to change his belief. In my eyes, it’s kinder to give him a rope for suicide than the so-called forgiveness. As we all know, how loyal Shylock is to his religion and changing belief means betray, so it’s an enormous strike to him. As for Shylock’s notion of profit-making，I think we can’t rebuke him any more for it is his only source of live hood. Is it right we oppress Shylock with a perverted system, while we contempt him for his way of living?

In a word, I admire he has a clear-cut stand on what to love and what to hate. There is no wrong in Shylock; the wrong is in the bullying of the society and those hypocrites who speak a lot of virtue and morality. Shylock is just a tragedy character who deserves our sympathy.