Thursday, November 1, 2012

MOV Cop Out Ending

The ending to Shakespeare's A Merchant of Venice could percieved as either a satisfactory conclusion or a "cop out". On one hand, it should be taken into consideration that at the time it would not have been politically "acceptable", even in literature, for a Jew like Shylock to be victorious in his bond being fullfilled, especially if it meant a wealthy and respected Christian merchant would lose his life.
While this social standard does justify Shakespeare's decision to spare Antonio and leave Shylock with next to nothing to his name, I feel that Shakespeare ultimately deprived the audience of a satisfying ending. It is a commonly attributed technique of Shakespeare's to restore the natural order of things within his novels, and I feel that because Shylock was so mistreated and abused by these wealthy and prejudice Christians and yet was still denied his bond, the natural order in a sense was never restored.
Shakespeare took a risk by merely including a Jew in his novel, so why not carry out his effort to change society and the world? Why not allow the minority and the oppressed to rise up and overcome their oppressor for once? It is because of this unfullfilled attempt to change society that I feel the ending to Shakespeare's A Merchant of Venice was a "cop out".

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