The Merchant of Venice : "My purse, my person"; Or, Personal Value

1. The Merchant of Venice:"My purse, my person";Or, Personal Value

2. The Four Plot Strands of Merchant: • Wooing and winning of Portia by Bassanio (and of Nerissa by Gratiano) B. "Pound of flesh": Antonio becomes bound to Shylock C. Jessica steals away from Shylock to marry Lorenzo D. Launcelot Gobbo leaves Shylock to become Bassanio's servant Does everyone understand what’s going on in these four plots?

3. The Four Plot Strands of Merchant: • Wooing and winning of Portia by Bassanio (and of Nerissa by Gratiano) B. "Pound of flesh": Antonio becomes bound to Shylock C. Jessica steals away from Shylock to marry Lorenzo D. Launcelot Gobbo leaves Shylock to become Bassanio's servant What is the relationship between Plot A and Plot B?

4. The Four Plot Strands of Merchant: • Wooing and winning of Portia by Bassanio (and of Nerissa by Gratiano) B. "Pound of flesh": Antonio becomes bound to Shylock C. Jessica steals away from Shylock to marry Lorenzo D. Launcelot Gobbo leaves Shylock to become Bassanio's servant What is the effect of adding Plots C and D to Plots A and B?

5. Why does Bassanio need money to woo Portia? • So they can be equal partners in marriage, since she’s rich • Because he always wants more money • So he can fund the cost of his travel to Belmont • So he can maintain the trappings of his social status of gentleman and thus rival the other suitors • To pay off his debts before he goes wooing

6. Antonio’s investment in Bassanio (pp. 8-9; 1.1.147-52, 167-72) Bassanio explains why he needs to borrow money from Antonio, and Antonio responds, My purse, my person, my extremest means Lie all unlocked to your occasions (1.1.138-39)

7. Why is Antonio so generous to Bassanio, even to the point of entering into an unusual bond that puts his physical body and life on the line? See film clip from the Royal National Theater’s performance of The Merchant of Venice (directed by Trevor Nunn), set in the 20th century between the two world wars: Credits and opening scene, in which Bassanio asks Antonio for money, 1.1 (8 mins.)

8. Love Triangle:

9. Money also triangulates desire:

10. Moreover, in Merchant, these two triangles become linked, so we in fact end up with a diamond:

11. Treasured Women, Bound Men: Love and Money (Diamonds) “The total relationship of exchange which constitutes marriage is not established between a man and a woman, but between two groups of men, and the woman figures only as one of the objects in the exchange, not as one of the partners.” - Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures of Kinship

12. Where does Shylock fit into such a social system of exchange between men? • No where • He occupies the position of woman/object/money, like Portia • He occupies the position of Antonio, since he forms a male exchange with Bassanio which places Antonio into the position of woman/object/money, like Portia

13. Bassanio's relationship to Shylock: This structure gives us another connection between the wooing of Portia plot (A) and the Antonio-Shylock bond plot (B), or between the ostensible hero and villain of the play.

14. See the scene where Bassanio seeks the bond from Shylock, in Lawrence Olivier’s film production, set in Victorian England, 1.3 (3 mins.)

15. Bassanio's Worthinessand the Three Caskets: Even before Bassanio arrives in Belmont in all his finery to take the casket test, “Lord Love” (2.9.100) has gained the notice of Portia and Nerissa; see pp, 13-14; 1.2.111-120. But how “worthy” a lover is Bassanio? A) Most worthy  E) Worthless

16. How valid a test for the "right" husband is the casket test which Bassanio wins? • Morocco sees it as governed merely by chance or Fortune (p. 22; 2.1.32-28). • But the caskets have inscriptions that aid in their interpretation: • Gold: "Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire"(2.7.5) • Silver: "Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves"(2.7.7) • Lead: "Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath"(2.7.9)

17. Most importantly, the casket test is a deliberation on different systems of value: • intrinsic values and just prices, which are absolute • ascribed or inscribed values, which are socially determined Advocating the newer concept of ascribed value is Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan (1651): “The Value, or WORTH of a man, is as of all other things, his Price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his Power: and therefore is not absolute; but a thing dependant on the need and judgement of another.”

18. Communicating Value • Portia covertly subverts the casket test rules made by her father which state that she not reveal which casket contains her picture. • she tells Bassanio, “I could teach you / How to choose right, but then I am forsworn. / So will I never be.” (pp. 51-52; 3.2.10-12) • She laments, “O these naughty times / Puts bars between the owners and their rights” (p. 52, 3.2.18-19) • But she then uses her song to subvert "these naughty times“ (pp. 53-54; 3.2.63-70).

19. Bassanio’s own Language of Subversion • Bassanio understands the song's message, yet his own comments undercut his position and critique Portia (pp. 54-55; 3.2.73-107). • Denounces “outward shows” (l. 73) but he himself embraces gentlemanly “show” • Criticizes women’s “crisped snaky golden locks” (l. 92); but he earlier talks of Portia’s “golden fleece” of hair (p. 9; 1.1.169-70) • The “common drudge” (l. 103) of silver/money is one of his primary needs/desires • Refers to golden-locked women as “lightest” (l. 91), i.e., immoral, and fear of adultery permeates throughout; see, e.g., reference to “treason” (p. 52; 3.2.25-27) • Such tension over adultery may explain the ring test Portia sets up (p. 57; 3.2.166-74)

20. With all these hints of anxiety why then would Portia even want to marry Bassanio? • He’s the best out of a poor lot of suitors • She loves him despite his faults • Even though the play is supposedly set in Italy, Bassanio is the most English seeming of the lovers • She’s sick of playing her father’s casket game • She figures he’ll be the easiest to control

21. “Bassanio, Lord Love” (2.9.100) • There seems to be a natural affection between Portia and Bassanio despite Bassanio's faults. • And in fact it is Portia's affection for Bassanio that makes him worthy of her. Otherwise he is, as he says of himself, "nothing" (see his speech, p. 60,3.2.253-66).

22. Of course, such love does not mean Portia necessarily trusts Bassanio. • And with good reason: Bassanio gives up her ring to Balthasar (Portia in disguise). • Ultimately, Antonio has to bind himself yet again for Bassanio in a mock contract promising Bassanio’s faithfulness to Portia (pp. 98-99; 5.1.249-55).

23. So the marriage relation in Belmont in the end mirrors the commercial relation in Venice, giving us Shylock's "jewels“ and allowing Portia to occupy the empowering male subject position in a social exchange:

24. Epilogue: "Which is the merchant here? And which the Jew?" (4.1.173) • Is Shylock a sentimentalist? When Tubal tells him that one of Antonio's creditors showed him a ring "that he had of [Shylock's] daughter for a monkey," Shylock responds, "Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my turquoise; I had it of Leah [his now deceased wife] when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys" (3.1.111-16). • Who is the most "worthy" character in the play?