威尼斯商人2004

Who should be blamed for？
  一部坚定站在现代立场上的反宗教歧视片。
  女扮男装的鲍西亚很好看。
  试探要戒子很傻逼
  真的要到戒子以后的回应很傻逼
  找夏洛克借钱的安东尼奥很傻逼
  为了排场让安东尼奥找夏洛克借钱的巴萨尼奥更傻逼，傻逼中的战斗逼
  赔不起钱了不去找别人借钱补上反而做一些乞求更傻逼
  咄咄逼人的鲍西亚很讨厌
  逼着夏洛克改变宗教信仰很讨厌
  不孝的女儿活该思念
  只有夏洛克是一个正常人

      In the cast of characters of “The Merchant of Venice”, Shylock is sure to be the fullest, the most vivid one. He is portrayed as a round, three-dimensional image, rather than a flat one. Shylock is the most complicated character in this play.

      He is absolutely very malicious, vicious, mean, a merciless man with no sympathy. But if you only judge him by these words, and describe him in this way, I am afraid that you will miss the other respects of his personalities and fates, which are, maybe the more important parts.

        Shylock, is a tragic person in this play. He is a Jew, and believes Judaism. But at that period of time, Christianity is the orthodoxy, while Judaism is supposed to be the paganism. Therefore, many Jews are inferior to Christians, and they are often bullied and took advantage of. In this situation, this Jewish merchant, who lent money to a Christian, just had his own plan, he calculated the deal’s value in heart. Getting the maximal amount of interest is every merchant’s purpose and duty. Is it wrong for him to do that? It’s good to be sagacious and efficient in the business, as long as you don’t get that money by stealing or robbing. If you get money in a proper way, lending money at interest is not excessive, this way of business is not too bad. All of this is just understandable, is reasonable.

        From the dialog between Shylock and his daughter, you can feel his love for his daughter. He loves his only daughter, and wants to protect her. Because he does not believe the Christians, he does not allow her to marry a Christian. He does this just because he is afraid that the Christian may hurt his daughter, that ‘s also out of his deep love for her. From this point, he is a good father. So he just planed his daughter’s life, gave her the material comfort, without caring her feelings about all of these. We may say that his love is absolute, but the way is not so suitable and correct.

         There are many conflicts in this play. At first when Antonio asked money for Shylock, the dialog between them showed two different kinds of person. But different thoughts came to the same point, that is , money. Antonio has his good reputation, and just because of this, Shylock at last lent him money. The conflict appeared here but didn’t reach its climax. There are a group of contradictions: The contradiction of Shylock and Antonio’s way of business; The contradiction of their religion and believe; the contradiction of the difference of what they really think and what they behave in reality. All of these contradictions just prepare for the real clash in the climax. It’s the prelude, the first step to make the strong conflicts and acted as a catalytic agent in the process of sharpen the conflict.

        In the end, Shylock lost everything. His daughter, his property, and his believe. His daughter eloped with a Christian, which is a heavy blow to him. He was forced to believe Christianity. The two things are sacred in his heart, which support him all the time. But now, nothing left to him. And what’s more, he is marked as a bad man forever. Maybe this is the most deplorable thing to him.

         A pitiable and hateful man, makes you sometimes gnash your teeth, sometimes feel your heart ache for him.

The merchant of Venice tells us a story about friendship, love and religion. Among the three themes, it is the religion that inspired me the most.
First, let’s take a brief look at the three main characters in the play: Antonio, Bassanio, and Shylock.
Antonio, whom the merchant of Venice refers to, is decent and brave, loyal to his friends and severe to his enemies. As a Christian, he often discriminates the Jewish people, and insulting them in public is often the case.
Bassanio, in my opinion, is a good-for-nothing young man. He is obsessed with the beauty and the fortune of Portia, and he borrows money from Antonio to make his trip to woo the hand of Portia. From this we can see that Bassanio is sort of incapable because he can’t even pursue his love all by his own.
Shylock, the big villain in this play, is a Jewish merchant. He is described as a mean, greedy, and cold-blooded merchant who sees no other things but money in his eyes. Being a Jew, he lives a lowly life, suffering continuous insults and humiliations from Antonio and other Christians. That explains why he bears deep hatred against Antonio. But objectively speaking, he is a man of endurance and toughness.
  Then let’s see how the story goes round.
Bassanio borrows money from Antonio to pursue Portia. But Antonio has invested all his fortune to his ships and has no cash in hand at that moment. Out of love to Bassanio, Antonio takes the risk to borrow money from his enemy Shylock which demands to cut down one pound of flesh from Antonio if he can’t pay back the money in time.
From this treaty we can see what a deep Shylock’s hatred against Antonio, he regard it a good chance to revenge himself. As an old saying says, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. Antonio used to treat Shylock bad, He has insulted the Jew and spat on him, yet he comes with hypocritical politeness to borrow money of him. Now it is the turn of Shylock to treat him back, even more harshly than the way he was treated before.
 So I think his act of revenge is reasonable to some degree and we should have mercy on him. Being a Jew, he is cruelly abused here and there. The Jews are not allowed to possess private possessions, they are obliged to wear a red hat in public to make sure that they can be easily identified, and they live in the dirty and narrow slums guarded by the Christians, supposedly for their own safety. This is a whole race that is been treated unfairly. And Shylock, to some extent, is one of the representatives of his people who underwent so much injustice. He speaks for his own nation:
Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
This is the most inspiring part that exerts our sympathy for Shylock, his words of anger, of interrogation, touched me a lot. I started to think about the so-called heroes—Bassanio, Portia, and Antonio, they’re sort of hypocrites. How can they ask Shylock to have mercy when they are showing none on him? See what this gentleman has done to the poor Jew:
 He hath 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.
Apparently, Antonio’s behaviors do not accord with his decent figure. It’s worth doubting his personality dealing with others except for his friends. In addition, his actions do arouse Shylock’s anger and detestation, it’s no wonder that he wants to revenge on him. When his mutinous daughter, his only family member, deserts him to marry a Christian taking with her many valuable possessions, including the first ring Shylock gave to his late wife. His servant defects to his enemy; he definitely hates Antonio to death.
From this part, we can see clearly Shakespeare’s neutral position in religion, or at least he did not always portray Shylock as entirely detestable, putting him in unfortunate situations where the audience cannot but have some sympathy for him.
The court is a place where justice should be done, while what I see from the trial in the end of the play is totally a mockery of justice. Portia disguises as a lawyer, and easily reverses the tide with a little trick of words. This is what law allows? In the name of justice?
 At the ending of the play, Shylock has lost everything, what matters the most is that he has lost his belief, and he is forced to be converted to a Christian. How can he burden all this changes? He is just an old lonely poor man, how can he be accepted by the Christians and how his Jewish fellowmen look at him? None of my assumption is good for Shylock. He is pathetic, not only for his personality, but also for the social structures at that time. Although I don’t know the religions very well, I do know that we are all born equal. Shylock deserves sympathy, but none of Antonio’s insults. His misfortune doesn’t owe to Antonio, but to that time.

我一直在等，哪怕是一个眼神，好让我知道她在担心着远方的父亲。我在想，无论是哪一个民族，亲情血缘作为人与人之间最原始也最天然的关系依托，总是不可忽视的。终于证明了这一点的，是她抚摸着手上的绿松石戒指，忧心地望着水面，似乎在等待着某个时刻或者某个人。她是夏洛克的女儿，为了爱情背叛了自己民族的人。

她的父亲说：她怎么敢这样，那是我的绿松石，是她母亲利亚给我的，那时我还是个单身汉。

我一直在想，到底夏洛克是更关心失去了踪迹的女儿，还是女儿带走的金钱，但是当我听到他的“绿松石”时，我不再寻找任何线索来证明什么了。被指为贪婪冷酷的夏洛克，他心中埋藏着最真的感情，女儿的这种几乎可以被称为背叛的出走，让他看起来苍老了许多。他漫无目的地走在威尼斯的大街小巷中，踽踽独行，茕茕孑立，孤立无援。他的不安与失望膨胀了他的报复心。

“如果它不能喂其他东西，至少可以喂饱我的报复心。”

电影开场的那一口唾沫具有太强的喜剧效果，“安东尼奥！”回答夏洛克的是一口唾沫，人群里，一顶红色的帽子，一个苍老的老头儿，一阵安静。毫无疑问的，我所有的同情都投降了这个犹太人。夏洛克忍着，正如他所言：我们的民族正是以忍耐著称的。等到终于有一天他爆发了的时候：

他羞辱了我，嘲笑我的损失，讥讽我的收入，斥责我的民族，阻挠我的生意，疏远了我的朋友，激怒了我的敌人，他这又是为了什么，因为我是个犹太人。。

犹太人就没有眼睛吗？犹太人就没有双手吗？没有感觉、感情和热情吗？不吃同样的食物，不会被同样的武器刺伤，不会被同样的疾病打倒，不会被同样的方式治愈，不和基督徒一样，感受寒暑更迭。你刺我们，我们不会流血吗？...你毒我们，我们不会死吗？而如果你冒犯了我们，我们不会报复吗！如果我们其他方面都和你们一样，我们在这方面也会和你们一样。

如果一个犹太人冒犯了基督徒，他会收到怎样的羞辱，报复？

如果一个基督徒冒犯了犹太人，以基督徒的标准，他该受到怎样的惩罚，当然，报复。

你们教会我的罪恶，我都会施行，但会变本加厉，我会在你们的教导上更进一步。



在鲍西亚咄咄逼人下，他说：

“你拿走支撑我房子的支柱，就是拿走我的房子，

你拿走我生活的来源，就是拿走我的生命。”



他倒下了，连唯一剩下的信仰，都被剥夺。

他是这样子的一个弱者，他脱下了红帽，却哪儿都去不了了。

『威尼斯商人』中，阿尔帕西诺的那段台词，念得太地道了，是第3幕第一部分的：

To bait fish withal:
拿来钓鱼也好；
if it will feed nothing else,it will feed my revenge.
即使他的肉不中吃，至少也可以出出我这一口气。
He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
他曾经羞辱过我，夺去我几十万块钱的生意，讥笑着我的亏蚀，
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation,
挖苦着我的盈余，侮蔑我的民族，
thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies;
破坏我的买卖，离间我的朋友，煽动我的仇敌；
and what's his reason? I am a Jew.
他的理由是什么？只因为我是一个犹太人。
Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
难道犹太人没有五官四肢、
dimensions, senses, affections, passions?
没有知觉、没有感情、没有血气吗？
fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,
他不是吃着同样的食物，同样的武器可以伤害他，
subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?
同样的医药可以疗治他，冬天同样会冷，夏天同样会热，就像一个基督徒一样吗？
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
你们要是用刀剑刺我们，我们不是也会出血的吗？
if you tickle us, do we not laugh?
你们要是搔我们的痒，我们不是也会笑起来的吗？
if you poison us, do we not die?
你们要是用毒药谋害我们，我们不是也会死的吗？
and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
那么要是你们欺侮了我们，我们难道不会复仇吗？
If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.
要是在别的地方我们都跟你们一样，那么在这一点上也是彼此相同的。
If a Jew wrong a Christian,what is his humility? Revenge.
If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge.
要是一个犹太人欺侮了一个基督徒，那基督徒怎样表现他的谦逊？报仇。
The villany you teach me, I will execute,
你们已经把残虐的手段教给我，我一定会照着你们的教训实行，
and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
而且还要加倍奉敬哩。