Who is more evil
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Who Is the Evil?
In the essay Shylock and the Idea of the Jew, Derek Cohen argues that in this play The Merchant of Venice, the Jewish, mainly Shylock is associated with evil while the Christian, goodness. Cohen believes that The Merchant of Venice is an anti-Semitic play. However, this is not true. I totally disagree with Cohens argument. I believe that this type of opinion is superficial, Shakespeare certainly encodes with deeper meaning in this play. My opinion is that The Merchant of Venice is more a play satirizing the hypocrisy of the Christians, for example, Antonio, Bassanio and Portia. Shylock, in this play, is just a tool which Shakespeare uses to dramatize the hypocritical quality of the Venetians.
In this play, the basic information about Shylock is that he is a Jew, he is a merchant, he lends out money to people and asks for money back. All other opinions about Shylocks meanness and evil are all spoken out by the Christians...