was shakespeare anti semitic
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In the play 'The Merchant of Venice', Shakespeare appears to be anti-Semitic because the wrongdoer, the villain in the play, is Shylock the Jew who is obviously Jewish. It starts with Bassanio wanting to borrow three thousand ducats from Antonio who is a merchant, but unfortunately all of Antonio's ships are out at sea and Antonio has no money to lend Bassanio, so Antonio borrows the money off Shylock. They sign a bond explaining that if Antonio does not pay then Shylock can take one pound of Antonio's flesh (which would kill him). Shylock hates Antonio because Antonio publicly embarrassed, name called and ruined Shylock's money lending business. Shylock's daughter also leaves home to get away from him- if Shakespeare was not anti-Semitic, Shylock would not have experienced such bad luck and pain. Shylock also lacked companions and almost every character in the book apart from Tubal, who is also a Jew, is against Shylock. Couldn't Shylock have just been a very bad man rather than a Jew? And be hated for who he is rather than what he is? This is mainly what makes me think Shakespeare was anti-Semitic. I would say that Shylock must have been Shakespeare's most complex and complicated character of which he wrote about...