As A Traditional Romantic Comedy:
The play has been traditionally accepted as a romantic comedy by many critics, for it ends in enormous fun and laughter. Love too triumphs, or so it appears at first instance. Bassanio marries Portia, Lorenzo marries Jessica, Gratiano marries Nerissa, and even Launcelot finds a dark skinned woman as a mate for himself.
Yet Bassanio marries after he betrays Antonio in more ways than one, for the latter loses the former to Portia. Antonio also almost loses his life trying to unite Bassanio and Portia. Bassanio too marries Portia as much for her wealth as for his love for her; and we can hardly find a satisfactory reply as to why a woman of Portia's grandeur would fall for a person so devoid of any positive trait. Lorenzo and Jessica unite after the latter has betrayed her religion, and her father, and the former has abetted her in achieving this. How love can ever flourish amidst so much of evil is hard to fathom. Love's main accessory is moral uprighteousness based on trust. Lorenzo and Jessica are neither uprighteous nor moral, for they betray Shylock's faith, and Jessica rejects Judaism for Christianity, in an arbitrary exercise of religious flippance. Gratiano and Nerissa indulge only in tomfoolery, and there is hardly any romance between the two.
Antonio As A Tragic Figure:
Antonio is melancholic in the very first line of the play when—
"In sooth, I know not why I am so sad
It wearies me;" [I. i. 1-2]
Salarino and Salanio, his two companions, try to explain his sorrow and we know they are way off target. His melancholy is due to his loneliness. He has an all-consuming love of a homosexual for Bassanio. Bassanio may be bisexual or may be he is not, for we get no hint of it. Yet he chooses to 'woo Portia. We know that Antonio already had been told about this by Bassanio sometime before the commencement of the play, for the first time that Antonio meets Bassanio in the play he anxiously asks:
"Well, tell me now, what lady is the same
To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
That you today promised to tell me of?" (I. i. 120-123)
There is distinct suffering in these words. Antonio is about to lose the sole purpose of his existence, to Portia, someone he cannot compete with, for she is a woman, and homosexuality was not accepted in society. We know that his suffering is acute as is his reconciliation to his loneliness for life, for a few minutes earlier he had told Gratiano that
"I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
A stage where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one." (1. i.76-78)
Shylock As A Tragic Figure:
Shylock too suffers immensely. He suffers because he is a Jew, and is proud of being one. The Christians in Venice, forgetting the cardinal value of tolerance, sympathy and brotherhood, display the exact opposite of emotions towards him. Shylock suffers the most at the hands of Antonio. The latter calls him a dog and spits on him at the Rialto. These two are not stray incidents, for the persecution of Shylock is repeated and incessant. Neither is Antonio the sole persecutor. He is merely the symbol of Christian intolerance towards the Jews in Venice. Shylock's humiliation and suffering can only be measured by someone who has experienced the alienation of a gross minority. Shylock suffers on other counts too. His business of lending money is looked down upon. Though he roughs it out through sheer perseverance, the loneliness must undoubtedly have remained with him. He misses his wife Leah, whom he obviously loves dearly. Normally daughters are a great source of comfort and happiness to fathers. Jessica cannot be much of a solace, for she hates her own religion and is embarrassed by her father's thrift and business. She betrays him by robbing him of all his money after he had bestowed upon her the trust of his house. She not only takes the money but also marries Lorenzo, a Christian boy by changing her religion. This must have been particularly heart- breaking for the proud Jew. Later Shylock is to suffer more due to Jessica, when he learns from Tubal that she exchanged the turquoise ring which Leah gave to him as a bachelor, for a monkey. When you hear of this, you wish that God had spared him of such a daughter. Shylock's persecution is complete, and his heart hardens to such an extent that he is prepared to take Antonio's life when the opportunity comes. Justice finally prevails when Shylock is prevented from carrying out his hideous design. But when justice goes further and confiscates his entire wealth, and forces his survival on his conversion to Christianity, we realise that the gods are not just. For a man so proud of his heritage and religion, suicide may have been a better option than the one given to him by the laws of Venice.
Portia's Sadness and Suffering:
Even the exquisitely beautiful and ebullient Portia is not always happy. Her suffering at her father's choice of the method of choosing a husband for her is full of hazards, till others fall and Bassanio finally chooses the casket. She admits to Nerissa that she may land up with a wrong husband and be trapped into a loveless marriage. Most of her suitors are arrogant and no match to her grandeur. Moreover she loves Bassanio and the chances of not marrying him due to the arbitrary lottery are very real.
Plenty of Comedy in the Play:
There is plenty of comedy in this play too. Launcelot Gobbo is a clown or a jester who was introduced by Shakespeare only to produce laughter. Launcelot's fooling of his own father is comic too, though it is something crude and farcical. He is capable of making a good joke also as for instance, when he says that the making of Christians (or the conversion of the Jews to Christianity) would raise the price of hogs in Venice. But it is the sense of humour and the wit of Portia and of Gratiano which import to the play a truly comic quality. Portia's wit is first brought to our notice through her comments on her suitors. She says about her English suitors that he is oddly suited; and in this context she further says that he must have his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere. A plenty of mirth and laughter has been produced by the comedy of rings and the playwright ends his play with mirth and laughter.
Play's Ending in much fun and Merriment:
The play ends in much fun and merriment as everything is brought to a happy end. In the moonlit night in Portia's garden, the three pairs of lovers unite in one rhapsody of happiness. Antonio, too, though alone, gets the news of the return of his ships with merchandise which were considered lost and almost cost him his life. There is not a hint of sadness and the reader is prone to believe that nothing can be happier than this. Yet, we can only accept this if we forget the tragic Shylock, who has lost his religion, his wealth and his reputation. Had the fifth act not been written by Shakespeare the play would have been a tragedy. Shakespeare does not finish his play immediately after the trial scene, because he wanted to make sure that the play is accepted as a comedy. Amidst the prosperity and happiness, we also forget the sorrow of Antonio who has lost Bassanio to Portia, and has no method to cope with his suffering due to unrequited and unreturned love.
Though ended happily the play cannot be called a romantic comedy. "Shakespearean romantic comedy is fundamentally different from classical comedy. It is an unlimited venture of happiness and an impringly imaginative undertaking of human welfare. It's heroes and heroines are Voyagers' in pursuit of a happiness, not yet attained-a 'Brave New World', wherein man's life may be fuller his sensations more exquisite, and his joys more wide-spread more lasting, and so more humane. The central theme of Shakespeare's romantic comedy rotates a round love-an immorally inspiring love. To quote Beatrice Webb, “The Merchant of Venice, certainly, contains elements of romance; the elopement of Jessica, the melancholy sweet love between those two young lovers and the love-lit just meeting of Bassanio and Portia-all these are the most sparkling elements of a romantic comedy. But we should also note that love is not the central theme of the plot; the play a grim fight between two antagonistic religious orthodoxies."
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