The Drama of the Jew in Arnold Wesker's The Merchant

45 Pages·2015·0.36 MB·English

by  Z B

Masaryk University
Faculty of Arts

Department of English
and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Mgr. Zuzana Biravská

The Drama of the Jew in Arnold Wesker’s
The Merchant

Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A.

2015
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,
using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………..
Author’s signature
Acknowledgement

In the first place I would like to thank my supervisor prof. Milada Franková for
her kind guidance, her valuable advice and immense motivation.

I would also like to thank my family and my friends, who became a great part of
this thesis thanks to the hours of the colorful conversations I could spend with them and
thus find some conclusions and new points of view on the topic of minorities or about
their perception of the character of Shakespeare’s Shylock.

Last but not least I would like to express my gratitude for the opportunity I got to
be able to spend a semester in England as an Erasmus student at the University of Bristol
and therefore I could use their library and get a new life experience, which formed my
opinion about stereotypes.
Table of Contents

Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 1
1. The Merchant: Wesker’s Shylock ............................................................................................... 3
1.1. Impulse to Writing The Merchant ..................................................................................... 3
1.2. About .................................................................................................................................. 3
1.3. Shylock’s Character ........................................................................................................... 7
1.4. Cultural – Social Background ........................................................................................ 11
2. The Merchant (of Venice?): Two Plays about Shylock ............................................................ 18
2.1. The Main Differences .................................................................................................... 18
2.2. Anti-Semitism in The Merchant of Venice ....................................................................... 19
2.3. Stereotyping ..................................................................................................................... 22
3. Shylock, the Jew: Other Examples of Shylock .................................................................... 27
3.1. Shylock by Mark Leiren-Young ...................................................................................... 27
3.2. Yasser by Abdelkader Benali .......................................................................................... 28
3.3. Other references to MV ................................................................................................ 30
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 32
Works Cited and Consulted ........................................................................................................... 35
Summary ........................................................................................................................................... 40
Résumé .............................................................................................................................................. 41
Introduction
“The smallest minority on earth is the individual.”
Ayn Rand

We all are being misunderstood. Every person is an individual. People share
similarities but each human being consists of a unique combination of these similarities.
Thus, it could be said that each person has experienced feelings of loneliness, rejection or
incomprehension at some point in their lives; feelings by which minorities are afflicted the
most. We all are being misunderstood, therefore, sometimes, we all are minorities.
Arnold Wesker, who is an important British playwright living in Wales, writes also
about what it means to be a Jewish minority. He grew up in a Jewish community in the East
End of London, which became a crucial inspiration for his writing. The East End for Wesker
felt like Shylock’s Venetian ghetto in its mentality and that is why he always “felt very much
in tune with Shylock” (Leeming 5). In 1983 Wesker introduces his response to The Merchant
of Venice (MV), a play about Shakespeare’s notorious Jew Shylock.
The reason for feeling the necessity for responding to such a great man like
Shakespeare with his own version about Shylock is the fact that after watching Jonathan
Miller’s production he was, “struck by the play’s irredeemable anti-semitism. . . . It was . . .
the immediate impact I [Wesker] actually experienced. . . . Here was a play which . . . could
emerge as nothing other than a confirmation of the Jew as bloodsucker” (Wesker, The
Merchant L). This made him come up with a sympathetic Shylock – someone whose motives
for his behaviour would be clear and comprehensible.
For the audience it might be crucial to identify with Shylock and to understand him.
As mentioned at the very beginning we all are individuals and thus minorities in a way. That
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is why Shylock’s character as a minority character and his feelings might remind the audience
of some particular moments of their lives and therefore should call for empathy.
The aim of the thesis is to discuss the theme of minorities in Wesker’s The Merchant
as well as dealing with minority way of thinking and the degree of anti-Semitism in
Shakespeare’s MV and thus the necessity of Wesker’s response by writing The Merchant.
The thesis is divided into three main chapters. The very first part considers possible
answers to questions such as why Wesker needed to write The Merchant and why it is
important that Shylock’s character would be sympathetic. How he succeeded in creating
another Shylock and the literary means that Wesker uses to evoke sympathy for Shylock such
as using historical facts and emphasizing cultural and social background in which Shylock
lived are discussed as well.
After getting acquainted with the core play of this thesis, The Merchant, the main
differences between Wesker’s version and Shakespeare’s one are discussed. Moreover,
another question is raised, namely whether Shakespeare’s Shylock was really no sympathetic
character. The answer might be found in the debate about the degree of anti-Semitism and
stereotyping in MV, which follows.
To take a case in point, other plays depicting the character of Shylock are introduced
in the very last part of the thesis to sketch in the literary context of dealing with this topic.

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1. The Merchant: Wesker’s Shylock
1.1. Impulse to Writing The Merchant
Wesker decided to create his own Shylock after watching Jonathan’s Miller
production of The Merchant of Venice, who in Wesker’s words introduced a “confirmation of
the Jew as the bloodsucker” (Wesker, The Merchant L). That is why Wesker “can’t [keep quiet]
. . ., but [is] like Shylock . . . unforgiving, unforgiving of the play’s contribution to the world’s
astigmatic view and murderous hatred of the Jew” (Wesker, The Merchant L).
As another argument for starting to deal with this subject Wesker asserts that in
Shylock he could not recognise a Jew he knew (Wesker, The Merchant L-Li). He is convinced
it is necessary to create a play where a shift in Shylock’s character would be presented and so
the new Shylock would not be, like Shakespeare’s Shylock, a villain not because of “his
individual characteristic, as with Molière’s Harpagon, but simply because he is a Jew”
(Wesker, The Merchant xxi).
In addition, Wesker realizes three aspects in particular which must be considered
while writing about a Jewish character like Shylock. It is the fact of the existence of
concentration camps, the state of Israel and last but not least still present prejudice against
the Jews (Parlak 126). Wesker is convinced the play must have humanistic principles, “He
wrote such a play [The Merchant] to show that the Jews are not as presented in The Merchant of
Venice” (Parlak 129).
1.2. About
For this reason Arnold Wesker’s The Merchant could be described as a Jewish play,
a historical drama as well as a modernization of Shakespeare (Lindemann 132). It is a Jewish
play as in comparison to Shakespeare’s original the play deals with the Jewish topic quite in
detail; a historical drama as the audience gets acquainted with many historical facts due to
the conversations among the Jewish characters but also through the encounter with the
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Christians. And last but not least it definitely is a modernization of Shakespeare even though
as discussed later in this chapter Arnold Wesker prefers the term ‘answer’ to ‘adaptation’ -
the term popular with many critics.
The main problem which the play deals with is the bond between two very good
friends – the Jew Shylock and the Christian Antonio. Antonio asks Shylock to lend him
money for his friend but as the Venetian law does not allow any money lending by Jews
without a contract, Antonio insists on having one with Shylock – mainly to make sure
Shylock will not have any problems with the law:
ANTONIO: Shylock! The law says, in these very words, ‘It is forbidden to enter
into dealings with a Jew without sign and sealing of a bond, which bond must
name the sums borrowed, specify the collateral, name the day, the hour to be
paid, and –
TOGETHER. – and be witnessed by three Venetians, two patricians and one
citizen, and then registered! (Wesker, The Merchant 24)
Shylock unwillingly changes his mind about lending money to a good friend based just on
trust. However, to show what he thinks of this nonsensical law, he decides to emphasize the
absurdity of the whole situation through signing an absurd bond:
SHYLOCK. We’ll have a bond. . . . A lovely, loving nonsense bond. To mock
the law. . . . Barbaric laws? Barbaric bonds! Three thousand ducats against a
pound (sic) your flesh.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
SHYLOCK. Madness for the mad.
ANTONIO. Idiocies for the idiots.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ANTONIO. They mock our friendship –
SHYLOCK. – We mock their laws. (Wesker, The Merchant 25-6)
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Similarly to the original play by Shakespeare, Antonio is not able to give the money
back and together with Shylock they are forced to play their game even at the court until
Portia comes with another solution of the situation, which makes the bond invalid.
Everybody’s relieved, Shylock especially. However, not for long: Shylock exactly as in MV
is accused of plotting “against the life of a citizen of Venice” (Wesker, The Merchant 79) and
all his books are taken from him.
However, as mentioned earlier, Wesker “does not so much rewrite or reinterpret
Shakespeare as answer him” (Sicher 60). The well-known “Hath not a Jew eyes” is said by
Lorenzo because Shylock – as he himself says – does not want apologies for his humanity:
SHYLOCK. No, no, NO! I will not have it. . . . I do not want apologies for my
humanity. (Wesker, The Merchant 76)
The original meaning of the speech by Shakespeare was meant to “underline Shylock’s
equality, in The Merchant they [the words] are being ridiculed. What was meant to be a defence
speech, sounds like mockery” (Kroh n. pag.). In Sicher’s view this is Shylock’s reaction on
“Wesker’s questioning of Shakespeare’s humanness” by Lorenzo, “where it becomes an
accusation of the Jew’s ungrateful perfidy in return for the Christian’s tolerance. This the Jew
will not accept.” (64). Lindemann adds that this dialog represents:
. . . die ganz persönliche Antwort eines betroffenen Juden auf jegliche Form des
Antisemitismus, gleichgültig ob sie ihm im Werk des großen Shakespeare oder
in Reaktionen von dessen modernen Theaterpublikum begegnet. (130)
. . . the very personal answer of the affected Jew by a certain form of Anti-
Semitism, no matter whether they come across that in the work of great
Shakespeare or as a reaction by the modern theatregoers.
This part of the drama is one of the best examples proving that Wesker was not trying to
rewrite Shakespeare. It is crystal clear that Arnold Wesker’s Shylock became an answer by
the contemporary author feeling the necessity to react to one of the most discussed
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Shakespeare’s plays. Wesker states, “It was to be a play based on the same three stories which
Shakespeare used for his play THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. Not . . . a rewrite of
Shakespeare’s play, but an entirely new and original work using the same source materials”
(qtd. in Lindemann 132). The source materials are at least two old stories that were
Shakespeare’s inspiration for writing The Merchant of Venice. The first one is the tale Il Pecorone
or The Simpleton, a story about a Jewish money-lender, who lent money for a pound of flesh.
The other one is from the Gesta Romanorum, which is the base of the story about Portia’s
suitors and caskets (Mabillard n. pag.).
Besides the above mentioned opinions, Efraim Sicher, too, does not consider The
Merchant an adaptation. For him this is rather a play about the impossibility of catching up
with the ideals of two friends (60). Both Antonio and Shylock are exceptional individuals in
their societies: Antonio among Venetians, Shylock in his Jewish community (Sicher 63). In
spite of the cultural difference Antonio and Shylock are very good friends, which proves that
at least this is possible (Parlak 127).
Considering friendship as such as the main theme of the drama, the dramatic conflict
might be missed out as Leeming notices when she writes: “Rosemary Say couldn’t see where
the dramatic conflict lay, if Shylock and Antonio were friends” (125-6). Nevertheless, this
friendship is set in a particular place, which here is Venice. In Venice there were not the same
rules for the Jews and Venetians, which had then a serious impact on otherwise something
as pure and beautiful as friendship. The reality, in which Antonio and Shylock live, does not
make it possible to have friendship based on mutual trust.
Except for the main theme about friendship and the absurdity of law the play deals
with a range of other topics that more or less overlap, such as hypocrisy, pretending, rights
and freedom, or inescapable fate. Another theme is the dealing with the parents-children
relationship. Not only is the “generation-gap rebellion” as an up-dated problem for the
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