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Because that's what a "Jewish" villain was, particularly at that time. They were nigh-Satanic figures on-stage, informed by the widespread beliefs at the time that those were the sorts of activities in which Jews engaged. Shylock complaining that Antonio is bad for his business isn't a Jewish complaint, per se, and the fact that he cares about the loss of his fortune at least as much as the loss of his daughter is not a Jewish trait per se, especially at that time.
You're right, I misremembered; Tubal didn't remind Shylock of the bond (although he pretty clearly goads Shylock into it). The two Sals ask Shylock if he'd heard that Antonio had lost a ship, and at that point Shylock starts in on the "let him look to his bond." But note, this is AFTER Jessica has abandoned Shylock for a Christian and taken his money. If none of that had happened, would Shylock still be looking to the bond? I seriously doubt it. As he tells Antonio earlier:
Pray you, tell me this;
If he should break his day, what should I gain
By the exaction of the forfeiture?
A pound of man's flesh taken from a man
Is not so estimable, profitable neither,
As flesh of muttons, beefs, or goats. I say,
To buy his favour, I extend this friendship:
If he will take it, so; if not, adieu;
And, for my love, I pray you wrong me not.
Now, either Shylock is lying, or he's telling the truth. I think he's telling the truth. He's in the money-making business, and there's no money to be made by killing Antonio (it would, in fact, be much worse for business; he would incur the wrath of the whole city thereby). It's better for his business in the long run if he buys Antonio's good-will with an interest-free loan, with some claptrap ridiculousness for the bond. There are no villainous asides to the audience a la Iago to let them know that Shylock is seriously hoping to kill Antonio here.
I'm sure everyone's seen this by now, but it bears repeating.
I think that's why Iago is so much more interesting than Aaron. Aaron is a straight sociopath, a cruel and vile human being whose misanthropic tendencies make him largely difficult to relate to, or understand. Iago, on the other hand, is manipulative, cunning, and cruel - but his motivations aren't revealed to us. That mystery is what makes him so intriguing, because we are forced to guess as to why he does what he does.
I've read and seen Othello many times, and the best conclusion I can come up with is that Iago does what he does, simply because he can. It's almost as if he stumbles upon this ability to manipulate others, and in so doing, he starts to elevate his own ego - using his lies as a way to wield power over others and validate his intelligence. He finds it rewarding, and like any good power trip, keeps pushing it to see just how far he can take his deception. I think it's also why we seem him laughing in the final scene - not because he has won, even though he has assuredly lost - but, rather, he's become so disconnected from everything around him that he considers his actions and their consequences to be a joke. And the sick reveal is the punchline.
See, I always viewed Iago as the sociopath. He gives different motivations for himself that don't bear out over the course of the play, but always seem to be what the other person expects or wants to hear. He feels no attachment to anything or emotional connection, he just does what he does.
Aaron on the other hand, and it's probably because of the way Harry Lennix played him in Titus, seems to me like a guy who is just goddamned pissed at everyone. He's black, and so he's been treated like he's less than human his entire life, and a man can only take so much. His whole "fuck the world" shtick falls apart the moment he sees his kid, which says to me that he just wants to be left alone and if these fuckers aren't going to let him go off and live in peace he's going to do everything he can to make their lives hell and their deaths quick and painful.
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There's something deeply unsettling about a man who has no ulterior motive for the evil he commits.
It's a comedy. Having the bad guy killing babies and poisoning wells might dampen the mood somewhat. To claim that Shylock isn't conforming to Jewish stereotypes just isn't supportable without performing backflips of interpretation. Do you think it's just a coincidence that he's a moneylender, that he looooves his money, that he rails against limits to his charging of interest?
And I wouldn't agree that Tubal actively goads Shylock into anything. He gives him news that overjoyed Shylock, and offers more information, but doesn't prod him and say how ya gonna fuck him up dog? I guess an actor could play Tubal in such a way as to suggest it, but it really isn't there in the text.
Shylock doesn't have to be lying, precisely, when he tells Antonio he has no use for his flesh. He wants Antonio to sign. Maybe the plan isn't a solid goal in his head, but it's there. Arguing that the bond of flesh is entirely innocent until circumstance sours Shylock just isn't convincing for me. And there are villainous asides, just not explicitly about killing Antonio, they're about hating him.
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Well, those are the kinds of things Barabas was doing on stage, and "The Jew of Malta" was definitely a comedy (and very popular).
To the extent those things are Jewish stereotypes, I'm not even sure they date back that far. Like I said, the stereotype of the Jew at that time tended to be different than that.
Tubal alternates passages making Shylock feel horrible about what has been done to him, informing him of Jessica selling the ring for a monkey, etc., and then constantly reminds him about the ships that Antonio has lost. I'd call that goading.
He hates Antonio, but that's not necessarily villainous. After all, he gives good reasons why he hates Antonio; if anybody did to me what Antonio did to Shylock repeatedly, I'd hate that fucker too, and that has nothing to do with whether I'm Jewish or not (I'm not). Antonio spits on Shylock in the streets, AND tries to ruin Shylock's business. And for that, Shylock offers him money at no interest with no real expectation that Antonio won't be able to pay him back; Shylock himself admits that Antonio is a "good" man, meaning that he's good for the debt. Besides, as I mentioned above, at this point in the play, Shylock is still a reasonable man. Killing Antonio would gain him nothing and potentially cost him lots.
Contrast that with, say, Iago, who never really gives a reasonable or consistent explanation of why he hates Othello.
I've seen the Tubal scene played where Tubal is oblivious to the anger he's producing in Shylock, which makes for more comedy. You can choose to believe that Shylock offers the bond with no thought to carrying it out, or not. For me, the choice of flesh as the bond is deliberate on Shylock's part, as at the very least, in the back of his mind, he's laying a trap he can spring later.
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No, it really didn't.
That sort of stereotype was built over time, from before the Crusades, up through the Reformation, and to the Elizabethan London that was Shakespeare's home.
One of the biggest excuses made by Phillip the Fair and Clement V for taking down the Knights Templar was the fact that they participated in the Jewish practice of usury, so the moneylender/usury part of the image was present as early as the 14th century, some 250 years before the Bard lived. Usury was also listed in 11th century accounts as reasoning for the start of some pogroms that occured in the build up to the 1st and 2nd Crusades. The stereotypes were most definitely there before and during Shakespeare's time.
What differentiates Shylock from Barabas isn't that he's so far different in characterization, it's that while he does engage in stereotypical Jewish pursuits, that isn't all that defines the man.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
I disagree, for the reasons I've stated above.
Wait, hold on. It's indisputable that Jews were moneylenders back then (one of the few professions open to them in the public sphere), and that Christians by and large hated the idea of usury. What I'm asking about is whether the stereotypical idea of the money-loving Jew is that old, or whether that's a later invention. There is a potential difference there. Moreover, to the extent that the stereotype existed back then, did it exist in Elizabethan England, where Jews had been officially expelled since around 1290?
The fact that the ending is entirely dependent on lawyering regarding him getting his flesh but no blood really makes any other interpretation of his motives completely untenable.
I enjoy it very much, but he isn't some magnificently constructed character.
The best interpretations I've seen have him coming at it as a result of racial insecurity/prejudice. "How dare this Moor have this hot white wife and general good fortune!"
Yeah, that's what most people come up with, and it works just fine and you can do a lot with it as an actor, but in text he's a bit cardboardy was my point.
Either that, or he just wants more seed from Jaffar.
Aha, so it's a furry thing going on.
Looking back at it now, I can't watch Keanu Reeves's play Don John as anything except a more serious version of Ted Logan. But it still hold a special place in my memory.
I addressed this.
You can make the argument that at first Shylock may not have wanted the flesh (especially as loans at the time were much like mob rackets: pay us dis much or we break someting), but as the play goes on and he keeps getting slapped by the world, to argue that he doesn't start to think of it seriously, especially as he goes through such a lengthy back and forth at the end to try to get it is to ignore everything that happens after the first act and the speech you quoted.
It's essentially, "Hey, this would never happen, but..." to "Hey, maybe..." to "Y'know what? Screw you all."
He's a villain, but only inasmuch as the world shapes him over the course of the story; he's not a blackheart form the beginning or no one would reasonably go to him. He's an interesting figure because as much as his character traits are all stereotypes, he has a very believable motivational arc.
If one is just focusing on England, then the 11-13th centuries, is when the concept of the money-loving Jew entered the collective consciousness of the English people. With a high proportion of the Jewish population working in moneylending, goldsmithing, and silversmithing, the Jews (in England, anyway) were rolling in dough so much that it started pissing off the landed aristocracy and a large number of nobles were facing destitution for defaulting on mortgages. It got to such a degree that Edward I (Longshanks, aka the asshole from Braveheart for those that haven't studied the period) passed the Statute of Jewry after returning from the 9th Crusade, in an attempt to take back control of the countries finances, and make a fat pile of cash for himself and his lords.
After their official expulsion in 1290, there was no longer an identifiable Jewish population for people to interact (as lonelyahava noted, they were still there, they just either publicly converted to Christianity or practiced in secret, much like the Catholics would have to do once Anglicanism rose to prominence) and/or develop cultural symbiosis with, as such all that was left in the popular imagination were the stereotypes that Edward passed laws against and that's what stuck in the English mind until the mid-late 17th century.
By Shakespeare's time the majority of practicing Jews in Europe had moved to the Eastern half of the continent (Poland-Lithuania, some of the German principalities, and the Ukraine), or lived in trading hubs like Venice. Even though he was far wider read that your average English man (i.e. pulling ideas for Dante, Boccaccio, etc...), Shakespeare would have still been a man of his time, and in his time there wasn't a very positive cultural view of Jews in English culture.
Now, whether or not that means the stereotype, as you put it, existed could potentially be up for debate, but the majority of evidence points to, yes it was prevalent, and was most likely the dominant view of Jews that was held by Shakespeare's audience.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
This is an important post.
Shakespeare is for watching (and hearing) before he is for reading.
Wait wait. As someone put above, Iago is "kind of" a mustache dweller. Aaron is a complete and total mustache dweller. The only reason he didn't pick a virgin and let her die in a railtrack (not before raping her, or having her raped and her hands and tongue cut off) is that trains didn't exist in 1600 :P
Except Aaron acts in defense of another at least once. Possibly more depending on how his interaction with Tamora is played.
He's also pretty damned funny compared to Iago, who I find just plain dour.
Ice burn.
Again, though, while I've read the plays I haven't seen Titus or Othello performed. I've watched Titus more than a few times, and the Fishburne/Branagh Othello I've seen once. That would definitely color my interpretation.
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For which he devises a plan to just fucking destroy Othello and everything he loves.
Because he's such a well-adjusted person.
Iago gives a bunch of different reasons for why he's so determined to destroy Othello, but none of them hold up under scrutiny.
After a quick googling, it looks like there are entire collegiate theses dedicated to trying to figure out why the hell Iago does what he does.
Theories range from being in love with Desi to being in love with Othello to just being a nihilistic prick.
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The best Iago I've seen on stage played half like this, half as a racial thing. He was essentially a surly, nondescript middle-aged white dude raging because he believes that affirmative action cost him the job that was rightfully his.
I like this quote from Andy Serkis
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I'm celebrating by reading Taming of the Shrew at the moment and will probably watch Tennant's Hamlet later on. Any of you Shakesman fans have special plans?
Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
I've got to say I was fairly impressed! I found the language a little hard to follow at times, having to rely on tone and situation to figure out what might be happening, but I thought the performances of Ralph Fiennes, Vanessa Redgrave & Gerard Butler were particularly good, though the rest of the cast were enjoyable as well. I know that they've done some of these 'Shakespeare in a modern setting' things before with mixed success, but I thought they pulled this off pretty well. Though putting the guy who presents Channel 4 news in the UK in it was an...odd choice.
Anyway, worth a look for those that are interested. Trailer below if you fancy.
Favourite line? "There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger." I'd never noticed Shakespeare's ability for one-liners!
Eh, you have to remember that even before Edward 1 kicked out the Jews, they were heavily controlled by the government; all Jewish lenders were directly under control of the crown, and they couldn't pass on property to their heirs; all their wealth (except for a small portion for the benefit of the widow) would pass on to the crown at their death. They also had to "loan" money to the king at zero interest with no chance of repayment; Richard 1 bankrupted the Jews of York in just this manner. Later, Edward just decided to cut out the middleman, as it were, by expelling the Jews and making them leave their property.
I would say expelling them from England made it easier to reduce them to the Shylock caricture, since there wouldn't be any counter-factuals to the popular stereotype.
So out with it. Other great Shakespeare death moments?
Here's a quote: "Gaddafi is a great Shakespeare fan," says Khan. "He believes that Shakespeare was actually an Arab immigrant to Britain called Sheikh Zubeir."
Being Brazilian, I had no formal contact with Shakespeare and his work on my education. I knew of him, of course, because Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and others are part of our cultural references too.
The thing is, even though I fancy myself as having a pretty decent grasp of English, I just can't read the Bard in the original. I wasn't trained for that in any way. And, of course, there are no English spoken plays I can go to around here.
All I gots is the movies. So I envy you bastards a lot, because the little I can grasp of his works makes me slobber all over myself, its that good. I'll be here at the corner, hating you. Carry on.
General Chang was the best part of Star Trek VI.
Hmm...time to go internet hunting for Christopher Plummer doing Shakespeare. And I've got the Patrick Stewart Hamlet from 2009 d/l'd from Amazon to watch.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Jumping in a little on this one, but I second this and what V1M said: Shakespeare didn't write his plays to be read (compare to a closet drama like Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral) His plays were written to be seen and heard. Now, because of this, his text is insanely rich--the text tells you everything you need to know to understand the characters and their motivations. It also means the text can be difficult for some people to sit and read through. My best success with teaching Hamlet has always included heavy viewing of different versions and then comparing it to the text. Watching actors interpret Shakespeare's text is always very insightful to what he was saying and the points he was making.
Also, I loved Luhrmann's Romeo & Juliet. It was incredibly true to the text and beautifully envisioned. The only other version I really enjoyed was a local theatre's version that focused heavily on the parents. Too many versions focus so much on the creepy teenaged "love," when so much of the play is meant to reflect on the parents and the adult situation flowing around them.
Lastly, the BBC Macbeth with Patrick Stewart is stunning. It was on Netflix for a while. It may still be up there. It's absolutely worth a watch. Stewart does an incredible job.
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