Sunday, January 30, 2005

Can We Really Feel Sorry for Shylock?

Today while perusing the Sunday Star, I came across something I had never seen before. Apparently there is now a new segment called "Ideas" which promotes itself to have 'No Commerical Interruptions'. Now, I don't actually read a physical newspaper every day for the news, rather I check in on my comic strips and crossword. However, this section caught my attention, so I began reading.

The first article, "A man beyond salvation" written by a theatre critic was an appraisal of the new film version of The Merchant of Venice by Michael Radford. Many people have praised this film, which features Al Pacino as Shylock. The article goes into detail to uncover the reasons why a modern audience has trouble accepting the character of Shylock. As we are all aware, last Thursday the 27th of January, marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation at Auschwitz and the other Nazi death camps. This is perhaps the reason why modern audiences have great difficulty in accepting Shylock. He is written as a classic villain, on the same line with Iago. The main sticking point is that he is a Jew, therefore bringing to mind the centuries of anti-Semitic commentary. People have attempted to cast Shylock in a positive light, but somehow, this has never been accomplished effectively. People feel sympathy for the character because he is Jewish, but how many people felt the same way about Iago, when he was denied the highest honour by Othello? My bets are on Shylock.

I read through the article, hoping against hope that I would not see the one dreaded name: Stephen Greenblatt. But, there his name appeared, towards the close of the article. This review, as I understood it, was not about the movie at all, but rather a critique on the notion of anti-Semitism. I hoped when beginning this article that I was to be enlightened about a fascinating character, but of course, was hit in the face once again with the post-colonial reading of Shylock. Alas, the poor Bard is probably writhing in his grave: look what modern society has done to his masterpiece!

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