Act 4 Scene 1 in Merchant of Venice

Act 4 Scene 1 in Merchant of Venice

  • Submitted By: brandoncort
  • Date Submitted: 05/31/2010 7:11 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 929
  • Page: 4
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In The Merchant of Venice, Act 4 Scene 1 is the climax of the play and is one of longest dramatic scene to ever been written by Shakespeare; it is filled with tension, suspense, irony, sarcasm and power. Shakespeare achieves this by using different writing skills such as setting, location (the switch from Belmont to Vince), dialogue (the characters different expression in words), characters (the characters change of behavior during this scene and the switch of location).
Tension is shown hastily by Shakespeare as the trail scene is approached dramatically. This is shown by Shakespeare through his focus on the setting, dialogue and characters. This scene is very intense because the play has reached the climax and Shakespeare wanted to show tension rapidly in the trail scene. In this scene Shakespeare made sure that tension was present in the main character in the scene Shylock, this is because Shylock is felt to have power over Antonio since the pound of flesh is due. Shakespeare showed “the pound of flesh” as a symbol through the trial scene to escalate the climax and to captivate the audience if Shylock would take the pond of flesh after he found out that Antonio’s ventures been sunk out at sea and is accomplished by Shakespeare through the use of dialogue and the character behavior.
Shakespeare use the trial scene to raise tension and a law would not let a man free of any crime because it would make their law seem weak and tension would not be shown. The Duke, a man how is fair to his decisions, merciful towards Antonio but could not do anything because of the bond which was been made by Antonio and shylock and it was law, and the fact that Shylock is a Jew, he is biased towards Antonio, Shakespeare did this to provoke a Christian audience making them have anti-Semitic feelings towards Shylock because he is a Jew.
In this scene shylock says “If every ducat in six thousand ducats were in six parts, and every part a ducat, I would not draw them. I would...

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