Christian characters in The Merchant of Venice like Antonio and Bassanio like to think of themselves as motivated by the Christian values of love and charity; Shylock, on the other hand, is ridiculed for his materialism and obsession with money. And yet, throughout the play we see that the concerns with love and money are strangely mixed. Bassanio seems to truly love Portia, but the first thing he mentions about her is that she is “richly left.” Shylock is equally furious about the disappearance of his daughter and his ducats. And in the resolution of Shylock’s claim for a pound of flesh from Antonio, it’s rather hard to sort out the Christians’ motives: are they charitable or punitive and selfishly materialistic? What does the play suggest about the relationship
between love and money, and how does that challenge the characters’ own definitions of what makes someone good or evil?
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