Shylock From the Merchant of Venice Character Analysis

Shylock From the Merchant of Venice Character Analysis A  Shylock character analysis can tell us a lot about The Merchant of Venice. Shylock, the Jewish moneylender is the villain of the play and the audience response  depends on how he is portrayed in performance. An actor will hopefully be able to extract sympathy for Shylock from the audience, despite his vengeful bloodthirsty and greedy proclivities. Shylock  the Jew His position as a Jew is made much of in the play and in Shakespeare’s Britain some might argue, that this would have positioned him as a baddy, however, the Christian characters in the play are also open to criticism and as such Shakespeare is not necessarily judging him for his religious belief but demonstrating intolerance in both religions. Shylock refuses to eat with the Christians: Yes, to smell pork, to eat of the habitation which your prophet the Nazerite conjured the devil into! I will buy with you, sell with you, talk to you, walk with you, and so following, but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you. He also questions the Christians for their treatment of others: ...what these Christians are, Whose own hard dealings teaches them to suspect the thoughts of others! Could Shakespeare be commenting here on the way Christians converted the world to their religion or on the way that they treat other religions? Having said this, there are a lot of insults leveled at Shylock merely based on his being a Jew, many suggesting that he is akin to the devil: A modern audience may find these lines insulting. A modern audience would surely consider his religion to be of no consequence in terms of his status as a villain, he could be considered a reprehensible character who also happens to be a Jewish man. Must Jessica convert to Christianity in order to be accepted by Lorenzo and his friends? This is the implication. That the Christian characters are considered the goodies in this narrative and the Jewish character the baddy of the piece, suggests some judgment against being Jewish. However, Shylock is permitted to give as good as he gets against Christianity and is able to level similar insults as he receives. Shylock  the Victim To an extent, we feel sorry for Shylock’s victimization based solely on his Jewishness. Apart from Jessica who converts to Christianity, he is the only Jewish character and it feels he is somewhat ganged up on by all of the other characters. Had he just have been ‘Shylock’ without the religion, almost certainly one could argue a modern audience would have less sympathy for him? As a result of this assumption, would Shakespeare’s audience have had less sympathy for him because of his status as a Jew? Shylock  the Villain? Shylock’s position as a villain per se is possible to debate. Shylock is sticking to his bond to his word. He is true to his own code of conduct. Antonio signed that bond and promised that money, Shylock has been wronged; he has had his money stolen from him by his daughter and Lorenzo. However, Shylock is offered three times his money back and he still demands his pound of flesh; this moves him into the realms of villainy. It depends on his portrayal as to how much an audience has sympathy for his position and character as to how much he is judged at the end of the play. He is certainly left at the end of the play with very little to his name, although at least he is able to keep his property until his death. I think it would be difficult not to feel some sympathy for Shylock as all the characters celebrate at the end while he is all alone. It would be interesting to revisit Shylock in the years following and find out what he did next. â€Å"The devil can cite scripture for his purpose† (Act 1 Scene 3)â€Å"Certainly the Jew is the very devil incarnation;† (Act 2 Scene 2)

The Nature-Culture Divide

The Nature-Culture Divide Nature and culture are often seen as opposite ideas- what belongs to nature cannot be the result of human intervention and, on the other hand, cultural development is achieved against nature. However, this is by far not the only take on the relationship between nature and culture. Studies in the evolutionary development of humans suggest that culture is part and parcel of the ecological niche within which our species thrived, thus rendering culture a chapter in the biological development of a species. An Effort Against Nature Several modern authors- such as Rousseau- saw the process of education as a struggle against the most eradicated tendencies of human nature. Humans are born with wild dispositions, such as the one of using violence to achieve one’s own goals, to eat and behave in a disorganized fashion, and/or to act egotistically. Education is that process which uses culture as an antidote against our wildest natural tendencies; it is thanks to culture that the human species could progress and elevate itself above and beyond other species. A Natural Effort Over the past century and a half, however, studies in the history of human development have clarified how the formation of what we refer to as culture in an anthropological sense is part of the biological adaptation of our ancestors to the environmental conditions in which they came to live.Consider, for example, hunting. Such an activity seems an adaptation, which allowed hominids to move from the forest into the savannah some millions of year ago, opening up the opportunity to change diet and living habits. At the same time, the invention of weapons is directly related to that adaptation- but from weapons descend also a whole series of skill sets characterizing our cultural profile, from butchering tools to ethical rules relating to the proper use of weapons (e.g., should they be turned against other human beings or against uncooperative species?). Hunting also seems responsible for a whole set of bodily abilities, such as balancing on one foot as humans are the only primates that can do that. Now, think of how this very simple thing is crucially connected to dance, a key expression of human culture. It is then clear that our biological development is closely tied to our cultural development. Culture as an Ecological Niche The view that came to be most plausible over the past decades seems to be that culture is part of the ecological niche within which humans live. Just as snails carry their shell, so do we bring along our culture. Now, the transmission of culture seems not to be directly related to the transmission of genetic information. Certainly the significant overlap between the genetic makeup of humans is a premise for the development of a common culture that can be passed along from one generation to the next. However, cultural transmission is also horizontal among individuals within the same generation or among individuals belonging to different populations. You can learn how to make lasagna even if you were born from Korean parents in Kentucky just as you can learn how to speak Tagalog even if none of your immediate family or friends speak that language. Further Readings on Nature and Culture The online sources on the nature-culture divide are scarce. Luckily, there are a number of good bibliographical resources that can help out. Here is a list of few of the more recent ones, from which older takes on the topic can be recovered: Peter Watson, The Great Divide: Nature and Human Nature in the Old World and the New, Harper, 2012.Alan H. Goodman, Deborah Heat, and Susan M. Lindee, Genetic Nature/Culture: Anthropology and Science Beyond the Two-Culture Divide, University of California Press, 2003.Rodney James Giblett, The Body of Nature and Culture, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Written Business Communication (Original Posting #2) Assignment

Written Business Communication (Original Posting #2) - Assignment Example ve and decode a written work and writer’s ability to address the needs and offer solutions or hope and strategies for obtaining solutions facilitate this motivator role. It is also important to visualize the audience because this helps to identify characteristics of the audience that can facilitate or hinder communication. A writer can then major on identified strengths and manage weaknesses for effective communication. Understanding individual aspects such as physiological, psychological, and cognitive factors is an example of visualization and help in planning approach to writing. The audience’s external environment such as effects of culture is another factor whose understanding empowers a writer’s communication potentials (Youssef, 2005). Applying an open approach to communication can facilitate visualization if a writer does not know the audience. Targeting a larger audience base in terms of age, gender, educational background, and work orientation is an example because it assumes a wider general knowledge of the audience and increases possibility of identifying with people’s needs or interests (Ghosh, 2012). Being sensitive is another way through which a writer can achieve audience visualization, without knowing the audience, because it only needs identification of the targeted population segment and the different traits towards effective communication can be