Shylock is the antagonist and a tragic character in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. A Jewish merchant and money leader living in a Christian city, he comes across as greedy, jealous and vengeful. As opposed to his anti-Semitic nemesis and fellow businessman, Antonio, Shylock charges interest on his loans.

He is also an intelligent businessman who believes that, since he is a moneylender, charging interest is his right; to him, it makes good business sense.

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Shylock's function in this play is to be the obstacle, the man who stands in the way of the love stories; such a man is a traditional figure in romantic comedies. Something or someone must impede young, romantic love; here, it is Shylock and the many and various ways that he is linked to the three sets of lovers. The fact that he is a Jew is, in a sense, accidental. Shakespeare wanted to contrast liberality against selfishness — in terms of money and in terms of love. There was such a figure available from the literature of the time, one man who could fulfill both functions: this man would be a usurer, or moneylender, with a beautiful daughter that he held onto as tightly as he did his ducats. Usury was forbidden to Christians by the church of the Middle Ages, and as a consequence, money lending was controlled by the Jews; as a rule, it was usually the only occupation which the law allowed to them. As a result, a great deal of medieval literature produced the conventional figure of the Jewish moneylender, usually as a minor character, but also too, as a major character.

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When Shylock leaves the courtroom in Act IV, Scene 1, he is stripped of all that he has. He is a defeated man. Yet we cannot feel deep sympathy for him — some, perhaps, but not much. Shakespeare's intention was not to make Shylock a tragic figure; instead, Shylock was meant to function as a man who could be vividly realized as the epitome of selfishness; he must be defeated in this romantic comedy. In a sense, it is Shakespeare's own brilliance which led him to create Shylock as almost too human. Shylock is powerfully drawn, perhaps too powerfully for this comedy, but his superb dignity is admirable, despite the fact that we must finally condemn him. Perhaps the poet W. H. Auden has given us our best clue as to how we must deal with Shylock: "Those to whom evil is done," he says, "do evil in return." This explains in a few words much of the moneylender's complexity and our complex reactions toward him.

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Sources:https://study.com/academy/lesson/shakespeares-shylock-character-sketch-analysis-monologue.html

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/m/the-merchant-of-venice/character-list

https://brainly.in/question/3915317

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