Shylock, the Jewish money lender, is the most vivid and memorable character in The Merchant of Venice, and he is one of Shakespeare's greatest dramatic creations. On stage, it is Shylock who makes the play, and almost all of the great actors of the English and Continental stage have attempted the role. But the character of Shylock has also been the subject of much critical debate 

But in the society in that time, most people think he comes across as greedy, jealous and vengeful.

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In addition to his baser traits, Shylock is proud and has deep religious instincts. Although clearly portrayed as a vengeful villain for insisting on his rightful payment of Antonio’s debt to him, it is clear that Shylock’s acts at least in part because of the way he himself has been mistreated by Christians. One of them causes his daughter to elope and steal his money and jewels. When it is clear that Shylock has been bested, he delivers an impassioned plea for understanding that still resonates four centuries after it was written: “I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? . . . ” (III:i).

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He makes his money by charging interest on his loans, and dislikes Antonio for not doing so and therefore ruining his business – particularly as Antonio sometimes pays the debts of those who cannot repay their loans in time, and therefore spoils Shylock’s enrichment by taking control of their forfeitures. When he calls Antonio out on the latter’s insults, he merely provokes more insults from the merchant. He decides to ask for a pound of flesh as his bond from Antonio, apparently as a jest. He is a miser and something of a puritan, having no taste for music or other reveling, starving his servant and letting him wear out his clothes rather than replacing them. Considering Launcelot a spendthrift, he is happy to let him leave to go serve Bassanio, as this will make the latter go through his money more swiftly. Even his daughter considers him cruel. He flies into a wild passion when she flees his house, taking with her massive amounts of his money, and has her chased after as much if not more for the money than for her own sake. Knowing that Antonio was aware of this abduction, and hearing that the latter is ruined, he is delighted at the possibility of cutting out the merchant’s heart. He is able to justify revenge on the basis of the bad behavior of Christians. His insistence on the letter of the law will be his undoing, leaving him not only unable to kill Antonio, but losing all the extra money offered him, the return of his principal, and soon forfeiting all of his wealth and his life. He accepts to turn Christian to save his life, but is left ill by the sudden reversal in his fortune. He is not a particularly nice man.
 

Someone would be asking :"Is the Jewish moneylender hero or a villain ?" Some observers believe Shylock is the quintessential Shakespearean villain, an evil Jew obsessed with money who can only be properly saved by converting to Christianity. Others look at him as a tragic or sympathetic character, universally hated for his religion and fighting for survival the only way he can.

 

Who is the “real” Shylock? Anthony Holden’s book William Shakespeare: His Life and Work holds a vital clue.

His assessment of Shylock’s role is intriguing. “Partly through centuries of sensitivity to charges of anti-Semitism, partly because the role is one of those Shakespearean wonders which has offered such opportunities to actors down the centuries,” Holden writes, “the character of Shylock himself has since loomed too large in responses to The Merchant of Venice.” It’s a fair point, since Shylock only appears in five of the play’s 20 scenes, speaking only about 360 lines. Yet, Shylock has gradually attained the mystique of a larger-than-life fictional figure. “It is almost as if Shakespeare wrote the part of Shylock too well, more powerfully than even he himself realized,” noted Holden, “creating not merely a show-stealing part for an actor, but what has been called the first of Shakespeare’s ‘internalized’ hero-villains.” Indeed, various  interpretations of this hero-villain on the silver screen and stage have depicted a multifaceted character with enormous flaws and a surprising number of principles. To write him off as the embodiment of Jew-hatred and little else is, therefore, far too simplistic and narrow-minded.

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Sources:https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/m/the-merchant-of-venice/character-analysis/shylock

https://brainly.in/question/3915317

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shylock

https://www.playshakespeare.com/merchant-of-venice/characters/shylock