中的物質宰制 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士論文. 指導教授：施堂模先生 Advisor: Thomas J. Sellari. 立. 政治大 <威尼斯商人>中的物質宰制. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. The Force of Objects in The Merchant of Venice. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. 研究生：周家慈撰 Name: Jia-Cih, Chou 中華民國 104 年 12 月 December 2015. v.

(2) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(3) The Force of Objects in The Merchant of Venice. A Master Thesis Presented to Department of English,. 立. 政治大 National Chengchi Uniersity. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. by Jia-Cih, Chou December 2015.


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(7) Acknowledgement I would like to dedicate this thesis to myself, Chou Jia Cih, for my great courage during my academic pursuits. Also, I would like to thank my family for they provide trails for me and makes me stronger than ever. My sincere gratitude goes to my advisor Thomas J. Sellari. Doctor Sellari’s instruction makes my thesis becomes more critical and more complete. He examines. 政治大. my writing carefully and gives helpful suggestions which make me have the ability to. 立. complete a thesis. As a big fan of Shakespeare, I am glad to have the chance to. ‧ 國. 學. explore the field more and learn more. This is the greatest time of my study career and my study fulfills my dream when I was little.. ‧. I would like to thank my committee members: Professor Frank Stevenson and. y. Nat. io. sit. Professor Brian David Phillips. Their encouragement and suggestions during the. n. al. er. discussion are helpful for me. I do appreciate the support and feedback they gave me after the defense.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Finally I would like to thank the department of English for providing wonderful courses and professional teachers. On the other hand, I am lucky to have precious friends who give me support and comfort at any time. Although the life is not easy here, it is now only valuable for this is the start for me to know my talented mind.. iii.

(8) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. iv. i n U. v.

(9) Table of Content. Acknowledgement………………………………………………….iii Chinese Abstract…………………………………………………….vii English Abstract…………………………………………………….ix. 政治大 Chapter II: Shylock立 and Christianity……………………………….13 Chapter I: Introduction……………………………………………..1. ‧ 國. 學. Chapter III: Parents and Children…………………………………..25 Chapter IV: Love and Friendship………………………………......35. ‧. Chapter V: Conclusion……………………………………………...47. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. Works Cited………………………………………………………...55. Ch. engchi. v. i n U. v.

(10) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. vi. i n U. v.

(11) 國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士班碩士論文提要. 論文名稱：<威尼斯商人>中的物質宰制指導教授：施堂模. 先生. 研究生：周家慈. 立. 論文提要內容：. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. 莎劇＜威尼斯商人＞已被廣泛地從種族、性別和宗教等角度討論。然而這些非物質的角度並無法全然地描繪全劇。劇中有許多物件，並且深深地影響著. ‧. 劇中的角色們。這篇論文將試著探索物件和人們之間的關係，以三種人與人. y. Nat. 之間的關係來著手：猶太人和基督徒、父母親和子女以及愛情和友誼。很明. io. sit. 顯的，在劇中，角色和物件之間的關係密不可分，甚至物件的力量會高過人. n. al. er. 們，進而產生控制。維根斯坦以聖奧古斯丁的論點來做為他的語言哲學的開. i n U. v. 端：語言以物件命名為基礎。但維根斯坦認為語言的運用並不全然建立在為. Ch. engchi. 物件命名，而是在不同的情境之下使用且產生不同的意義，換言之，語言重要的目的不是表達意義，而是在情境中發揮功能。而這樣使用語言的方式，描繪了人們的生活形式(Form of Life)。在劇中，物件在不同的情境之下有著不同的意義。由於戲劇能夠反映人生，因此透過探索劇中物件與角色間的關係，可以反映出人們的真實生活抑是和物件密不可分，也反映出人們的生活形式。. 關鍵字：威尼斯商人，物質，禮物，維根斯坦 vii.

(12) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. viii. i n U. v.

(13) Abstract The Merchant of Venice has long been discussed with the view of race, gender and religion. These immaterial aspects, however, are not able to depict the totality of the play. There are many material objects in the play, those objects which strongly involved in characters’ relationships. The thesis aims to explore when people grant force on objects and objects act upon people in return by examining objects in. 政治大. the play. The importance of objects can be found in three relationships: Shylock and. 立. Christianity, parents and children, love and friendship. It is obvious that objects. ‧ 國. 學. function diversely in different situation and objects do have influence on characters. Ludwig Wittgenstein starts his linguistic philosophy with St. Augustin’s observation:. ‧. the use of languages starts from naming objects. However, Wittgenstein thinks that. y. Nat. io. sit. languages function in activities, so we should consider the function of language. n. al. er. within activities of life instead of an abstract meaning. The way people use languages. Ch. i n U. v. can be seen as participating in activities which presents the form of life. Similarly,. engchi. objects function differently in activities and have diverse impact on characters. Drama is formed by many activities and reflects people’s life. Through finding the importance of characters and objects in The Merchant of Venice, the result can reflect people’s real form of life.. Key Words: The Merchant of Venice, object, gift, Ludwig Wittgenstein. ix.

(14) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. x. i n U. v.

(15) Chapter One Introduction The Merchant of Venice has long been discussed from the perspectives of race, gender, and religious conflict between Jews and Christian. From these perspectives, critics deal with the relationships of characters in this play. Race, gender and religious conflicts are no doubt the themes of the play, so people might think it is enough to. 治政大 be overlooked, for their represented in it. The roles of objects, however, cannot 立. read the play in ways that ignore the materiality of the lives and characters. appearance in the play also determines the relationships of characters. This study aims. ‧ 國. 學. to find the force of objects on characters in The Merchant of Venice, and examine how. sit. y. Nat. imagined form of life depicted in the play.. ‧. characters’ relationships are tied to objects and how objects function within the. io. al. er. Some studies put great emphasis on the Jewish character, Shylock, and his relationship with Antonio, a Christian, and the conflict that their different values. n. v i n engender: “[T]he ChristiansC arehin no doubt that Shylock e n g c h i U is a thorough villain; nine times he is called a devil and, as his hatred leads him to kill like an animal, they can find no answer to ’excuse the current’ of his cruelty” (Brown xxxix). Sherman focuses on Shylock and likens Shylock to a wolf in order to question Shylock’s humanity.1 According to Serman, the humanity of Shylock in some degree questions Venetian humanism: “ the immediate justice of the court might have to recognize Shylock’s bloody bond, but surely, Gratiano reasons, the Jew must be guilty in a deeper, spiritual. 1. In Governing the Wolf: Soul and Space in The Merchant of Venice, Sherman puts great emphasis on the relation between soul and body. Sherman points out that Shylock’s monetary value of a pound of flesh has something to do with religious conversation (Sherman, 101). -1-.

(16) reckoning—as if his sins belonged to a ghostly and lupine former identity (Sherman 99). Shylock clearly expresses his hatred toward Christians, and, according to most relevant studies, it is this hatred that makes Shylock take revenge on Antonio. Chaver observes different performance adaptations in order to identify the factors that cause diverse versions. Chaver believes that there are “some historical and cultural causes of these differences” (28). Taking Ibn-Zahav’s adaptation as an example, Chaver points out that war has impact on his character, that is, Shylock is not an imagery character. 治政大 of the Jews: the Jews take revenge. Ibn-Zahav considers Shylock a sign of the feelings 立 merely in drama scripts but presented as a loser for Shylock is a Jew and is not able to. after World War II were willing to take revenge on German and therefore they. ‧ 國. 學. understand Shylock’s mind in the sixteenth century. Ibn-Zahav’s Shylock gives. ‧. contemporary Jews a model who insists on taking revenge but “struggl[es] with the. sit. y. Nat. biblical injunction against spilling human blood” (Chaver 30). Chaver notes that. io. er. World War II has huge impact on Ibn-Zahav’s adaptation; the differences between his. al. previous version and the new one have a strong connection to the Nazi attitude toward. n. v i n C h might help reader the Jewish people and this kind of attitude e n g c h i U to understand the standpoint of Shakespeare’s Shylock.. Other studies focus on the role of Portia, a powerful female character who is able to challenge Shylock in court, since Portia reverses the crisis with her manipulation. For instance, The Triumph of the Golden Fleece: Women, Money, Religion, and Power in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice focuses on Portia’s interaction with other characters and observes that Portia is the play’s dominant character; Portia’s cheating on her father’s casket game is the subversion of her father’s will, and also Portia’s ring for Bassanio is the contract which protects their marriage. With the meeting of -2-.

(17) Shylock and Portia, the tension of the plot becomes stronger: Portia successfully rescues Antonio from Shylock’s usury with her strategy (4.1.301-08). Since The Merchant of Venice also deals with commercial deeds—for instance, Shylock accumulates money by usury, which was controversial at that time—some criticism emphasizes commercialism in the play, pointing out the association between Jews and capitalism. As Lim notes: “Venetian Jews had indeed played an important part in contributing to the development of capitalism as merchants” (Lim 355). Lim furthermore points out: “Various critics have noted that economic and commercial. 政治大 various forms of human relationships dramatized in the play” (Lim 359). Drakakis 立. interests generate the effect of compromising any idealism that may be attached to the. ‧ 國. 學. observes that “[a]t the root of this complex dramatization of the social life of the republic is money itself and its historical significance for a society caught between a. ‧. conservative past and new forms of commercial activity that threatened the stability of. sit. y. Nat. the social order” (Drakakis 8). This observation shows that commercial deeds and. n. al. er. io. money are important issues of the play, and indeed money and commercial deeds are. i n U. v. closely connected to characters’ relationships. With regard to material issues, there are. Ch. engchi. also some critics who are concerned with objects in the play. For example, focusing on the calculation and exchange of objects in the play, Chang analyzes the relationships between Portia and Bassanio, and claims that Portia is an object for exchange as well as a gift to Portia’s husband. Chang further points out that Shylock’s bond with Antonio is not for taking revenge; instead, the money is a gift to Antonio to show Shylock’s friendliness (Chang 118). Hsiao-Fen Lee’s thesis Gift Exchange in The Merchant of Venice addresses the relationships between characters from the perspective of gift exchange. It is noteworthy that the concept of gift-giving evokes some connection between people and objects; it is also important that people use gifts -3-.

(18) to maintain certain connections between each other. R.S. White develops the use of Marx’s ideas into Shakespeare studies, aiming to fulfill “the need which exists for a study of Marx’s use of Shakespeare, suggesting how it illuminates Shakespeare, and how Shakespeare may have influenced Marx’s thinking” (White 89). Marx was familiar with Shakespeare’s works; it is not hard to find that he uses ---“rhetorical phrase”---s from Shakespeare plays. The connection between Marx and Shakespeare, indicates that we cannot ignore the importance of objects and their power over characters in the drama plays because Marx’s research is. 政治大 people’s lives; we can also infer that material things are important in our real lives, for 立 highly connected with material things. Moreover, since drama can mimetically reflect. ‧ 國. 學. it is in part through them that our world functions.. When it comes to the relationship between people and objects, we cannot ignore. ‧. the connection between subject and object, because people conceive the world based. sit. y. Nat. on objects. Subject refers to a person himself or herself and object refers to the. io. er. opposite of a subject or namely material things. Subject and Object in Renaissance. al. v i n C haccumulate lots ofUthem and finally become delineating how people employ objects, engchi n. Culture discusses the relationships between people and objects in the Renaissance,. obsessed with objects to the point where fetishisms, appropriations and materializations appear. The interaction between people and objects thus takes multiple forms, for example, fetishism (Stallybrass 290). Relevant studies tend to start their arguments based on immaterial things (such as religion, gender, and race) and consider objects merely tools in each relationship. For example, Newman’s study Portia’s Ring: Unruly Women and Structures of Exchange in The Merchant of Venice analyzes Elizabethan sex/gender system, and also the friendships and loves between Bassanio, Portia and Antonio. Portia’s ring in this study -4-.

(19) is merely a tool to analyze the relationships. Henry S. Turner deals with the issue of friendship in his study: The Problem of the More-than-One: Friendship, Calculation, and Political Association in The Merchant of Venice. Turner addresses different relationships in the play regarding emotional aspects; for him, material things are just tools for calculating their relationships. However, those studies cannot depict the totality of the connection between human beings and objects. Generally speaking, human beings give force to objects and then objects have powers and functions. One result of granting such powers and functions to objects is that objects can also come to. 治政 In order to approach the importance of objects,大 we should consider stage props, 立. have certain control over human beings.. which strongly support the importance of objects. Theater performances visualize. ‧ 國. 學. dramatic scripts, and such visualization makes objects more significant for the. ‧. audiences indeed witness props held by performers on stages. The appearance of. sit. y. Nat. props convinces audiences that objects in drama scripts are requisite for making the. io. er. action more comprehensible. From the point of view of performance criticism, props. al. are important elements in theater: a play cannot be performed without certain objects. n. v i n C h the function of props on stage. Andrew Sofer observes e n g c h i U in his book The Stage Life of. Props. Sofer claims that an object is important when it appears on stage; how actors handle the object will have an impact on the play. For example, the handkerchief in Othello must appear in the play and be taken up by actor. The absence of the handkerchief makes Othello believe that Desdemona is not loyal. In short, even the absence of objects in theater can give us a concrete example that objects indeed operate on people’s relationships. Objects also have an impact on the way people speak: Ludwig Wittgenstein developed linguistic philosophy to clarify how languages function. Wittgenstein -5-.

(20) started his theory from Augustine2, pointing out that naming objects is considered the basic way language functions. People call an object by pointing to the object and give a name: [T]he words in language name objects—sentences are combinations of such names, —In this picture of language we find the roots of the. following. idea: Every word has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for which the word stands (Wittgenstein 5 e). However, Wittgenstein questions St. Augustine’s idea by pointing out that not every. 治政大 conceives languages like “language games” in different activities. Wittgenstein 立. word can be learned by naming objects. Instead, Wittgenstein considers people using. language system as a form of life. That is, when people use language, they present. ‧ 國. 學. activities by using language. For example, when a child gets hurt and cries, parents. ‧. teach the word “pain” to describe the child’s sensation. Yet, the word “pain” does not. sit. y. Nat. replace the child’s crying and does not even describe it (Wittgenstein 95 e). Just as. io. al. er. people grant values to objects in events, naming objects makes people participate in activities which let people communicate with the other people in the same activities.. n. v i n C h by pointing atUobjects. Actually people However, not every word can be understood engchi understand language in activities which let words become meaningful within those activities. Similarly, objects are understood by people in activities; moreover, an object can have diverse meanings in activities. It is impossible for people to live in. activities without objects. It is no doubt that drama can be considered many activities. 2. St. Augustine: “When grown-ups named some object and at the same time turned towards it, I perceived this, and I grasped that the thing was signified by the sound they uttered, since they meant to point it out. This, however, I gathered from their gestures, the natural language of all peoples, the language that by means of facial expression and the play of eyes, of the movements of the limbs and the tone of voice, indicates the affections of the soul when it desires, or clings to, or rejects, or recoils from, something. In this way, little by little, I learnt to understand what things the words, which I heard uttered in their respective places in various sentences, signified. And once I got my tongue around these signs, I used them to express my wishes” (Wittgenstein 5e). -6-.

(21) and characters understand activities through objects and dramatic scripts. Just as the way people use language in activities, actors and actresses use objects in performances. Thus, objects are important when characters perform in activities. During the practice of these concepts, the absence of objects still has its power and even stronger. Objects indeed becomes the way people talk; it is impossible for people to participate in activities without objects. On the contrary, objects’ power might grow beyond that of people and transform people in some way. This thesis addresses the force of objects function on people and analyzes. 治政大 and Christianity, parents progresses through three relationships in the play: Shylock 立 people’s relationships by examining objects’ appearance in the play. The discussion. and children, love and friendship. This thesis intends to prove that people grant value. ‧ 國. 學. and force to objects and objects exert force on people in return. Each chapter. ‧. examines important objects in the play.. sit. y. Nat. Chapter two starts the discussion of the relationship between Shylock and. io. er. Christianity. Shylock is treated unequally in Venetian society and is insulted by. al. Antonio; these are, the reasons that make Shylock bear hatred in mind. Since Antonio. n. v i n needs to borrow money fromCShylock, has a chance to take revenge on h e n Shylock gchi U. Antonio. The main goal of this chapter is to identify how the properties of Antonio and Shylock---Antonio’s ships, Shylock’s money, the bond, Jewish gabardine---have an impact on their relationship. Jewish gabardine presents the identity of Jewishness, an identity which is stained by Antonio, and reveals the conflict between them. In Subject and Object in Renaissance Culture, Stallybrass notes that certain custom refers to serve certain kinds of institutions. This shows that people project meaning on customs for presenting their identity; that is, an abstract idea is presented by the object. In Cymbeline, for example, Cloten wears Posthumus’s garment, leading Imogen to -7-.

(22) misidentify him. The meaning of the custom is granted by people, but now the meaning of the custom has an impact on people in return. Posthumus’s garment gives a new meaning to Imogen, and its original meaning is gone. Shylock’s money gives him a way to survive in an unequal society. Money is also an object the value which is granted by people. Karl Marx observes that the function of money is to express commodities’ value, to make a standardized expression that makes things comparable (Marx 188). Money lends power and gives Shylock a chance to take revenge on Antonio, the person who needs to borrow money from him. What makes Shylock. 治政大the value of the ships is ships for merchandising have value to support Antonio, while 立 believe that Antonio has the ability to pay him back is Antonio’s ships. Antonio’s. also granted by people. The bond between Shylock and Antonio ensures the equal. ‧ 國. 學. relationship between them: both of them enter into this agreement and have to obey it,. ‧. regardless of their identity. Chang, Hsiu-fang observes that Shylock tries to repair the. sit. y. Nat. relationship with Antonio by lending money (Chang 118) but the bond shows that it is. io. er. not pertinent: Shylock intends to take a pound of flesh from Antonio. A pound of flesh. al. means Antonio’s identity as a Christian. Shylock considers himself a winner when he. n. v i n gets the flesh; this means the flesh isCboth and objectivity for Antonio. h esubjectivity ngchi U. Again, the object becomes the way people practice their invisible ideas. Deshun Li’s observation about subjectivity explains that people’s recognition of life is based on their surroundings (Li 34); this shows that objects are inevitably involved in people’s life, even people are not able to distinguish subjectivity and objectivity. The flesh is both subject and object of Antonio and Shylock exactly practices his hatred on an object. Chapter three deals with three pairs of parents and children: Old Giobbe and Lancelet Giobbe, Portia’s father and Portia, and Shylock and Jessica. Starting from -8-.

(23) the issue of inheritance, there is no doubt that children inherit blood and flesh from their parents. Old Giobbe states that Lancelet Giobbe is his own flesh and blood; it somehow indicates to readers that children are parents’ property. However, flesh and blood also have their own will. It is conventional that children should obey their fathers’ will, but Portia and Jessica nevertheless try to distort their fathers’ will through their fathers’ objects. Portia inherits her father’s property and her father’s will through the three caskets; the caskets carry the transcendental law of Portia’s father, representing her father’s will to suitors, who will get permission to marry Portia only. 治政大cheating is obviously with a song to give a hint to the one she loves. Portia’s 立. by choosing the right casket. Certainly, Portia has her own will; she decides to cheat. disobeying her father’s will in a seemingly obedient way; both Portia and her father. ‧ 國. 學. need to practice their will though caskets, that is, through objects. The arrangement of. ‧. the caskets has something to do with the appearance and the content of the caskets.. sit. y. Nat. Bassanio’s choice ignores the conventional meaning of the objects: gold and silver are. io. er. more valuable than lead but the leaden casket is the right one to choose in order to. al. marry Portia. Jessica’s elopement with Lorenzo and her conversion to Christianity. n. v i n C h distorts Shylock’s deal Shylock a huge blow. Jessica e n g c h i U will by taking the ring of his wife and his wealth in the casket. On the other hand, Shylock’s own flesh and blood converts to Christianity, a fact that makes him eager to take revenge on Antonio. This chapter aims to find objects’ function and impact on the relationship between parents and children by examining the objects that are closely related to the characters. Chapter four addresses love and friendship between Portia, Bassanio and Shylock. The ring episode presents the most obvious example where an object takes control of people. Different possessors of the ring give it different meanings and power; and even the absence of the ring will have a strong effect on the characters. -9-.

(24) Portia’s ring is a gift. According to Mauss, gifts can build relationships between people; besides, gifts always carry people’s affection in them for, if people reject gifts from others, the affection between them will be ruined (Mauss 25-26). Portia’s ring bears her love for Bassanio and their marriage commitment, and it is also a means for Portia to ensure her marriage: if Bassanio loses the ring or gives it to others, Portia will have the right to blame him (3.2.171-74). However, after the court scene, Bassanio still gives the ring to Balthazar (Portia in disguise). The ring completes a circulation between Portia and Bassanio, but Bassanio does not know that. This circulation can be seen as three activities: Portia and Bassanio’s marriage, Bassanio’s. 治政大ring participates in gratefulness to Balthazar and Bassanio’s broken promise. The 立. these activities with the same people but the ring causes characters’ affection change. ‧ 國. 學. in these activities, but actually the affection between them does not change only the. ‧. symbol for their love changes. Objects are significant in theater performances. When. sit. y. Nat. the properties are handled by actors/actresses, the plot goes smoothly with the help of. io. er. properties. On the other hand, audiences clearly see the influences of properties by. al. being aware of the proceeding plot. In Othello, the handkerchief is the ocular proof. n. v i n Cishnot loyal; in Cymbeline, for Othello believes that Desdemona e n g c h i U Imogen’s ring and. Posthumus’s bracelet are taken by trickery, a fact which changes the affection between them. In these examples, it is obvious that the objects indeed can take control over people, and it is noteworthy that the disappearance of objects sometimes has an even stronger power than appearance. Chapter five gives conclusions and suggests the argument of the thesis might be extended to other literary works. Throughout these chapters, the specific focus will be on objects, especially on their force and function within and on interpersonal relationships. My goal is to examine three different kinds of relationships regarding - 10 -.

(25) the objects in the play, and demonstrate that when subjects act upon objects, objects control and change subjects as well. People understand the meaning of objects within activities and objects contain diverse meanings when they are put in diverse activities. In some cases, the absence of objects still has power of people and even grows stronger. By examining several classes of objects in the play, this study will analyze how objects give force to human beings and influence characters in the play, and it will prove that objects are requisite in activities, which present the form of people’s life. In other words, the form of life is constructed through activities (Wittgenstein 15e). This result is a supports the mimetic that drama reflects people’s life, because. 治政大 objects. drama consists of activities which cannot function without 立 ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. - 11 -. i n U. v.

(26) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. - 12 -. i n U. v.

(27) Chapter Two Shylock and Christianity The relationship between Jew and Christian, especially the conflict between Shylock and Antonio, is widely addressed in previous studies. Some critics start the discussion from a psychoanalytic point of view. For example, Daniel deals with Antonio’s melancholy and further discusses Antonio’s relationship with Shylock. Daniel even points out that “[p]resenting this failure in the play’s first line, The. 治政大interpret melancholy pitched Merchant of Venice commences with an invitation to 立學. ‧ 國. oddly between opportunity, challenge, and therapeutic responsibility” (206). At the outset of the play, Antonio’s sadness is clearly expressed:. sit. y. Nat. It wearies me, you say it wearies you;. ‧. Antonio. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.. io. al. er. But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,. n. What stuff’tis made of, whereof it is born,. Ch. I am to learn;. engchi. i n U. v. And such a want-wit sadness makes of me That I have much ado to know myself (1.1.1-7). Daniel asserts that the source of Antonio’s melancholy at the beginning of the play is unidentified. Furthermore, the melancholy finds its way out: “Antonio’s anxious cry ___’’---Let me have judgment, and the Jew his will’___ (4.1.83) articulates a desire that is explicable only if we go beyond the clinical understanding of melancholia and instead consider its contours in terms of a no less psychoanalytic critical formulation: masochism” (Daniel 209). Turner observes that the sadness of Antonio should be - 13 -.

(28) understood as “an instance of this generalized undecidablity at the heart of ethical and political subject, before it is reinserted into the calculus of desire that drives the play” (Turner 418). Both Daniel and Turner consider Antonio’s pound of flesh a way to resolve his melancholy. Daniel even points out that the flesh represents “masochism” when dealing with the relationship between Antonio and Shylock. Citing the Bible, which Christian are familiar with, as his authority, Shylock tries to convince Antonio that usury is reasonable: Shylock. No, not take ‘interest’, not as you would say Directly ‘interest’. Mark what Jacob did:. 治政大 When Laban and himself were compromised 立. That all the eanlings which were streaked and pied. ‧ 國. 學. Should fall as Jacob’s hire, the ewes, being rank,. ‧. In end of autumn turned to the rams;. sit. y. Nat. And when the work of generation was. io. er. Between these woolly breeders in the act,. al. n. The skillful shepherd peeled me certain wand,. i n C And, in the doing ofhthe deed of kind, U engchi. v. He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes, Whom then conceiving, did in eaning tme Fall parti-coloured lambs, and those were Jacobs. This was a way to thrive, and he was blest: And thrift is blessing, if men steal it not. (1.3.72-86) Engle observes Shylock’s citation of Bible, the Jacob story, is a danger for him when arguing with “a Christian in a Christian state” (Engle 29). Engle suggests that Shylock considers himself Jacob, working for Antonio, because Shylock is a Jew and he is not - 14 -.

(29) able to participate in the economy. However, Engle points out that Jacob’s blessing is from God and “his own ingenuity, breeds his own streaked flock from money out of the money with which he supplies (or “blesses”) the ventures of the Christians around him” (Engle 31). It becomes a danger for Shylock not to interpret the whole story rightly. “Shylock proposes the Jacob/Laban story as a model for the relationship between usury and venture capitalism with the former ‘blessing’ the latter, but he cannot be heard except as a ‘devil,’ and must go on to defend his mere humanity” (Engle 31).. 治政大of money is highly connected Venetian society. Drakakis observes that the operation 立 Jews and the Christian had long been enemies because of the unfairness in. to aliens, namely non-Christian. It is a challenge for strangers themselves to fit the. ‧ 國. 學. social community (Dradakis 11). Although the conflict might be due more to personal. ‧. characteristics rather than to religious differences, we still cannot ignore the religious. sit. y. Nat. differences between them. Many critics have pursued studies of these differences, and. io. er. some of the objects, such as the Jewish gabardine, clearly suggest that religion does. al. somehow impact their relationship. Shylock and Antonio do not share the same. n. v i n C h that makes Antonio religion, and this is the difference e n g c h i U discriminate against Shylock. Shylock’s power comes from his money; this superiority gives him the chance to take revenge on Antonio. The important objects in their relationship include Shylock’s Jewish gabardine, money, the bond and the flesh of Antonio. These objects are woven into the interaction between Jew and Christian. In addition, flesh can be seen as subject, the person himself, and object, the opposite of a person; this ambiguity leads concerns to the form of human life is based on physical objects. In order to figure out how objects function between characters, this chapter will focus on Jewish gabardine, money, the bond and flesh to figure out how their value grants power to objects and - 15 -.

(30) lends power to characters. Also, each object functions differently in activities which present the forms of life of many activities. Customs are symbols of identity: Jewish gabardine is a symbol of the identity of Jews. Antonio has treated Shylock with no respect. As Shylock states: “You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, /And spet upon me Jewish gaberdine” (1.3.107). Objects such as the gabardine are thus symbols of identity that may be used to reinforce or discredit that identity by others. As Stallybrass observes, “Renaissance England was a cloth society; it was also a livery society” (Stallybrass 289). Stallybrass claims that. 治政 when the meaning of liveries is strengthened. According to大 etymology, “livery” means 立 the production of livery gives meaning to the clothes. The Renaissance is the time. “servitude and freedom from such servitude” (Stallybrass 289). When a servant wears. ‧ 國. 學. a livery, he no longer stays with liberty. Stallybrass further asserts that “[a]ll forms of. ‧. livery, though, displayed clothing as a means of incorporation, the marking of a body. sit. y. Nat. so as to associate it with a specific institution” (Stallybrass 290). Jewish gabardine is a. io. er. kind of cloth that carries religious meaning. Stallybrass suggests that clothes are able. al. to inscribe memories by associating the wearer with them. For example, livery. n. v i n indicates the relationship of servantC and the livery is just like another form hmaster, e n gand chi U of one’s body (Stallybrass 304). People think of the owner of a livery when people see. livery. Therefore, customs are able to represent people’s identity, even if the owner of the custom is not in the custom. That is, when Antonio spits on Jewish gabardine, readers consider his action a religious offense. Stallybrass further points out that “[a]nother form of power, though, was equally embodied in the staging of clothes: their power to absorb memory. Yet the ability of clothing to absorb memory is again and again figured as a site of crisis” (Stallybrass 308). That is to say, when clothes are placed differently, the inscribed memory of the clothes will be distorted. Furthermore, - 16 -.

(31) the fault determines the power of objects over people. For example, in Cymbeline, Cloten wears Posthumus’s garment and this misleads Imogen’s recognition to Cloten. Imogen. A headless man! The garments of Posthumus! I know the shape of's leg: this is his hand; His foot Mercurial; his Martial thigh; The brawns of Hercules. (4.2.310-13) It is clear that Posthumus’s garment represents Posthumus’s identity and the meaning of Posthumus’s cloth is transferred to Cloten’s dead body. One important thing we cannot ignore is that “clothes could be imagined as retaining the identity and the form. 治政 Therefore, we can infer that the of the wearer” in the Renaissance (Stallybrass 310).大立. Jewish gabardine forms Shylock’s identity and Antonio can insult Jews by taking. ‧ 國. 學. action against the garment. This shows that people need to rely on objects to express. ‧. their emotion and that objects somehow show the form of people’s life.. sit. y. Nat. Antonio employs his ships as a warranty of his financial ability; those ships stand. io. er. for worth in the play. Ships are entirely human products in origin and in value; built. al. by people, ships’ value is likewise granted by people. According to Li, there are. n. v i n C idea, several ways to explain value: attribute and relation. Idea is “a kind of h e substance, ngchi U spiritual phenomenon and point to human interests, emotions, intentions, attitudes and cognitions” (Li 25); in other words, a subject gives an object value and the object holds the meaning of the subject. Substance is the original feature that the object has. For instance, sugar has the substance of sweetness. The explanation of an attribute is the use the object. For example, “nutritious is an attribute of food, beautiful is that of flower, useful of product” (Li 26). Relation holds the meaning of “a relational category, pointing to the consequence and influence of interaction between subject and object” (Li 26). Antonio’s ships have this kind of relation with him: people grant - 17 -.

(32) value to ships and ships now support Antonio. The value of objects is also transferred to characters. On the other hand, ships give Antonio value that helps him gain credit from Shylock. Shylock notes that Antonio has many argosies bound to different places. Those argosies make Shylock believe that Antonio is “sufficient” (1.3.23). Because of these ships, Shylock promises to lend money to Antonio. In this case, the ships’ value is, for Antonio, both support and power. Shylock’s trust of Antonio is established on those ships; the ships definitely play an important role between Shylock and Antonio. On the other hand, Daniel observes that the absence of the ships arouse melancholy. 治政大 Salerio. Should I go to church 立. mind to some degree.. And see the holy edifice of stone. ‧ 國. 學. And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks. io. er. Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,. sit. y. Nat. Would scatter all her spices on the stream,. ‧. Which, touching but my gentle vessel’s side,. al. And, in a word, but even now worth this,. n. v i n C hnothing? Shall I have And now worth e n g c h i U the thought To think on this, and shall I lack the thought That such a thing bechanced would make me sad? (1.1.29-38) The absence of objects does have influence on people; Salerio’s words show “the visual details of one’s surroundings could call up associations with the absent ships laden with merchandise provides a miniature account of the workings of the melancholy mind” (Daniel 210). People posit value on money and grant money an exchange value. It is through a - 18 -.

(33) transference of value such as this that Shylock measures a pound of flesh by 3000 ducats in the bond. Shylock is good at accumulating money and has become very rich; he even thinks that money is the only way for him to survive (4.1.371-3). According to Marx, the function of gold (money) is “to supply commodities with the material for the expression of their values, to represent their values as magnitudes of the same denomination, qualitatively equal and quantitatively comparable” (188). On the surface, setting a bond is a means of protecting himself, but actually Shylock is seeking chance to take revenge on a Christian who has insulted him and his people. In. 治政大 encounter. In effect, exchange value of money as his superiority in an acrimonious 立. other words, money for Shylock is another means to take revenge. Shylock takes the. this object has become weaponized through its value. The exchange value of money. ‧ 國. 學. gives power to Shylock, the power which is able to support Shylock’s conspiracy.. ‧. Georg Simmel observes that “[e]xchange is the purest and most developed kind of. sit. y. Nat. interaction, which shapes human life when it seeks to acquire substance and content”. io. er. (Simmel 82). There is no doubt that value of an object is the requirement of gaining. al. power; what makes value so important is that people need to exchange something in. n. v i n Cand life in order to balance supply Antonio needs money to lend Bassanio so h edemand. ngchi U he can woo the rich heiress Portia. Due to his daughter's elopement and theft of his property, which he blames on Christians, even if the money is paid back, Shylock still intends to kill Antonio. Money somehow manipulates the relationship between Antonio and Shylock; and for Shylock, money is the best thing for him to survive in Venetian society. Moreover, money needs protection by a bond. Both Antonio and Shylock set injunctions to the bond and then the bond has the power to bind them. The bond indicates that there is no friendship between them because Shylock employs the bond to take revenge on a Christian by taking a pound of flesh of Antonio. That is - 19 -.

(34) to say, Shylock practices his hatred through the bond. Chang’s study “Asymmetrical Reciprocity and Shylock’s Gift in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice” asserts that “Shylock’s initial proposal of not charging any interest may imply an attempt to offer a gift that aims to repair his relations with his business rival Antonio” (118). This is doubtful because Shylock claims that if Antonio cannot give back 3000 ducats in time, Shylock has the right to cut a pound of flesh from Antonio. If Shylock wants to repair his relationship with Antonio, he could have not set up the bond to protect himself. The bond is “the. 治政 temporal sequence, since the creditor tenders the loan only大 with the debtor’s binding 立 protection of self-interest, especially for the person whose benefit comes last in the. obligation in hand” (Scott 289). Shylock insists on using the bond for his own. ‧ 國. 學. protection; he does not consider using the bond to be evil, but instead as a formal. ‧. relationship that grants him the chance to take vengeance. Shylock even cites a story. sit. y. Nat. from the Bible in order to persuade Antonio of the legitimacy of his view. Although. io. al. n. Bible, he still signs the bond.. er. Antonio remains unpersuaded, and thinks that Shylock's citation is a disgrace to the. i n C Antonio. The devil can cite Scripture U h e n gforchish ipurpose,. v. An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the heart. O what a goodly outside falsehood hath! (1.3.93-97) The bond gives Shylock and Antonio a formal relationship. Once Antonio signs the bond, there is a power formed and Antonio should obey its injunctions; if he does not, Shylock can punish Antonio under the protection of the law. Such relationships can be seen as having a connection to nature despite their obvious imposition by human - 20 -.

(35) actors. Shylock wants to consider himself to enjoy the same position as Antonio, instead of treating himself as a foreigner. As Edward Andrew asserts, Shylock “ holds to his bond because he recognizes that the sole bond and commonality of a commercial society are the contracts which bind strangers. Men do not share a common reason and nature (Andrew 73). Shylock is supposed to be equal to Antonio under a right with the agreement of the bond. John Locke’s political ideas have a strong connection to nature, the idea which is universal: “every Man hath a Right to punish the Offender, and be Executioner of the Law of Nature” (Locke 290). However, the law in Venice does not come from “the Law of Nature.” Since people abandon. 治政大 As Portia mentions in their nature rights in order to be protected by the government. 立 Act V:. The law hath yet another hold on you.. io. al. That by direct, or indirect, attempts. er. If it be proved against an alien. sit. y. Nat. It is enacted in the laws of Venice,. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Portia. Tarry, Jew,. n. v i n C life (4.1.342-47). He seeks the h eofnanyg citizen chi U Obviously the law in Venice treats citizen and stranger differently. In Commonwealth and Government of Venice (1599), Contrarini delineates the different ways to judge between strangers and foreigners. Apparently, Shylock is not equal to others and he is a stranger of the Venetian society. His usury is considered “a necessary evil that the Christian Venetians need but can only represent in an estranged form” (Drakakis 46). Shylock posits himself equal to Antonio and he can even have a chance to harm Antonio by the bond. According to Locke, however, everyone is equal in theory under the protection of the “Law of Nature” but actually not everyone has the ability to - 21 -.

(36) enjoy natural rights. The bond not only signifies a formal relationship between Shylock and Antonio, but is also a way to achieve equality between Jew and Christian. When Antonio’s ships are wrecked, he is not able to give back the money on time. The ships’ lost value puts Antonio into danger and gives Shylock a chance to harm Antonio. Shylock always wants to take revenge on Antonio and now he seizes the chance. Shylock does not even want double money he lent out and he cannot tell the reason why he wants the flesh of Antonio: Shylock. You’ll ask me why I rather choose to have. 治政 Three thousand ducats. I’ll not answer 大 that! (4.1.39-41) 立 A weight of carrion flesh than to receive. Shylock’s words clearly show that he is not willing to repair his relationship with a. ‧ 國. 學. Christian, especially Antonio.. ‧. Flesh can be a means for taking revenge: Shylock wants a pound of flesh from. sit. y. Nat. Antonio. Since Antonio’s flesh stands for Christian identity, it is a challenge for. io. er. Shylock to harm a symbol of Christianity. Shylock even prepares a knife and a pair of. al. scales to measure Antonio’s flesh (4.1.120). According to George Ferguson, sword. n. v i n CSt.hMichael’s office isUto release immortal spirits and scales are related to St. Michael; engchi and weigh them in a balance (Ferguson 98); this indicates that Shylock is seeking justice for himself at the court. Shylock mentions that he can do nothing with a pound of flesh from a human being. It has no particular use value, but, since it is part of an individual Christian, it is a symbol of Christianity. Flesh is both subject and object for Antonio. The subject is Antonio himself and the object is the flesh cut by Shylock. Shylock somehow plays the game in language that makes a pound of flesh have characteristic of subject and object. Obviously for Shylock, Antonio’s flesh bears the concept of Christianity, a concept that is abstract. Shylock projects the abstract - 22 -.

(37) concept to a pound of flesh and considers himself a winner by owning Antonio’s flesh. The deed corresponds to Li’s observation of humans’ subject and its relationship with surroundings: Man’s physical existence takes the form of social life, which of necessity both depends and acts upon nature and the society surrounding him; man’s spiritual existence is a complicated system consisting of various elements and forms of cognition, will and emotion, which reflects and adjusts human activity and human relation with the external world; man’s physical and. 治政大 method of his activity” (Li 34). 立. spiritual structure creates his need and also determines the nature and. Shylock presents his hatred toward Antonio by acting upon objects and the flesh. ‧ 國. 學. presents the existence of Antonio, that is, the identity of Christianity. In Venetian. ‧. society, it is nearly impossible for Shylock, a Jew, to harm a Christian. If Shylock is. sit. y. Nat. able to take a pound of flesh from Antonio, his desire to take vengeance would be. io. n. al. er. satisfied. Christian blood and flesh therefore becomes a symbol of Jewish revenge.. Ch. engchi. - 23 -. i n U. v.


(39) Chapter Three Parents and Children The relationship of parents and children is another important point in this play; the relationship is strongly bound with inheritance. The play has three parents and children: Old Giobbe and Lancelet Giobbe, Portia’s father and Portia, Shylock and Jessica. Patriarchy is the most important element in their relationships; that is the. 治政大which makes us think about that to distort their fathers’ will through objects, the deed 立 reason why children have obligation to obey parents. In the play, some situation tend. do children belong to parents? Or do they have their own choice and will. On the. ‧ 國. 學. other hand, it is possible for people to practice their will without objects? What kind. ‧. of problems will happen if people cannot avoid conveying their will through objects?. sit. y. Nat. This chapter starts with the relationships between three parents and children, by. io. er. figuring out their attitude toward their relationships; and then finds the objects. al. surrounding those characters in order to analyze the function of objects within their. n. v i n C hwith Ludwig Wittgenstein’s relationships. In the meantime, view, the form of life engchi U consists of many language-games or activities. Language is used by people in activities then has meaning. Objects also function in activities and have diverse meanings in different activities.. Sons and daughters are considered property and objects by parents in the play. As Old Giobbo states: “[T]hou art mine own flesh and blood” (2.2.86). This shows how intimate parents and children are. When Old Giobbo meets Lancelet, he is not able to recognize his son with his blind eyes. Instead, Old Giobbo’s horse plays an important role which connects their relation. Lancelet points out that “Dobbin’s tail grows - 25 -.

(40) backward./I am sure he had more hair of his tail than I have of my face when I last saw him” (2.2.90-92). This shows that a father is very familiar with his property: his son. Also, Old Giobbo understands his horse very much, the fact which also means he is the master of the property. The horse is Old Giobbo’s property and Lancelet proves that he understands the details of Old Giobbo’s property. Old Giobbo has a gift for his son; the gift shows friendliness to Lancelet’s master: Shylock. However, Lancelet is not willing to be Shylock’s servant anymore: “[A]s I have set up my rest to run away,/so I will not rest till I have run some ground around./My master’s a very. 治政 Bassanio,/who indeed gives rare new liveries (2.2.96-103).大 Obviously, servants are 立. Jew./Give him a present?/Give him a halter!/…/Give me your present to one Master. considered properties of masters. Liveries are symbols of servants’ loyalty to their. ‧ 國. 學. master: Whenever people see liveries, they think of the relationship between masters. ‧. and servants. On the other hand, liveries refer to the identity of servitude. As. sit. y. Nat. Stallybrass observes, any kind of livery refer to incorporation; it is a sign on one’s. io. er. body that makes a connection between a person and an association (Stallybrass 290). Lancelet wants to be Bassanio’s servant for the “rare new livery”; to some degree, the. al. n. v i n new livery is a desire for Lancelet toCserve “[t]o leave a rich Jew’s service, h eBassanio; ngchi U. to become/The follower of so poor a gentleman” (2.2.138-39). In some way, the livery stands for Lancelet’s decision to leave Shylock and become a servant of Bassanio. In this case, Lancelet’s new livery becomes metonymy which represents different masters of Lancelet. Although children are supposed to belong to their parents, they still have their own will; that is to say, children may somehow disobey their parents’ will. As Jessica states, “I am a daughter to his blood,/ I am not to his manners: O Lorenzo,/ If thou keep promise I shall end this strife,/ Become a Christian and thy loving wife!” - 26 -.

(41) (2.3.18-21) Jessica considers herself Shylock’s property because she herself is Shylock’s blood. Blood can be subjective and objective. Jessica’s conversion is conflict with her blood as an object. Jessica’s subjectivity represents her will to betray her father. Robin Russin addresses fathers and daughters in his study, pointing out that both Portia and Jessica try “to subvert their fathers’ will, to take control of his wealth, to dress like a man in order to deceive, and to marry a man whose suit pretends to be love” (Russin 117). Both Portia and Jessica don’t want to obey their fathers’ will and they decide to do something which is conflict with their blood. It is somehow similar. 治政 shows a subject acts on an object and that the object大 might be transformed into a 立. to Antonio’s flesh, for an object is both subject and object. It is also an example that. subject in the meantime.. ‧ 國. 學. Portia’s waiting-woman Nerissa points out “the connection between patriarchally. ‧. driven hermeneutic practice and an ethically sanctioned success” (Drakakis 66).. sit. y. Nat. Nerissa. Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have. io. er. good inspirations. Therefore the lottery that he hath devised in. al. these three chests of gold, silver and lead, whereof who chooses. n. v i n C h chooses you, willUno doubt never be chosen by any his meaning engchi rightly but one who you shall rightly love. (1.2.26-31). The caskets of Portia’s father represent the connection between the father and the daughter; the caskets hold the meaning of moral obligation for Portia must obey her father’s will. Gesta Romanorum is one of the sources of The Merchant of Venice, and its story is comparable with that of the play. The story of the three caskets “in the Gesta Romanorum was intended as a moral exemplum, and in some manuscript copies, and in Robinson’s translation, a ‘Moral’ is given” (Brown, x1vii). Both Gesta Romanorum and The Merchant of Venice deal with the theme of “Elizabethan - 27 -.

(42) marriage” (Brown, x1vii), and most important of all, the caskets play important role when dealing with the concept of Elizabethan marriage. In the play, Portia is a perfect lady figure, just as “the King’s daughter in the Gesta Romanorum, is the heroine of a romance story” (Brown x1vii). The caskets are connections between Portia and her father, and they impose some moral obligations onto Portia, for Portia must obey her father’s order as expressed through the caskets. Even though Portia’s father is dead, his power can still influence her. Portia is not happy with the order; obedience to it means that she is not able to “choose” her love. Portia. O me the word “choose”! I may neither. 治政大 so is the choose who I would, nor refuse who I dislike, 立 will of a living daughter curb’d by the will of a dead. ‧ 國. 學. father: is it not hard Nerissa, that I cannot choose. ‧. one, nor refuse none? (1.3.142-47). sit. y. Nat. From another perspective, Portia inherits not only her father’s property but also her. io. er. father’s will. Will “manifests itself in volition, the very act of doing something such as. al. wishing, intending, choosing, seeking, following, loving, etc. and not just simply in. n. v i n terms of its presence in the soul as aC power for doing something” (Djuth h e orn faculty gchi U. 882). Because Portia’s father is dead, he is not able to convey his thoughts or choose a husband for Portia in person. Portia’s father can only manifest his will through the caskets. Portia inherits her father’s will through the caskets, a fact which shows material objects can in practice carry a person’s will, an essential part of a person, equivalent in some views to the soul. As Mauss points out that material do carry the soul of the giver. When Portia sees the caskets, she remembers that it is necessary to obey her father’s will. Valerie Schutte notes that there is “no injunction between theory and practice of - 28 -.

(43) inheritance law” (Schutte 226). Obviously there is no written bond between parents and children that children have the right and obligation to inherit everything from their parents. Bassanio views Portia as a woman and an heiress (1.1.161-67), a fact which shows that Portia has the right to inherit her father’s property with no doubt. But how can Portia inherit immaterial things from her father? The casket scene clearly shows that people still need objects to express and practice their immaterial ideas. This case shows that it is not easy to keep a dead person’s will even through objects: The transcendent law of the dead father becomes the source of meaning. 治政大 for meaning, and threatens to wealth, which makes the language a struggle 立 itself, and alternative to that more volatile, earthly substance, material. subjugate the human world to its necessarily mutable and transitory. ‧ 國. 學. practices (Drakakis 70).. ‧. The caskets at first convey the dead father’s will successfully but finally the original. sit. y. Nat. meaning of the caskets is deflected by Portia’s cheating. According to Djuth, will is a. io. er. person’s choice and decision; it is a strong action of a person to achieve something.. al. Portia inherits the will of her father by the caskets totally and all of the suitors realize. n. v i n Portia’s father’s will clearlyC through The caskets in the play present a h e nthegcaskets. chi U. power of a person that can go beyond life through material objects. Obviously it is not easy for caskets in the play to keep the dead father’s will, because the caskets are in two activities: Portia’s father grants his will to the caskets and Portia deflects the original meaning of the caskets. By choosing the right casket, Bassanio is able to get the inheritance from Portia. However, this cannot show the totality of the father’s will; the will is distorted and deflected by Portia’s apparent cheating. Portia’s cheating song obviously inserts her own will into the execution of her father's command: - 29 -.

(44) Tell me where is Fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head? How begot, how nourished? (3.2.63-65) The rhymes with lead of the words bred, head, and nourished hint to Bassanio to choose the lead casket. It is noteworthy that the meaning of an object can be distorted by other people; also, people can even manipulate with the meaning of an object. In this case, Portia employs her father’s rule of the caskets to give hints in order to fulfill her own will. It is clear that Portia also needs to fulfill her will through objects and. 治政大 the manipulation manipulates words in order to grant diverse power to the caskets, 立. she must manipulate on objects to distort her father’s will. On the other hand, Portia. which gives Bassanio implication. Portia’s manipulation of words is like a. ‧ 國. 學. “language-game” which functions as cheating in this activity. As Wittgenstein points. ‧. out, “[t]he word ‘language-game’ is used here to emphasize the fact that the speaking. sit. y. Nat. of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life” (Wittgenstein 15 e). In this. io. al. makes the caskets no longer bear the dead father’s will.. er. activity, the caskets function with the manipulation of words, the manipulation which. n. v i n On the other hand, the caskets C of different contain more details: a written h e n gcolors chi U. scroll in the golden casket, a portrait of a blinking idiot in the silver casket, and Portia’s counterfeit and scroll in the leaden casket. These details contradict the inscriptions on the caskets themselves. The golden casket bears an inscription:“Who chooseth me, /shall gain what many men desire” (2.7.5). The scroll in the golden casket, however, declares that: “All that glisters is not gold” (2.7.64). The content of the scroll shows different ideas from the inscription outside, and makes Morocco choose the wrong one. On the silver casket is written: “Who chooseth me, /shall have as much as he deserves” (2.9.58). Arragon gets a portrait of a blinking idiot when he - 30 -.

(45) chooses the silver casket, while Bassanio chooses the leaden casket and gets a portrait of Portia. The scroll inside the leaden casket describes him as: “You that chooseth not by the view” (3.2.131). The arrangement of things hidden inside the caskets is the way of selecting the right husband. The aim of the arrangement is to break the symbolic meaning of the objects. As Drakakis notes, “it is important that the play should attempt to separate monetary from spiritual value in order to avoid the risk of the one contaminating the other” (Drakakis 84). It is noteworthy that the value of objects can have meanings regardless of its attribute or substance, instead, people. 治政 people and objects. On the other meaning to it; the value is shown by the relation of 大立 have the power to transform the original value of an object and give another new. hand, when people are willing to break the symbolic meaning of objects, they still. ‧ 國. 學. have to practice the idea through objects. Portia’s father intends to prevent suitors. ‧. from choosing the correct caskets by relying on the surface, its color. Therefore,. sit. y. Nat. Portia’s father tries to employee some words to deflect the suitors. Gold and silver. io. er. have more exchange value than lead; that is why Portia’s father arranges the colors of caskets in this way. Schutte notes that Bassanio does not “trust the outward. al. n. v i n appearance of the caskets asC representative h e n g cofhtheir i Ucontents” (Schutte 226); as. Bassanio states: “So may the outward shows be least themselves, /The world is still deceived with ornament (3.2.73-74). The setting of the scene successfully breaks the symbolic meaning of the objects themselves. According to Drakakis, “[t]his inversion of the symbols of value drives a wedge between the material world and the sacrament of marriage, even as it incorporates both into its structures” (Drakakis 70). Shakespeare successfully sets the caskets to present “the dramatic tension between the daughter’s insistent desire and the dead father’s injunction that is present from the very beginning, and Portia is forbidden from revealing the answer to any of her - 31 -.

(46) suitors” (Drakakis 71). Jessica, Shylock’s daughter, takes gold and jewels when she runs away with Lorenzo. When Jessica elopes, she takes a casket containing some jewels and gold, and even a very expensive diamond. Shylock is very angry about this and shouts when he cannot find his daughter: A diamond gone cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfort, ---the curse never fell upon our nation till now, I never felt it till now, ---two thousand ducats in that, and other precious, precious jewels; I would my daughter. 治政 my foot, and the ducats in her coffin: ---no news 大 of them?” (3.1.76-83) 立. were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear: would she were hears’d at. The casket of Jessica “contains her father’s ‘meaning’, his wealth” (Drakakis 81).. ‧ 國. 學. Jessica taking the casket away from her father is a distortion of Shylock’s will. Jessica. ‧. is also a religious agent between Christianity and Judaism, since she is in love with a. sit. y. Nat. Christian. Marc Shell observes that The Merchant of Venice is a play about the hard. io. er. situation of people and property, and suggests that Jessica’s conversion to Christianity. al. is the death of Jessica (Shell 66); the fact which makes Shylock eager to take a pound. n. v i n C h his own flesh, U of flesh from Antonio: Shylock’s daughter, e n g c h i is no longer belongs to him. Shylock defenses himself for taking revenge on Antonio by interpreting Jewish law of retaliation: “For the loss of his daughter—His own flesh and blood—he will take the flesh and blood of Antonio” (Shell 61). Lancelet, Portia and Jessica obviously have different will from their fathers’ but they do not express it only by words, instead, they employee certain objects which bear particular meanings. Both Portia and Jessica accomplish some distortion of the objects of their fathers, thus showing that people can impose their will on objects but. other people can deflect the original will of the objects' originator. From Bassanio’s - 32 -.

(47) choice of the caskets, we can refer that the objects itself do not really mean exactly what they look like; that is to say, objects are media to present the ideas of people, it cannot really replace the ideas. This shows that objects play important roles and participate in parents and children’s relationships totally. Objects also present the form of life as relationships between parents and children.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. - 33 -. i n U. v.


(49) Chapter Four Love and Friendship The affection between Bassanio and Portia is the most important and interesting relationship for their marriage is seemingly arranged by Portia’s father but the purpose is deflected by Portia herself. Love and friendship are affection between people but sometimes they conflict with each other. Therefore, there is a possible challenge between Bassanio and Portia: the friendship between Bassanio and Antonio. Portia’s. 治政 ring plays an important role for the three characters大 because it stands for the marriage 立 of Bassanio and Portia. On the other hand, the ring also transforms the relationships. ‧ 國. 學. between these characters by shifting its meaning. At first the ring proves the marriage. ‧. of Bassanio and Portia but it becomes a remembrance which means thankfulness to. sit. y. Nat. disguised Portia (4.1.418).. io. er. This chapter discusses how physical objects have an impact on the relationships. al. between characters and how the value and power of objects function within those. n. v i n C h performance areUgood examples of the importance relationships. Properties in theater engchi of physical objects. Theater performances need properties handled by actors/actresses to ensure the plot is conducted to completion. For instance, in Othello, the “ocular proof” is the turning point of the plot; in Cymbeline, Imogen’s ring and Posthumus’s bracelet are symbols of their love, and when the objects are displaced, their power grows stronger. Portia’s disguise as Balthasar lends Portia power to save Antonio; the disguise gives Portia “an entrée to the man’s world” (Parten 151). Like Portia’s ring, the disguise gives Portia have the right to participate in court; “[i]n this world she intends to perform a single, specific action; when the action is complete, one might - 35 -.

(50) assume, the masculine character that she has conjured up for the purpose would cease to exist” (Parten 151). The court as an activity lends disguise the function of a masculine character and Portia is able to employ the masculine character to participate the court activity. The meaning of the disguise in this activity disappears when the activity ends. Bassanio asks Balthasar to take something from himself and Antonio individually; he emphasizes that those objects are souvenirs for helping them: Bassanio. Dear Sir, of force I must attempt you further.. 治政大you: Not as a fee. Grant me two things, I pray 立 Take some remembrance of us as a tribute,. Not to deny me, and to pardon me (4.1.417-20).. ‧ 國. 學. Portia takes a pair of gloves from Antonio and the ring from Bassanio. The most. ‧. important object is the ring, which is a symbol of love between lovers. It is also a gift. sit. y. Nat. with the memory of helping Bassanio and Antonio. Marcel Mauss observes of gift. io. er. culture that people tend to repay after they receive gifts. Mauss thinks that repaying is a “human phenomenon” (Mauss 5). The phenomenon indicates that gifts do carry the. al. n. v i n C hhere is Bassanio’sUthankfulness and the affection of the givers and the affection engchi. memory of them. It is a phenomenon that can be seen in the play: Gifts are given by people to others. Gifts are no doubt good examples of the relationship between people and material objects, especially when gifts are given by givers. As Mauss states: “Souls are mixed with things; things with souls. Lives are mingled together, and this is how, among persons and things so intermingled, each emerges from their own sphere and mixes together” (Mauss, 25-26). Mauss further observes that the gift between two sides of people is a kind of bond that forms a relationship. The observation indicates that the deed “giving” grant gifts souls of the givers. Giving lets - 36 -.

(51) objects participate in activities as gifts. The ring in the play symbolizes the marriage commitment of Bassanio and Portia. Portia gives the ring as a symbol that she herself and all of her belongings are Bassanio’s. Portia also says that Bassanio cannot lose the ring or give it to anyone else. Portia: I give them with this ring, Which when you part from, lose, or give away, Let it presage the ruin of your love,. 治政大fate of their love. People are not The fate of the ring is, according to Portia, tied to the 立 And be my vantage to exclaim on you (3.2.171-74).. able to avoid their connection through material objects. If people reject a gift, the. ‧ 國. 學. emotion involved in the giver and the receiver still exists: the giver will be hurt by. ‧. rejection. A gift is a special kind of material objects which bears some power, a power. sit. y. Nat. which is able to force people to do something when seeing the gift. Portia’s ring. io. er. carries Portia’s love and Bassanio is able to feel the affection through Portia’s ring.. al. According to Mauss in his explanation of Maori culture, everything has its spirit (hau);. n. v i n C h the spirit in the U if one receives a gift, one receives e n g c h i gift. “What imposes obligation on. the present received and exchanged, is the fact that the thing received is not inactive” (Mauss 15). Portia does not set a formal bond with Bassanio when the ring is given; instead, Portia speaks of the obligation that Bassanio must obey. This is similar to Mauss's observations: “All these are exchanged between tribes or ‘friendly families without any kind of stipulation’” (Mauss 13). Such stated obligations run directly counter to the formal obligations of Shylock's bond. When it comes to the obligation and promise between husband and wife, Newman’s research indicates that the Elizabethan gender system can also be represented by the ring: - 37 -.