Comparison and Contrast of Shylock and ClaudiusIntroductionThis essay looks at the lives of Shylock and Antonio. These are two of the Shakespearean antagonists of all time. They are similar in more ways than one. Shylock in Merchant of Venice is a Jewish moneylender based in Venice. He was tormented and repressed mainly by the Christian population. He is easy to sympathize with, mainly because he has his own reasons for being hateful, greedy, and miserly. This ends up making the whole of “The Merchant of Venice” bittersweet. It was at this point that Shylock was forced to give up everything he had and convert him to Christianity. This meant that this Jewish community would no longer accept him. This also meant that he would be rejected by a Christian community that would not consider him a true convert (Merchant of Venice 3). DiscussionAntonio is a merchant from Venice. He is the main protagonist of the play. He is almost forty years old and living his life to the fullest. He was also a successful businessman who owned a fleet of several commercial ships. What is surprising is that Antonio appears in a few scenes of the play. He is at the origin of several actions. Comparing him to Shylock, Antonio is portrayed as a Christian defined by Elizabethan society. Character-wise, he represents, among other things, the ideal of friendship and nobility. He is also a kind and generous human being towards his friends and towards poor Venice. However, he sometimes appears as a desperate depressive and someone who cannot find the exact reason for his melancholy. Throughout the play, Antonio transforms into someone who is unable to muster all the energy necessary to defend himself against execution. He never gives a reason...... middle of paper ......ple. His main goals are to benefit his own ego from other characters' spending. In order to have a positive result in his money lending operations, Shylock wishes to get rid of Antonio, his competitor. He plans to sign Antonio as security for Bassanio with a pound of flesh. He cherishes money as much as his own daughter. Works Cited Merchant of Venice. December 12, 1999. February 9, 2014. Pritner, Cal. Introduction to Game Analysis. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; 1 edition, 2004. Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice. New York, NY: The John C. Winston Company, 1914. Wright, Courtni Crump. Women in Shakespeare's Plays: Analysis of the roles of women in selected plays with plot synopses and selected one-act plays. New York, NY: University Press of America, 1993.