 Wealth is a really important theme to explore within the merchant of Venice. Indeed, many of the characters within the play are powered by the search for wealth, but also the search to redeem their wealth, okay? So, of course, we find the play begins with Bassanio, who is very careless with his wealth, hence why he needs Antonio's help, in getting a loan in order to marry Portia, who's very wealthy, and he sees this as his way out of his financial problems, okay? But also, of course, on the other hand, we have Shylock, who wants to redeem his wealth, but he also sees the fact that he has lent money to Antonio as his way of exacting revenge. Now, the story is interesting in the sense that it seems like there are two contrasting approaches to wealth, shown on the one hand through Shylock, and then on the other hand through Bassanio and Antonio. So, Shylock, who represents, of course, a Jewish perspective, he is presented as hoarding money and seeing wealth and putting wealth even above personal relationships. Hence, his relationship with his daughter, Jessica, even falls apart. And when his daughter leaves, he seems to be far more upset about the fact that she stole his jewels, she stole some of his money, as opposed to losing her as a daughter. However, on the other hand, we can see that Christians are portrayed within this play as being very generous with their wealth. Antonio, for example, lends out money grittis, which means free, okay, rather than charging interest. So, they're seen on the one hand as being generous. However, they're also shown and portrayed, especially through the character of Bassanio, as being not clever with their money. In other words, the being, the portrayed also as being very wasteful, okay? So, wealth is an important key theme to consider within this play. It also, of course, is what the tragedy, the potential death of Antonio, it's due to wealth and it centers through that. And of course, even he loses all his ships as a merchant on sea, but then he's able to retrieve them at the end, okay? So, when it comes to discussing the theme of wealth, as you can see behind me, I have selected the most relevant quotes you can consider as well as a word-level analysis. So, let's begin with the first quotation. So, this first quote establishes Bassanio as very obsessed with wealth. He's obsessed with wealth for two reasons. Number one, he is very bad with his money. He's very wasteful and he has squandered his inheritance that was left behind to him. So, now, it's in all of this debt to Antonio and to all these different people. And on the other hand, he is obsessed with the idea that if he marries Portia, this will completely clear his debts, but also put him in a very comfortable financial position, okay? So, we can see here that he is motivated. On the one hand, he believes Portia is beautiful. However, it's interesting the way he states that he's more interested in her wealth than, of course, her beauty, okay? So, her beauty almost comes as a bonus to being with her. And he states, in Belmont is a lady rich left and she is fair ellipsis of wondrous virtues. So, here, it's interesting that Bassanio mentions the fact that Portia is rich first before we then realize that she also is beautiful. So, she's fair and she has good virtues, okay? So, of course, what this is illustrating is Bassanio. He is primarily interested in pursuing wealth and his interest in this marriage and being able to win Portia's hand in marriage. Also, primarily stems from him really wanting to take over her inheritance. Remember, of course, during this time, women were classified and she has the properties of their fathers, but then when they got married, they became the properties of the husband. So, everything that they inherited would then just be taken over by the husband. So, Bassanio would be getting a great deal if he married Portia, okay? So, of course, here we can see that he is focused on the pursuit of wealth. But equally, of course, what this illustrates is we start questioning Bassanio's own virtues. We start questioning his own motives and we'll question whether he genuinely loves Portia and if she didn't have the money and the inheritance, would he still have been as interested and as invested in her? Probably not. Now, the word of analysis you want to focus on is the alliteration of El and Lady in left, okay? So, here, he's presenting his case to Antonio. Antonio, please, if you help me out with this one, 100% I'm going to be able to give you back your money once I meet this lady and I'll woo her, okay? Also, you want to focus on the adjective rich because what this is showing is that it is the pursuit of wealth that really drives Bassanio. The second quotation tying in to the theme of wealth is when Narissa, so Portia is basically really upset that her dad has left this really strange will and this strange instruction of her only suitor, the only man she's allowed to marry has to pick the correct casket with her portrait in it. And she's basically telling Narissa, I've had enough of this world, I'm feeling really miserable, but Narissa responds, oh, no, and if your miseries were in the same abundance as the good fortunes were, yeah, okay, that's when you'd be miserable, okay? So, she says, you're not really miserable. Honestly, the only time you can generally be miserable is if your miseries were just as much as your good fortune. So, basically, Narissa is telling her, look, number one, you've got a lot of money, you've got a huge inheritance, you've got great life, don't feel so miserable just because your dad has left these specific instructions, your dad probably had your best interest at heart. And, of course, here, what this does is it establishes Portia's wealth, okay, so we can see that Portia is incredibly rich and also it establishes how she finds it very hard to find the correct suitor and her father himself also anticipated she might not get the right person because it'd be mainly motivated by her money, okay? So, here, Narissa, her lady-in-waiting obviously emphasizes just the sheer amount of wealth that is in her possession, but, of course, also, we can see here whilst Narissa sees this as a great thing for Portia, this still doesn't give Portia complete happiness and fulfillment. Now, the word of analysis you want to focus on is the oxymoron that Narissa uses in her language, so miseries, which is the opposite of fortunes, okay? Again, what this is illustrating is just the sheer amount of wealth that Portia has. The next quotation tying into the theme of wealth is, when the Prince of Morocco opens the Roncasket, this is the Golden Casket, and there's a proverb, okay, that states, all that glisters is not gold. Of course, then he realizes he cannot win Portia's hand in marriage. Now, here, this proverb is interesting because what this is illustrating is that the appearance of something doesn't necessarily mean that that thing is good and that thing is genuine, okay? So, he's being taught not to only follow what he sees on the surface, and, of course, we as the audience as well realize, and even this wordplay here, glisters is, you know, it's kind of a wordplay on glitters, this idea that you can't necessarily trust the appearance of anything just because it looks good, okay? And this is interesting because Portia trusts the appearance of Bessonio. Bessonio comes in with money, he seemingly looks rich so she falls in love with him, and unbeknownst to her, even if she's trusting what glitters before her, which is Bessonio, who seems handsome, she doesn't realize that he actually is very poor, he's wasted all of his money, he's squandered all of his money, and not only is he poor, he is, you know, deep in debt to other people, and finally, he is highly motivated to marry her for her wealth, okay? Now, the wordplay analysis you want to focus on here is the alliteration of G in glisters and gold. The next quotation, of course, which is meant to show the difference in approach to wealth and money between the Jewish characters, this is Shiloh, versus the Christians, okay? So here, what this is illustrating, and this is what Solerino says about Shiloh is once he is describing his reaction when he realized that Jessica's daughter ran away, and Solerino says, as the dog juded utter ellipsis, my daughter, oh my do cat, oh my daughter, okay? So he's obviously making fun of Shiloh's reaction, he's saying, oh, he came in and said, oh, my daughter, oh, but my money, but my daughter, okay? So of course, here, what this is illustrating is the view and the perspective that Shiloh prized wealth and money above even his own personal relationship here. He's being depicted as very greedy, as opposed to the Christians who, you know, don't necessarily see money in a similar way. Now, the word of analysis you want to focus on here is firstly, of course, the metaphor dog, and of course, this is showing very racist, very anti-Semitic perspectives of Shiloh just because he's a money lender. Solerino is basically portraying him as somebody who's obsessed with money more so even than human relationships. He seems more devastated that Jessica stole from him rather than actually losing his daughter. Also, the other word of analysis you want to focus on is the alliteration of D in daughter and due cats. The repetition also of the word daughter, okay? And finally, the exclamatory sentence which shows that Shiloh was really sad, but it seems like he was more sad at losing his wealth than his daughter, okay? And remember, an exclamatory sentence is a sentence that shows a very strong emotion. It usually tends to end with an exclamation mark. The next quotation which you can tie into the theme of wealth is Bessonio. Of course, this is when he was making his case to Antonio and he tells Antonio, okay, Antonio, you know my financial position, okay? It is not unknown to you, Antonio, how much I have disabled my estate, okay? So here, what he's basically saying, especially when he's talking about his estate is, Antonio, you know how bad I am with money, okay? So of course, this is actually an interesting contrast with Shiloh. So whilst Shiloh is very focused on building his wealth, but in some ways hoarding it, Bessonio is portrayed from the Christian perspective because of course, he is a Christian as being very bad with money, very wasteful, okay? So of course here, he was left in inheritance and estate and he disabled it. In other words, he completely squandered all of his money, okay? So here, this is presenting kind of one of the Christian perspectives when it came to wealth, where the money is not being hoarded, it's just being spent, but it's done in a very careless manner. And this is what leads Bessonio to get very deep in debt. Now the word of analysis you want to focus on here, when it comes to wealth, and of course, not only does this lead Bessonio to be deep in debt, he becomes very obsessed in his pursuit of Porsche in order to acquire her wealth. This is illustrated through the alliteration of age and how and have, and also the verb disabled, which of course illustrates how Bessonio basically squandered his money. The next quotation tying into the theme of wealth is Antonio basically saying, okay, I do really want to help you out, but all my fortunes are at sea. And this is a declarative sentence. Remember, declarative sentence is a sentence that states a fact feeling or mood. Okay. So the fact that Antonio stating is, hey, Bessonio, I'd love to help, but I literally, all my goods are being sold right now out to at sea. Okay. And of course, this foreshadows the fact that he does lose his goods in sea. Okay. Now what you want to focus on is the assonance of a and all are at and see. Okay. And again, what this is illustrating is how Antonio puts his money into as a Christian into selling and rather than lending. Okay. So also this is subconsciously reinforcing in the viewer's mind that perhaps Antonio uses his money for enterprise whilst Shylock on the other hand, from the Jewish perspective, kind of holds it, which of course is completely wrong and very, very stereotypical and very prejudiced as a view. Okay. Now the final quotation, which you want to focus on is when Shylock is really angry at the fact that Antonio not only competes with him in business, but also he competes with them as a money lender and gives that money for free. Okay. Which obviously undercuts Shylock in business. Remember that this makes Shylock enraged because at the time in Venetian society, Jewish people were not given lots of options and there were lots of professions that banned them from participating and money lending was just one of the few ways that they could actually make a living. Okay. And of course, to make a living, if you're a money lender, you charge interest. However, Shylock was really angry that the only way you can make money, Antonio is coming in and undercutting it and he states, he lends out money gritees and brings down the rate of users. So basically he's saying that Antonio not only lending money out for free to people that need money lending, but also this is reducing the interest rate. So what Charlotte can earn. Okay. So Antonio is deliberately undercutting him. Okay. Now here, this ties into wealth because of course what this is reinforcing is this notion that questions are very generous and giving out all of this money whilst Shylock is, you know, charging interest and he's being really greedy. Okay. So of course, this is juxtaposing Antonio's approach to money versus Shylock and the word level analysis you want to focus on here is the words money and users. Okay. This is interest rates, which belongs to semantic field of money. Okay. So that's really it when it comes to the main quotations as a suggested, you can consider if you're writing about the theme of wealth in the Merchant of Venice. Thanks so much for listening.