 Now, let's talk about the character of Jessica in the Merchant of Venice. Now, Jessica's character is a really interesting character whom we can argue that we, especially as a modern audience, have a fairly complicated relationship with. On the one hand, she is interesting because firstly we know that she's Charlotte's daughter, hence she is Jewish. So on the one hand, she demonstrates a certain level of independence that a lot of girls during her time and a lot of women during her time bearing in mind that this was set in the Elizabethan era, so Shakespeare's time. A lot of women tended to be very passive, very happy and fine to be controlled by their fathers. So of course, we can see, especially when she talks to Shylock. Shylock tells her to stay at home. He's very domineering, very controlling towards her. However, she demonstrates her independence. She demonstrates a free spiritedness when she decides to dress up as a man and flee and escape with Lorenza, who's her lover, and she ultimately marries him, becomes a Christian and converts to Christianity from being a Jewish woman. So whilst we, especially as a modern audience, may applaud this show of independence and strength on the one hand, we do have a somewhat complicated relationship on the other side with her looking down on her Jewish heritage. So she does unfortunately internalise some of the really negative views that a lot of the other characters had towards Jewish people to so much to the extent that she decides to discard and throw away her heritage. She decides to, and she takes a lot of pride in basically stating that not only is she going to run away from her father, but she's going to completely remove herself from anything to do with her Jewish background and become a Christian. OK, so of course, we as a modern audience do find this very anti-Semitic. We also, of course, find this very sad if somebody dislikes themselves and dislikes their heritage. And of course, also she is the person who basically betrays her father and runs away steals from him as well. So she steals his jewelry and also she steals lots of money from him before she runs away. OK, so Jessica is a character that defies very easy and very straightforward interpretation, because on the one hand, she's very independent. She shows this real decision making in terms of running away from her dad, who has been quite controlling of her. However, on the other hand, she mistreats him. She steals from him and also she rejects her Jewish heritage, which especially as a modern audience, we do see as a very sad thing to do, as a very reprehensible thing to do. In other words, it's a very negative thing to do. OK. But of course, this does reflect a lot of people during the time during Shakespeare's time who are very anti-Semitic. In other words, anti-Semitism means when you dislike somebody just because they are Jewish. We know that that's a wrong thing to take, a wrong perspective to have. But of course, during the time when Shakespeare wrote this, this was something that was acceptable. OK. Now, what I've done is I've highlighted key quotations to remember for Jessica's character. Now, do bear in mind that this is going to be useful, especially if you're writing about Jessica's character. But equally, if you're writing about the female characters in the play, OK, because on the one hand, you've got a female character like Narissa, who's Porsche's lady in waiting. She accepts very passively what she's expected to do as a woman, you know, be really dependent on men, kind of accept that fathers should control their daughters. However, on the other side of the table, you've got Porsche and Jessica, who are very independent, intelligent and very free-spirited. OK. So of course, Jessica's character does lend herself to a discussion, particularly of the female characters in the play. Now, the first quotation to bear in mind when it comes to Jessica's character. And of course, this illustrates just how much she hates Shylock. She states, our house is hell. Now, this is when she's talking to Lancelot, who basically is going to be leaving. And she's really sad. She's saying, oh, Lancelot, you know, because he worked for them. So sad, you're the only person who made this, you know, me living with my father bearable, our house is hell. OK. And of course, the alliteration of age and house and hell illustrates just how much she despises Shylock. She despises her current life. And of course, also, this is a metaphor, her describing the house as hell. And this ties in again to how Jewish people were seen as really hellish, really almost animalistic, OK, and she herself has internalised that. The second quotation to bear in mind when it comes to Jessica's character is again here, she states that she is ashamed to be my father's child. And she speaks in exclamatory sentences. Exclamatory sentence means any sentence that states a strong emotion using an exclamation mark. Now, of course, here we can see that she really dislikes being Shylock's daughter, but also she dislikes being having a Jewish heritage. Also, the other word level analysis you want to do here is, of course, the pronoun my hair. She's showing that she's really embarrassed to be Shylock's daughter and she's going to do something about it. She's going to distance herself from her dad. OK. The other key quotation to remember with Jessica's character is when she states, I shall end this strife, become a Christian and thy loving wife. And this is when she meets Lorenzo. She basically states, look, Lorenzo, number one, I hate my dad. She being Shylock. Number two, I hate being Jewish. So to change this, what I'm going to do is I'm going to run away from home. OK, take money so that obviously we can afford our lifestyle. But also I'm going to be your wife. So through marriage, I'm going to just take on your values. I'm going to be a Christian just like you and I'm going to discard my Jewish heritage. Now, the word level analysis you want to do here is firstly, the sibilance of shell and strife and also the word strife and wife rhyme. OK, so obviously that's rhyming. The other quotation to bear in mind when it comes to Jessica's character is when she's leaving. So of course, Shylock isn't there, but she tells to herself, I have a father, comma, you a daughter, comma, lost. So here, of course, she's reflecting on when I marry Lorenzo, Lorenzo does have a dad and a mom. I'm going to be their daughter. However, Shylock, you now have nothing. OK, I'm the only person who, you know, had any kind of relationship with you now. I'm going to run away and you're going to lose a daughter. OK. So of course, this illustrates not only how much she hates her father, but also this illustrates her independence, her free spiritedness. She decides to disobey her father and also run away, which contextually people during the Elizabethan era were very much controlled by the family, the sense of honour and the duty towards the family. But she rejects us and she runs away and acts independently. Now, the word level analysis you want to do here is firstly, she contrasts the word father and daughter. So of course here, this is, of course, Shakespeare and father and daughter belong to the semantic field of family. But of course, you also have Cezura here, the two commas here. Now, the other key quotations to remember for Jessica's character is when we learn that actually her and Lorenzo's love is very much based on physical beauty, infatuation and we kind of get the sense that maybe once this fades away, there's not that much substance to their love because she herself admits love is blind and lovers cannot see. So here she's basically saying she also maybe makes very silly, irrational decisions based on just how much she loves Lorenzo. OK, she's acting very much on her emotions. Now, you want to focus in terms of word level analysis on the literation of L in love and lovers and also lovers described as being blind, which is personification. Basically, she's stating and she's outwardly showing an awareness that lovers do make mistakes because they're only guided by the emotions and they're guided by just how much they like the other person. OK, so also what this maybe makes us as the audience think is perhaps maybe once, you know, the initial infatuation has died away and once her and Lorenzo settled into their life as married lovers and, you know, as a married husband and wife, maybe there's not going to be that much substance beyond them just being really infatuated with each other. The other quotation for Jessica's character is, of course, as she's leaving, she's dressed up as a boy and then she's taking Charlotte's jewellery and then she decides to also take more of his money. She states, I will ellipsis, guild myself with some more due cats. Of course, here she's basically saying I'm going to still a bit more money. Wait for me for a second. Let me go and still more money and then we'll run away. OK, now you want to first focus on the pronoun I, which kind of shows Jessica looking only out for herself. So it's a little bit selfish for her to still from her dad and run away. Also, you want to focus on the alliteration in terms of word love analysis of myself and more. The final quotation is when Jessica states, I shall be saved by my husband. He hath made me a Christian. So of course, here she's basically showing how women, especially during that time, in order to escape what sometimes they felt was a cruel fate, maybe being born into a bad family, maybe feeling like they are trapped. Usually it was still up to men to save these women through marriage. And of course, here we can see that even if Jessica is very independent, free spirited, she still relies on a man, in this case, Lorenzo, to marry her in order to save her from her family situation. OK, now, the word love analysis you want to do here is firstly the sibilance of shall and saved. Also the verb saved, of course, this shows how contextually women had very few options that didn't have very many things, especially if they were in not very great situations, they really relied heavily on men saving them. Then the other word love analysis you want to do is alliteration of husband. He hath, of course, here she's really focusing on Lorenzo, the role that he's going to play in saving her from her father. And finally, the other final word love analysis is the abstract noun Christian. Here, of course, she's showing that she's part of the price she has to pay to marry Lorenzo, but she's very willing to do so because she's embarrassed to be a Jew, is to give up her Jewish heritage and become Christian. OK, so those are the key quotations to bear in mind when it comes to the character of Jessica in Merchant of Venice.