merchant of venice/blog post #16
- In Act 4, Scene 1 (pp. 78-79) Portia gives a speech about the mercy vs. justice ("The quality of mercy is not strained..."). Explain what Portia is saying about justice and mercy, and why is this important in the play?
portia in this scene is disguised as a doctor of the law. she is trying to convince shylock to give mercy to Antonio and not take justice. she does this by explaining the qualities of justice. she says " the quality of mercy is not strained it droppeth as a gentle rain from heaven". what i think she means is that mercy is not forced it is something wonderful that you should want to do. she also says the thing along the lines of mercy is in a king's heart, and that god possesses mercy. i believe she did this to almost glorify mercy, saying that if he were truly a good man he would spare Antonio. how is this important to the play. well this is important because we get to see how portia planned to free antonio. as i was reading i was thinking to myself "is what she saying sincere, or is she just saying this to try and get Antonio off the hook". even if her speech was not sincere i must say it was truly inspiring, and i think can apply to many things in our modern world.
You did a good job of explaining what Portia was saying in the speech. I'd like to see you dig deeper to understand why this speech is so important. When Portia was asking Shylock to have mercy on Antonio, how does she compare and contrast justice and mercy? Throughout the play, how do justice and mercy play a part in the message of the play? Is there a subtext of comparison between the Jewish and Christian faiths?
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