The Merchant Of Venice - Summary

The Merchant of Venice starts with Antonio, a Christian merchant and his friend Bassanio, an aristocrat who had lost all of his money. Bassanio, needed a loan to change his life style and make a good impression to court a beautiful and rich woman, Portia, who lived in another city Belmont. So he decided to ask Antonio if he could borrow the amount of money, therefore, Antonio was unable to make the loan himself because all of his own money was invested in a number of trade ships that were still at sea.

At the same time, in Belmont, Portia was very sad due to her father’s terms about the will, which determined she must marry the man who chooses the correct "caskets". There were three types of casket, the first made by gold, the second by silver and the third by lead, and each one contained a different message inside, but the correct one had a picture of Portia. The beautiful girl confessed to Nerissa, her confidante, she was very tired regarding of the not interesting suitors, and how she wished to be free of the will.

In Venice, Antonio had an idea to help Bassanio, he went to a Jewish money lender, Shylock, who hates Antonio because of his anti-semitic behaviour towards him. Shylock nevertheless agreed to make the short-term loan, with a specific condition: the loan must be repaid in three months or Shylock would extract a pound of flesh from Antonio. Surprisingly Antonio agreed because he was very confident that his ships would return in time to pay the loan.

Bassanio went to Belmont to meet Portia, when he arrived and talked to her, she got immediately interested on him. As the others suitors Prince of Morocco, who chose the gold, and the Prince of Aragon, who chose silver, had failed, it was Bassanio chance, and wisely he chose the lead casket and found Portia’s picture, both were very happy. At this moment, they were informed that Antonio's ships had been crashed at sea, so Bassanio noticed his friend would not be able to pay to loan back on time. Portia offered to repay the loan but Antonio hadn’t accepted.

Therefore, Bassanio went to Venice to convince Shylock to extend the time limit of the agreement, but he refused because he was very angry since he discovered that his daughter had run away with a friend of Antonio carrying a huge amount of her father’s money, so he informed that he would take a pound of Antonio's flesh. After his decision, a trial was called to decide the matter, and Portia, who went to Venice to save Antonio disguised as men, pretended to be Balthasar, a man of the law, to defend Antonio. No one noticed that Balthasar was in fact Portia.

Shylock demanded that the agreement must be executed and a flesh of Antonio would be extracted. Balthasar offered three times of the amount owed to him, but Shylock refused and said that he had the right to get Antonio’s flesh. Everyone was very preoccupied with Antonio’s life. Sudden, Balthasar

said the agreement should be executed as Shylock desired. The Jewish man was celebrating this triumph when Balthasar concluded that he should get the flesh without dropping no blood, Shylock started laughing and said that it would be impossible, and cleverly Balthasar told him that blood was not included in the contract, and according to the law, if he spilled any of Antonio's blood while taking his flesh he would be arrested.

Shylock,