Given the uproar over the bonuses doled out to bank executives at firms the government bailed out with taxpayer money, there has perhaps never been a more appropriate time to discuss Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. In the play Shylock is ridiculed because he lends money with the explicit intention of turning a profit on the transaction. For this apparent transgression, Antonio implies that Shylock is “a villain with a smiling cheek,“ and that he intends to “spit on thee again, to spurn thee too” (I.iii.100, I.ii.131).
Share this post
A Randian Reading of the Merchant of Venice
Share this post
Given the uproar over the bonuses doled out to bank executives at firms the government bailed out with taxpayer money, there has perhaps never been a more appropriate time to discuss Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. In the play Shylock is ridiculed because he lends money with the explicit intention of turning a profit on the transaction. For this apparent transgression, Antonio implies that Shylock is “a villain with a smiling cheek,“ and that he intends to “spit on thee again, to spurn thee too” (I.iii.100, I.ii.131).