Works from Merchant of Venice

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Moving on… Here is my Mini essay about the 3 Chests from Merchant of Venice

In Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice, a woman called Portia is to be married to someone, but she has no control over it. Instead, her late father decided to create a test that would allow only the most worthy person to wed Portia. There were a total of 3 people who we know to have taken a test. A prince of Morroco, another prince from Arragon, and of course Bassanio.

In the play, the three chests were made of gold, silver, and lead. If the person picks the one with the portrait of Portia inside, then they can marry her. The Prince of Morroco was deceived by the golden casket with a description saying that he would get what he deserves, which had a skull inside, and the wise words of Portia’s father exclaiming that looks can be deceiving. The Prince of Arragon chose the silver one and found a mirror, and a message saying that he was an idiot. Last but not least, Bassanio decided to use the process of elimination to choose the lead chest, which showed the portrait of Portia. Bassanio was able to recognize that the gold and silver chests were too deceiving, and so was smart enough to choose the correct chest. This showed how the test was able to separate the incompetent suitors with Bassanio, so this fulfilled Portia’s father’s wish, and also allowed Portia to marry a man that would treat her well. 

This chest test was a genius plan made by Portia’s father and was significant because it allowed our favourite main character to get the girl. Because deep down inside, we would have been extremely disappointed if the two princes chose correctly. The idea of this test was to make a point that the perfect husband had to be selfless, and not absorbed by what the beauties fo the world are, and what they deserve, but to serve Portia, and fulfil the duties of being a husband that will truly care for her. 

Link to writing process

Reflection:

When we think of Shakespeare, we often think of heavy tragedies that make us sad for a few hours, or days for that matter. But Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice” is a play that I quite enjoyed “reading”, and by reading, I mean watching videos on youtube about each act and scene. Shakespeare manages to put some political ideas that are even more advanced for our times in his play. I wanted to simplify the ideas, and write/draw those in a way that would be interesting, and easy to understand for the viewer. So I hope these pieces enlightened you about some pretty deep topics that were covered by the play.