Collective Unconsciousness In 'The Merchant of Venice'

<p>The paper throws the light on collective<br>unconsciousness in ‘The merchant of<br>Venice’. ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is a<br>comedy by Shakespeare. On reading the<br>comedies of Shakespeare, John Ruskin<br>makes a comment that Shakespeare has no<br>heroes but only heroines. But he does not<br>say that Shakespeare has no villain. Taking<br>revenge may not be said to be an<br>undesirable quality of a villain (in most of<br>the movies we have watched, the heroes<br>either take revenge or avenge on other’s<br>behalf and that is why we celebrate them as<br>heroes). In the ‘Trial Scene’, when Shylock<br>loses the case, except for Shylock all the<br>others present there want Shylock to be<br>punished. Bassanio wants to marry Portia<br>because she is “richly left”. The love<br>between them is just an infatuation because<br>both of them have hardly met and<br>understood each other. It was only when<br>Bassanio accompanied Marquis of<br>Montferrat to Belmont when Portia’s father<br>was alive that both of them had a chance to<br>look at each other and started to develop a<br>liking towards each other. Love at first<br>sight? This is an intentional and calculated<br>marriage, at least, on the part of Basssanio.<br>Shakespeare seems to have, deliberately,<br>projected Shylock as a villain, because<br>basically Shakespeare himself was a<br>Christian and we find the ‘racial memory’<br>present in him which has driven him to hate<br>a Jew. The racial memory or the collective<br>unconscious is the root cause of every<br>important character in the play to hate a<br>Jew. Ever since the rift between the Jews<br>and the Christians, there has been a strong<br>dislike to each other. From their foreparents they have inherited this idea of<br>dislike and that is what we witness in the<br>play.</p>