There is something very strange about experiencing ‘The Merchant of Venice’ when you are somehow imaginatively implicated in the character and actions of its villain… What, exactly, are you applauding and smiling at? How are you supposed to view the Jewish daughter who robs her father and bestows the money on her fortune-hunting Christian suitor? Do you join in the raucous laughter of the Christians who mock and spit on the Jew? Or do you secretly condone Shylock’s vindictive, malignant rage?
Where are you, at the end of the harrowing scene in the courtroom, when Portia asks the man she has outmanueuvered and ruined whether he agrees to the terms she has dictated, terms that include the provision that he immediately become a Christian? 'Art thou content, Jew?’ she prods. 'What dost thou say?’
And what do you think the Jew actually feels when he answers, 'I am content’?
”- “If You Prick Us,” Stephen Greenblatt.