Two Father-Daughter Relationships in The Merchant of Venice

Abstract

In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare represents two types of the father-daughter relationship. One is between the deceased father and daughter, Portia, and the other is Shylock, the Jew and his daughter, Jessica. With his testament, a dead father determines daughter’s marriage, however, a living father, Shylock, given negative features as a religious and racial other in Venice is betrayed by his daughter. Portia who obeys the father’s patriarchal right is endowed with desirable womanness and happy marriage life. Portia’s subjection to her father’s will makes her wealth become a real power to control by her surroundings. Jessica objects her father and his Jewish identity but gets instant satisfaction without any hint on promising future as a married wife though she is married to a Christian. Shakespeare allows Jessica, an infidel and the other in The Merchant of Venice, to escape her fate only to become a disobedient daughter in the worst father-daughter relationship and to show avoidable behavior that should not be happened in the patriarchal society. Because of their relationships with fathers, Portia is accepted as an ideal daughter and wife but Jessica becomes an example of unsatisfied disobedient daughter so that we inevitably see them from a different view.