Compare and contrast between Shylock and ClaudiusIntroductionThis essay examines the lives of Shylock and Antonio. These are two of the Shakespearean antagonists of all time. They are similar in more ways than one. Shylock in Merchant of Venice is a Jewish loan shark based in Venice. He was tormented and repressed especially by the Christian population. It is easy to sympathize with him especially because he has his reasons for being repulsive, greedy and stingy. This ends up making the entire "Merchant of Venice" bittersweet. It was then that Shylock was forced to give up everything he owned and further converted to Christianity. This meant that that Jewish community would no longer accept him. It also meant that he would be shunned by a Christian community who would not see him as a true convert (Merchant of Venice 3). Discussion Antonio is a merchant from Venice. He is the main protagonist of the work. He is almost forty years old and lives his life to the fullest. He is also a successful businessman who owned a fleet of several merchant ships. One surprising thing is that Antonio appears in few scenes of the play. It is the driving force behind several actions. Comparing him to Shylock portrays Antony as a Christian defined by Elizabethan society. From the point of view of character, it represents among many other things the ideal of friendship and nobility. He is also a kind and generous human being both to his friends and to poor Venice. However, he sometimes appears as a hopeless depressive and someone who cannot find the precise reason for his melancholy. Throughout the entire play, Antonio transforms into someone who is unable to muster all the energy needed to defend himself from execution. He never mentions the reason... half of the paper... ple. His main goals are to benefit his own ego at the expense of other characters. To have a positive outcome in his money lending ventures, Shylock wants to get rid of Antonio, his competitor. He plots to sign Antonio as Bassanio's collateral with a pound of flesh. He also appreciates his daughter's money. Works Cited Merchant of Venice. December 12, 1999. February 9, 2014. Pritner, Cal. Introduction to game analysis. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; 1 edition, 2004.Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice. New York, NY: The John C. Winston Company, 1914.Wright, Courtni Crump. The Women of Shakespeare's Plays: Analysis of the Role of Women in Selected Plays with Plot Synopsis and Selected One-Act Plays. New York, NY: University Press of America, 1993.