Jessica (The Merchant of Venice)

Jessica
Jessica (1888), by Luke Fildes.
Created by	William Shakespeare

Jessica is the daughter of Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (c. 1598). In the play, she elopes with Lorenzo, a pennyless Christian, and a chest of her father's money, eventually ending up in Portia and Bassanio's household. In the play's dramatic structure, Jessica is a minor but pivotal role. Her actions motivate Shylock's vengeful insistence on his "pound of flesh" from Antonio; her relationships with Lorenzo and Shylock serves as a mirror and contrast to Portia's with Bassanio and with her father; her conversion to Christianity is the end of Shylock's line's adherence to the Jewish faith.

Literary critics have historically viewed the character negatively, highlighting her theft of her father's gold, her betrayal of his trust, and apparently selfish motivations and aimless behaviour. Since the end of the 20th century their views have been more moderate and nuanced, pointing to an alternate reading that allows her actions to be motivated by love and generosity, and being driven by Shylock's own tyrannical and immoral behaviour.

Role in the play

Alack, what heinous sin is it in me
To be ashamed to be my father's child?
But though I am a daughter to his blood,
I am not to his manners. O Lorenzo,
If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife,
Become a Christian and thy loving wife.

Jessica, The Merchant of Venice

The central plot of The Merchant of Venice is relatively straightforward: Antonio borrows money from Shylock to help his friend, Bassanio, court Portia, but, through misfortune, is unable to repay and is subjected to an onerous default (a literal "pound of flesh" cut from his body). In addition, the play contains subplots regarding Bassanio's courtship of Portia; Launcelot Gobbo's humorous interactions with his father, and his change of allegiance from Shylock to Portia and Bassanio; and Jessica and Lorenzo's elopement, with Shylock's casket of Ducats.

The role of Jessica is a relatively minor one. She speaks a grand total of 660 words over the play's five acts. In the dramatic structure of the play, the role is, however, pivotal: her elopement with Lorenzo, and her father's casket of Ducats, motivates Shylock's vengefulness towards Antonio; she serves as a mirror highlighting the differences between Shylock's Jewish household and Portia's Christian one; and serves as the means by which Shylock is forcibly converted to Christianity.

I am sorry thou wilt leave my father so.
Our house is hell and thou, a merry devil,
Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness.

Jessica, The Merchant of Venice

Her first appearance on stage is in Act 2, Scene 3, in a brief scene with Launcelot Gobbo. Gobbo is leaving Shylock's service to give his allegiance to Bassiano, and Jessica bemoans the loss of his company in a household that is "hell". She speeds him along, to avoid her father seeing their interaction, with a Ducat as a parting gift and a letter to Lorenzo. After Gobbo leaves, she muses to herself on what flaws are in her character that makes her ashamed to be her father's daughter, and that although she is related to him by blood she is alienated by his manners. She concludes the soliloquy determined to marry Lorenzo and converting to Christianity.

Hear you me, Jessica,
Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum
And the vile squealing of the wry-necked fife,
Clamber not you up to the casements then,
Nor thrust your head into the public street
To gaze on Christian fools with varnished faces,
But stop my house's ears (I mean my casements).
Let not the sound of shallow fopp'ry enter
My sober house.

Shylock, The Merchant of Venice

In Act 2, Scene 4, Gobbo bears the letter, containing Jessica's plans to elope with Lorenzo and as much of her father's valuables as she can find, to Lorenzo. He is pleased by the letter and its contents, and bids Gobbo return to let her know that he has received the letter and will not fail her. In Act 2, Scene 5, however, Gobbo is intercepted by Shylock, who berates him for his change of allegiance. Gobbo seizes on Shylock's repeated mentions of Jessica's name as a pretense to call her. When she arrives, Shylock gives her the keys to his house and the responsibility of keeping it safe while he dines with Antonio and Bassanio. Upon learning there will be a masquerade, he enjoins her to shutter the windows and not "gaze on Christian fools with varnished faces". He then bids Gobbo precede him to let Antonio and Bassanio know he will attend their dinner. Having no other option, Gobbo whispers to Jessica to "look out at window for all this. / There will come a Christian by / Will be worth a Jewess' eye." before leaving. Shylock catches the interaction and asks Jessica what Gobbo said, but Jessica deceives him and claims he was simply saying goodbye. Shylock then complains of Gobbo's sloth and vociferous appetite, claiming he is well rid of him and glad he now serves Bassiano, whom he dislikes. He leaves for the dinner, and Jessica soliloquises:

Farewell, and if my fortune be not crossed,
I have a father, you a daughter, lost.

— Jessica, The Merchant of Venice

I am glad 'tis night, you do not look on me,
For I am much ashamed of my exchange.
But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit,
For if they could, Cupid himself would blush
To see me thus transformèd to a boy.

Jessica, The Merchant of Venice

In the following scene—Act 2, Scene 6—Lorenzo and his friends come to Shylock's house, and Jessica greets them from a window, dressed as a boy. She asks Lorenzo to confirm his identity before lowering a casket of her father's Ducats. Lorenzo bids her descend, but Jessica demurs, ashamed of her disguise. Lorenzo persuades her, and she goes inside to bring more of Shylock's Ducats. Lorenzo praises her to his friends: "For she is wise, if I can judge of her, / And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true, / And true she is, as she hath proved herself. / And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, and true,". She joins them on the street and all but Lorenzo's friend Gratiano leaves. Antonio then arrives to tell Gratiano that the winds are propitious for sailing and that Bassanio is leaving immediately for Belmont to woo Portia. Gratiano expresses his desire to leave the city immediately.

Jessica next appears at Belmont in Act 3, Scene 2, accompanying Lorenzo and Salerio, a messenger delivering a letter to Bassiano from Antonio. The letter informs him that all Antonio's business ventures have failed, such that he has defaulted on the bond to Shylock, and that Shylock intends to collect on the "pound of flesh". Jessica informs them that she has heard her father speaking with his fellows, saying he "would rather have Antonio's flesh / Than twenty times the value of the sum / That he did owe him." Portia dispatches Bassanio to Venice to assist his friend, pausing only long enough for them to be married. Then announces that she and Nerissa, her maid, will stay in a nearby convent while their husbands are away. In her absence she asks Lorenzo and Jessica to manage her estate.

In Act 3, Scene 5, Jessica and Gobbo banter in the gardens of Belmont; Gobbo claiming that she is tainted by the sins of her father, and she can only hope that she was an illegitimate child and not actually related to Shylock. Jessica protests that then she would be visited by the sins of her mother, and Gobbo concurs that she would be damned either way. Jessica argues that she has been saved by her husband who has converted her to Christianity, to which Gobbo replies that Bassanio of contributing to the raised price of pork by the conversion of Jews (who may not eat pork) to Christians (who do). Lorenzo joins them and Jessica recounts their conversation, leading to further banter between Lorenzo and Gobbo, until Gobbo leaves to prepare for dinner. In response to questioning by Lorenzo, Jessica praises Portia as great and peerless.

The moon shines bright (1859). Watercolor on paper by John Edmund Buckley.

Act 5, Scene 1—the final scene of the play, and following on from the courtroom scene in Act 4—opens with Jessica and Lorenzo strolling in the gardens of Belmont. They exchange romantic metaphors, invoking in turn characters from classical literature: Troilus and Cressida, Pyramus and Thisbē, Aeneas and Dido, Jason and Medea, and finally themselves in the same mode, until they are interrupted by Stephano, a messenger. No sooner has Stephano informed them that Portia and Nerissa will soon arrive than Gobbo comes with the same news for Bassanio and Gratiano. They decide to await the arrivals in the gardens, and ask Stephano to fetch his instrument and play for them.

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;

— Lorenzo, The Merchant of Venice

Portia and Nerissa enter, followed shortly by Bassanio, Antonio, and Gratiano. After they are all reunited, Nerissa hands Lorenzo a deed of gift from Shylock, won in the trial, giving Jessica all of his wealth upon his death.

Character sources

The generally accepted sources for The Merchant of Venice are Giovanni Fiorentino's Il pecorone (c. 1380s) and Richard Robinson's English translation of the Gesta Romanorum (1577), but neither of these contain the Jessica—Lorenzo plot, nor give their Shylock-analogues a daughter. For these elements Shakespeare probably mined Masuccio Salernitano's Il Novellino (1476) and Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta (c. 1590). The 14th story of Il Novellino contains the elements of the Jessica—Lorenzo plot, and The Jew of Malta the Jessica—Shylock relationship.

John Drakakis, the editor of The Arden Shakespeare's third series edition of The Merchant of Venice, highlights the verbal connection between Barabas's words when Abigail rescues his gold and Shylock's at Jessica's theft of his Ducats.

ProQuest 

O my girl,
My gold, my fortune, my felicity, …
O girl, O gold, O beauty, O my bliss! (Hugs his bags.)

,

My daughter! O, my ducats! O, my daughter!
Fled with a Christian! O, my Christian ducats!
Justice, the law, my ducats, and my daughter,

Another version of the play's plot can be found in Anthony Munday's Zelauto: The Fountain of Fame Erected in an Orchard of Amorous Adventures (1580). In this version it is Munday's Jessica analogue, Brisana, who pleads the case first, followed by Cornelia, the Portia analogue.

Themes

Fathers and children

Die Schlüsselübergabe [lit. The Handing Over of the Keys], oil on canvas by Charles Frederick Lowcock (1878–1922).

Critical history

Literary critics have historically viewed the character negatively, highlighting her theft of her father's gold, her betrayal of his trust, and her apparently selfish motivations and aimless behaviour. In her 1980 survey, "In Defense of Jessica: The Runaway Daughter in The Merchant of Venice", Camille Slights calls out Arthur Quiller-Couch's opinion in the 1926 The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare as an extreme but representative example:

In the interim between the signing of the bond and its falling due this daughter, this Jessica, has wickedly and most unfilially betrayed him. … Jessica is bad and disloyal, unfilial, a thief; frivolous, greedy, without any more conscience than a cat and without even a cat's redeeming love of home. Quite without heart, on worse than an animal instinct—pilfering to be carnal—she betrays her father to be a light-of-lucre carefully weighted with her sire's ducats.

Slights sees this as a consequence of sympathetic readings of Shylock, where the play is seen primarily as exposing Christian hypocrisy, and his actions merely natural responses to ostracism and prejudice. In such a reading Jessica's actions amount to abandoning her father and betraying him to his enemies. By the last half of the 20th century this "sentimentally sympathetic reading" was starting to be rejected, but without a corresponding reassessment of Jessica. She was still viewed as inhabiting primarily negative values, in contrast with the positive values associated with Portia, Bassanio, and Antonio. Writing in 1977, Raymond B. Waddington thinks that:

The relationship of Jessica and Lorenzo to the primary lovers, Portia and Bassanio, consistently is contrastive and negative: they undergo no tests of character or faith; they are obedient to no bonds; they take all, rather than giving all; they hazard nothing.

Slights contradicts this view, pointing out that it conflicts with "a natural audience response" and argues that "we must question judgments that deny the most obvious emotional force of Shakespearean plots and characters." Shakespeare's plays usually extend and deepen existing dramatic conventions, and Jessica must be seen in a context of classical and Elizabethan conventions for such characters. Slights highlights comedies where children rebel against a miserly father, or romances where daughters defy a repressive father for love. These conventions would be familiar for both Shakespeare and an Elizabethan theatre audience, and, indeed, modern audiences tend to accept Jessica's actions as natural within the context of the plot. Her escape from Shylock's repressive household to Belmont a quest for freedom, and from misfortune to happiness.

In visual arts

Shylock and Jessica.

Notes and references

References

All references to The Merchant of Venice, unless otherwise specified, are taken from the Folger Shakespeare Library's Folger Digital Texts edition, edited by Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine. Under their referencing system, acts, scenes, and lines are marked in the text, so 2.6.34–40 would be Act 2, Scene 6, lines 34 through 40.

Sources

• Drakakis, John, ed. (2010). The Merchant of Venice. The Arden Shakespeare, third series. Bloomsbury. doi:10.5040/9781408160398.00000006. ISBN 9781903436813 – via Bloomsbury Drama Online.
• Gill, Roma, ed. (1995). The Jew of Malta. The Complete Works of Christopher Marlowe. Vol. IV. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198127703.
• Halio, Jay L., ed. (2008) [first published 1993]. The Merchant of Venice. The Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199535859.
• Mowat, Barbara; Werstine, Paul; Poston, Michael; Niles, Rebecca, eds. (n.d.). "The Merchant of Venice". Folger Digital Texts. Folger Shakespeare Library. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
• Quiller-Couch, Arthur; Wilson, J. Dover, eds. (2010) [first published 1926]. The Merchant of Venice. The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare. Vol. 21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511704277. ISBN 9780511704277 – via Cambridge Core. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)
• Slights, Camille (1980). "In Defense of Jessica: The Runaway Daughter in The Merchant of Venice". Shakespeare Quarterly. 31 (3). Folger Shakespeare Library: 357–68. doi:10.2307/2869199. eISSN 1538-3555. ISSN 0037-3222. JSTOR 2869199 – via JSTOR. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |registration= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)
• Waddington, Raymond B. (1977). "Blind Gods: Fortune, Justice, and Cupid in the Merchant of Venice". ELH. 44 (3). The Johns Hopkins University Press: 458–77. doi:10.2307/2872568. eISSN 1080-6547. ISSN 0013-8304. JSTOR 2872568 – via JSTOR. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)

Further reading

• Dobbins, Austin C.; Battenhouse, Roy W. (1976). "Jessica's Morals: A Theological View". Shakespeare Studies. 9: 107. ISSN 0582-9399.