The Merchant Of Venice :: Free Merchant of Venice Essays

What They Cannot SeeIn this world, there be more aspects of dodgeness whether it is mentally or physically. Either way, each blindness brings verboten the disability in each person. Such portrayal was shown throughout the number The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare presents more than one form of blindness, which complicates the social order of the society, and I feel that the blindness, being their imperfection, creates tension between characters, which is weakened by blindness. When the characters are being blind, they are corrupted by their actions and somehow they do not care who they are hurting as long as they chouse they are getting the best out of something. Whether it being valuables, love, power, or respect. corporeal and mental blindness are seen throughout this play. They play a fate in each characters daily lives and are the obstacle that prevents happiness. Old Gobbo, who is Launcelots blind and feeble father, expresses physical and mental blindness when he appro aches Launcelot and surprisingly asks him, Master juvenile man, you, I pray you, which is the way to Master Jews? (Pg. 21, lines 29-30) for he was looking for his son, Launcelot. surprisingly Old Gobbo did not know that he was speaking to his son. Old Gobbo is almost blind, which is the physical part of the blindness, which was one of the reasons why he unable to greet Launcelots features. He is also mentally blind because a father should identify his own sons voice. Launcelot briefly jokes with his father before confessing he is Launcelot &8211 his boy that was, his son that is, his child that shall be, (Pg. 22, lines 78-79) but Old Gobbo still cannot think he is his son (Pg. 22, line 80). Launcelot convinces himself that if his father had his eyes, he might become of knowing him because it is a wise father that knows his own child (Pg. 22, lines 70-71). It is a demean that a father cannot recognize his own flesh and blood. This blindness concerns the relationship of a fath er and their child.Another blindness that concerns the relationship between a father and the child would have been between Portia and her dead father. Portia, the heroine of The Merchant of Venice, is constrained to marry the suitor who chooses the correct casket left by her dead soul father. When the Prince of Morocco, one of Portias suitors, comes to Belmont to woo Portia, he daringly takes the test of choosing the correct casket.