Portia

In Part I of this series exploring The Merchant of Venice, the focus was on the tragedy of  Shylock. Before going further, a synopsis of the plot is called for.

Bassanio, a charming party boy down on his luck, seeks to fill his coffers through marriage to the beautiful and learned Portia. As luck would have it, he also appears to love her, and she him.

Portia is an heiress who lives at her ancestral home, Belmont (Beautiful Mountain). She is honor bound to a promise she made to her father before he died. Any who wish to marry her must submit to a test. When presented with a gold, a silver, and a lead casket, the man who wins Portia’s hand and her fortune must choose the correct one.

Bassanio needs cash to finance his courtship of Portia. He turns to his dear friend, the merchant Antonio, for a loan, but all of Antonio’s ships are at sea, which means he is strapped for cash. Antonio tells Bassanio that if someone else will give him the loan, Antonino will guarantee it. This is where Shylock, the moneylender comes in. Although there is a history of animosity between him and Antonio, Shylock gives Bassanio the loan. If it is not repaid, the forfeit is a pound of Antonio’s flesh.

Bassanio takes the money and sets off for Belmont. He chooses the right casket and marries Portia; all is well. However, soon he gets word that Antonio’s ships are feared lost at sea and that he won’t be able to repay Bassanio’s loan. When Portia learns that her husband’s loan may cause the death of his friend, she immediately sends Bassanio with money to repay the loan twice over.

Because the due date is past, Shylock refuses repayment of the loan; he wants Antonio’s flesh. The civil law court is assembled to see the terms of the contract are carried out. When it looks like there is nothing that the justice system can do to save Antonio’s life, into the courtroom enters a brilliant young doctor of law who manages to save Antonio’s life because of a loophole in the law. This legal hero is actually Portia in disguise. In addition to saving Antonio, she ruins Shylock, and cons Bassanio before heading home. As Shylock comes to terms with the ramifications of the trial in Venice, Portia, Bassanio, Antonio, and their friends reunite and celebrate at Belmont.

Antonio, may be the protagonist of the play and Shylock the antagonist, but the the play from start to finish is really about Portia, the determined, daring heiress who is paradoxically also a dutiful daughter.

So, how does Portia relate to Sookie’s story? For Charlaine Harris to give her female lawyer this iconic name is no mere coincidence. Before the days when women made up more than half of the law school class, Portia was closely identified with female lawyers, so much so that the New England School of Law, which began in 1908 as a law school for women, was orignially named the Portia Law School.

Portia Bellefluer is Charlaine Harris’s homage to Shakespeare’s Portia. The aristocratic lady lawyer continues to live at her ancestral home, Belle Reve (Beautiful River), even after she marries. Like her namesake, Portia Bellefleur proved that she would do just about anything to keep her loved ones safe. She was even willing (gasp) to go undercover as a fangbanger and date Bill in an attempt to clear Andy of Lafayette’s murder.

There is an allusion to the original Portia in the first season of True Blood, too. Portia was a learned lady who had read the law on her own. In fact, she knew it so well that she was able to successfully impersonate a legal scholar and win her first and only legal case.

Rutina Wesley’s Tara is a smart, action oriented, strong woman who inexplicably loves Jason, a hedonist, not unlike Bassanio, who spends his free time drinking beer and chasing women. When the sheriff’s department brings Jason in for questioning during a murder investigation, Tara follows in Portia’s footsteps and marches into the station to confront the indifferent legal system and make sure that the man she loves doesn’t become a victim of the system.

Tara: Sheriff Dearborn. Andy. I hear you guys brought Jason in.

Andy: So?

Tara: You charging him with anything?

Bud: Not yet, no.

Andy: Asking him some questions.

Tara: I assume he’s been properly Mirandized then.

Silence

Tara: Please tell me you have informed him that he has a right to have an attorney present.

Andy: Maybe. Doesn’t matter though cause he’s got you here now. (Andy chuckles.)

Tara: Is that funny because I’m a woman or because I’m a black woman?

Andy: I thought it was funny, you know, cuz you talk like a lawyer but you ain’t one.

Bud: How do you know all this anyway? You been taking night classes?

Tara: School is for white people looking for other white people to read to them. I figure I’d save my money and read to myself.

Jason comes out of the restroom.

Jason: Tara

Tara: I’m getting you out of here.

Andy: Like hell you are.

Tara: You charging him with anything?

Bud: She’s right. We can’t hold him.

To highlight the parallel between Tara and Portia, Andy cracks a joke about Tara playing the part of a lawyer. To paraphrase Andy, she talks like a lawyer even though she isn’t one, like Portia.

That brings us back to the Portia who really is a lawyer. Women in the legal profession may have come a long way, but Portia Bellefleur is no more than an empty shell of the original Portia. Not even Tara has the impact or importance in True Blood that Portia does in Merchant of Venice. Her presence is felt from the beginning to the end. She is the woman whose material wealth attracts a swarm of suitors, but who is also loved in her own right. She is the woman who gets drawn into the petty machinations going on in Venice because of the man she loves and leaves her beloved home to rescue him and his friend. She is the woman who has to take matters into her own hands because of an ineffectual justice system.

By now it should be clear that the real Portia is Sookie.  She’s the one with a plethora of suitors, most of who are also not above using her material wealth, her telepathy (and blood), for their own purposes. After her disastrous relationship with Bill, she is the one who is careful to test her suitors before giving her heart away. She is the one who usually has to leave her beloved home because of political workings that she has no interest in. She is the one who saves not only those she loves but their associates, too. She is the one who finds true love with the most unlikely candidate.

Notice the impotent judges (officers of the court) sitting idly in the background as a man is about to be killed in front of them. (And that Antonio’s chair is a hybrid of Eric’s s1 and s3 thrones.)

Compare them to Renard Parish’s impotent officers of the law.

They are the reason Portia and Sookie have to take matters into their own hands.

Part III, ‘Jessica, Shylock’s Daughter’

True Blood screencaps coutesy of Daydreaming and Shadow of Reflection

Merchant of Venice screencap courtesy of Ace Showbiz