1. MOV and Sookie’s story shares a bondage motif. In both cases, bondage is both positive and negative. Both explore the willing and unwilling ties that link us to our enemies, friends, and lovers. This is the reason so many TB characters where chains and rings. These represent the bonds of love and family that tie us to one another. Rings have the same symbolism in MOV.
2. In MOVAntonio’s selfless love for Bassanio interposed Antonio between the lovers, Bassanio and Portia. The courtship cannot be completed until the bond between Shylock and Antonio, which made the courtship possible, is exposed and nullified in court.
In Sookie’s story, it is Bill’s selfish, usurious bond to her that gets in the way of Sookie and Eric’s love. Bill’s bond to Sookie made it possible for her and Eric to come together in the first place, but its business nature must be exposed and the bond broken before Sookie is free to form a marriage bond with Eric.
3. Antonio’s depression throughout the play and his resignation to submit to Shylock’s knife has caused his actions to be described as suicide by Jew. Portia had to intervene between Antonio and Shylock because otherwise, his death would always come between her and Bassanio. Instead, Portia broke Bassanio’s bondage to his devoted friend Antonio, and coopted Antonio into supporting Bassanio and Portia’s marriage with his life.
This is the same thing Eric did with Bill. Many fans were disappointed in DITF that Bill wasn’t killed. They should be thankful that Eric’s order and Sookie’s helplessness didn’t result in his death, which would have cast a long shadow over their relationship.
4. MOV and Sookie’s story alludes to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, most notably with the myth of Pyramus and Thisbe, which has parallels to Jessica and Lorenzo in MOV and Jessica and Hoyt in TB. Also, the name Ovid uses for Hercules, Alcides, turns up in MOV and Sookie’s story.
5. The Three Caskets
Not those. Below you can see two of the caskets I’m talking about. The large silver one is behind Portia and the smaller gold one is to her right.
The test that Portia’s father designed for her suitors involves three caskets: one gold, one silver, and one lead, each with a cryptic message on the outside. Only the man who chooses the right box is worthy of Portia’s love because he is the only one who understands the true meaning of marriage. Portia’s first suitor chooses the gold casket expecting a portrait of Portia to be inside because, he says, only gold is worthy of her. What he finds is a message that reads, “All that glitters is not gold.”
Here we have the primary lesson that Sookie must learn. On the surface, Bill looks like the best candidate for a serious, mutually elusive, long term relationship for her, but looking past the surface, it is Eric’s actions that prove his sincerity and devotion.
The correct casket is the one that Bassanio chooses, the lead casket with a message of sacrifice on it. Bassanio remarks, “So may the outward shows be least themselves. The world is still deceived with ornament.” Midnight Charm said the same thing at SVB when Eric appeared nude to Sookie in Fangtasia’s utilitarian basement. Contrast Bill’s ornamental but meaningless language with Eric’s simple words and transparent actions.
In TB, Bill has a large casket in his bathroom by the tub. It appears to be lead, but I’m willing to bet that as Sookie’s eyes are opened more and more to Bill’s true nature, it will turn to fool’s gold. Eric has a casket on his bookcase that has already changed once as Sookie’s perception of him changed. There didn’t appear to be one in Alcides apartment, so I think Quinn will turn up with the third casket.
6. When Bassanio opens the lead casket, he finds the miniature of Portia, and picks up a theme that is prevalent in Sookie’s story, that of image vs. reality. Bassanio remarks that inside he has not found the woman but her counterfeit, a mere shadow of the woman he loves. In Sookie’s world, it is this shadow of Bill’s idealized woman that he loves, not Sookie herself as Eric does.
7. The saying, “‘All the world’s indeed a stage, and we are merely players,” comes from MOV. It is primarily used in modern times to reflect the idea that we all play various roles in life and wear different masks to reflect them. With the collections of masks at Fangtasia and Lafayette’s, Ruby Jean’s talk of masks, and the obvious role playing many of the characters exhibit, TB is reflecting this. Think about Bill’s role as Southern gentleman, Lafayette’s roles in his various jobs and with different people in his life, and the different roles Eric plays–sex symbol, business man, sheriff, country bumpkin, son, father, sycophant, and homosexual lover.
8. Shylock is alienated from Jessica once she marries and becomes a Christian. In fact, she becomes dead to him. The ongoing lie that a living person is dead in order to maintain separation is reflected in Sookie’s world by the insistence of some that vampires are dead despite evidence to the contrary.
9. When Sookie laughs at the name ‘Fangtasia,’ Bill informs her that puns used to be the highest form of humor. Since Shakespeare used them in some of his greatest plays, including MOV, it looks like he was telling her the truth in that instance.
10. MOV has a liturgical structure. The plot revolves around a symbolic Easter vigil as do the TB episodes ‘Timebomb’ and ‘I Will Rise Up.’ I explored how TB was using liturgy in the annual alchemical cycle.
11. Lafayette says that he is a lover not a fighter and this reflects Bill and Eric’s personalities. Bill’s first instinct is always to kill. Eric will fight when he has to, but it’s as a last resort after negotiation been exhausted. This is how he kept Area 5 from meeting the same fate as all the other areas when Filipe de Castro took over Louisiana. This dichotomy is also present in MOV. Shylock tries to get power over Antonio and the Christians by killing him. Portia ends up being the one with true power who saves Antonio with her powers of reason and gains the upper hand in her relationship with Bassanio through marriage.
12. The name Portia means passage, gateway because the grace and mercy that saves all the men in MOV comes through her. Sookie is the gateway for Bill to find redemption and for Eric to get in touch with his humanity.
And One More:
In DUD Bill remarks, ” You look like a white candle in a coal mine,” when Sookie enters Fangtasia for the first time in her white dress. This is an allusion to John 1:5, “And the light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.” Shakespeare also alluded this passage in MOV, “ How far that little candle throws his flame. So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”
Sources in no order whatsoever:
BIBLICAL. LITURGICAL. AND CLASSICAL ALLUSIONS IN THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
http://www.archive.org/stream/biblicalliturgic00cosg/biblicalliturgic00cosg_djvu.txt
The Whether and the Ewe: Verbal Irony in The Merchant of Venice
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~mshell/Shell.%2520MLT.%2520Chapter%25203.pdf&pli=1
The Merchant of Venice Symbolism, Imagery & Allegory
http://www.shmoop.com/merchant-of-venice/symbolism-imagery.html
The Success of Dishonesty: -A comparison of the marriage plot and the trial plot
http://www.hf.ntnu.no/engelsk/shakespeare/kenmov.htm
I Stand for Sacrifice: The Heiress of Belmont and Her Role as Hero
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.lagrange.edu/resources/pdf/citations08/ISTANDFORSACRIFICE.pdf&pli=1
LAW AND LOVE IN SHAKESPEARE’STHE MERCHANT OF VENICE
http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/okla/colmo26.htm
