SOURCE: Normand, Lawrence. “Reading the Body in The Merchant of Venice.” Textual Practice 5, no. 1 (spring 1991): 55-73.

In the following essay, Normand contends that the tensions and conflicts of The Merchant of Venice are depicted through references to the body and its association with language.

When Morocco challenges a hypothetical fair-skinned suitor ‘to make incision for [Portia's] love, / To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine’ (II.i.6-7),¹ he invokes the human body as a place where certain disputed questions can be tested and decided: ‘What is Morocco's real nature?’, ‘What is Morocco's real value?’ The question who the better man is, the ‘fairest creature northward born’ (II.i.4) or the ‘tawny Moor’ (s.d. II.i), might be settled by cutting their bodies and comparing their blood: Morocco's redder blood will show his greater courage, and prove his personal value despite his devalued skin colour. His...