The Merchant of Venice is a comedy written by William Shakespeare. This well known story portrays many different themes. It could be argued that the main theme of this story is appearance versus reality. This theme, appearance and reality, is shown in the plots of the bond story, the casket story, and the ring story . Including these three stories, this theme is shown in many other ways in The Merchant of Venice, but these are the best examples shown.

The theme appearance versus reality can be found in the story of the bond between Antonio and Shylock is very deceiving. At the beginning of Shakespeare's play, Bassanio wants to marry Portia but has no money and feels as if he can not impress her. So Bassanio decides to turn to his good friend Antonio for money. Antonio says he has no money, so then Antonio turns to Shylock...