In the play `The Merchant Of Venice' by William Shakespeare, the character Shylock has two sides to his personality. These two sides, victim and villain of the piece, present themselves frequently in the play. Although many Christians see him as a great evil, the audience is forced to feel some sort of sympathy towards him, due to the amount of prejudice shown towards him because of his Jewish religion. Throughout the play we are shown the two sides of Shylock's character.

In Venice, the main part of the city's population is Christianity, a problem for the Jewish Shylock. This is because when the play was written, many Christians tended to think that they were better in God`s eyes than the Jews were (While this is not shown to a great extent in the play, this was happening at the time). This has made Shylock angry and bitter...